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-   -   Phone jack wiring colors (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=740315)

  • Mar 21, 2013, 12:12 PM
    liftweights
    Phone jack wiring colors
    I have old wiring. Wires coming out of wall are:
    Orange, green, blue, black
    White/black white/blue white/orange white/green white/brown
    Red/blue blue/red

    Help! Just want to connect a single line phone jack which has
    Red green black yellow wires.

    Which ones do I use.
  • Mar 21, 2013, 12:28 PM
    donf
    Okay, what you are describing is a Cat5e cable. It uses conductors in a twisted pair configuration.

    If you are using a 3 pair jack (6 wires), then the blue goes to position 3 and the blue/white goes to position 4. This is the Tip and Ring for a single phone.

    If your phone is a 2 pair twisted cable, then Red and Green are Tip and Ring for the phone.

    Yellow and Black(under current standards would be Tip and Ring for a second line).

    In the days on Noah, the Arc Builder, the Red and Green were Tip and Ring . Yellow was the bell circuit and black was ground.
  • Mar 24, 2013, 06:14 AM
    Stratmando
    Sounds like 6 Pair UTP,(cat 3?), blue is first pair and orange is second pair.
    Hook:
    White/Blue to Green, and Blue/white to red for a single line,
    Also hook white/orange to black and orange/white to yellow for line 2.
  • Apr 11, 2013, 09:15 AM
    ebaines
    I agree with Stratmando's suggestion for wiring, although one can never really tell what kind of wiring mess might be present in older homes (in my house for example the orange/white pair is the main line and blue/white pair is the second line - go figure). However, to clarify something - the cabling described by the OP is neither Category 5 nor Category 6 - it's old-fashioned voice grade telecom cable, 5 pairs. The pair order is:

    Blue, Blue/white = pair 1
    Orange, Orange/white = pair 2
    Green, green/white = pair 3
    Brown, Brown/white = pair 4 ( the OP wrote that one lead coming out of the wall is black, but I suspect it's really brown)
    Blue/red, Red/blue = pair 5.

    While twisted-pair Ethernet cable color codes are based on the old Bell System codes, they are limited to 4 pairs, not 5.
  • Apr 12, 2013, 06:19 AM
    Stratmando
    For years Electricians new to category rated wiring, would use the green/white for green, and orange/white for red, because they were close to the actual colors.
    I would go outside, or open other phone jacks and see which is connected to the red and green.
    A voltage meter will tell which pair is the phone line, should have about 48 volts DC, and the Green is Positive, and the red is negative with respect to green.

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