Accidentally cut phone line
- Thread starter Reit38
- Start date
rjn2649
Well-known member
Christmas trees and bumble bees
Red & green is a pair, black and yellow is pair. It looks like your only using the red and green pair.
Red & green is a pair, black and yellow is pair. It looks like your only using the red and green pair.
How many phone circuits do you have coming into the house? If you only have one line, It will most likely be connected to the gn/red pair and/or wht/blu depending on type of wire. I can't figure out what's going on with that terminal in the pic. It's an old lightning protector that seems to be repurposed as a splice point but 3 binding posts doesn't make sense.
often the yellow wire was used for the ringer circuit ( in older homes) but it was tied to the (green I think) at the telco block
red & green were the common lines used if only 1 telephone number
sounds like you got it working. good
red & green were the common lines used if only 1 telephone number
sounds like you got it working. good
nadogail
Well-known member
if it works, you did it right.
rjn2649
Well-known member
Yeah, You don't know if someone used the correct colour codes to begin with.
Miss the Pontiacs
Well-known member
That connector was originally for the feed into the building, called simply a protector. It looks like now that it is used simply for a splice point. The tape hiding what would be for a screw in carbon protector used in grounding an outside line. The yellow as Cobbler mentioned would have been used for a rural party line phone, the middle terminal would have had a ground wire attached. Red should go to the right terminal, Green to the left. If you can’t break dial tone (touch tone) on your phone reverse leads. A second line or phone number would be yellow (left) black (right) but would be used on a separate protector for a second line into your home. Or left spare and just coiled up, similar to the white/orange & white/green pair of wires on the more modern Cat 3 wiring on the pic. Which are simply spares.
So basically the centre terminal is useless for this application. Look at a telephone circuit simply as a battery -positive/negative. There isn’t much magic in it.
This wire likely feeds your modem so polarity should not be an issue. That should be pretty well what the BSPs Bell Standard Practice would say. But it would likely be a 10 pages worth of instructions.
So basically the centre terminal is useless for this application. Look at a telephone circuit simply as a battery -positive/negative. There isn’t much magic in it.
This wire likely feeds your modem so polarity should not be an issue. That should be pretty well what the BSPs Bell Standard Practice would say. But it would likely be a 10 pages worth of instructions.
Jim greengo
Well-known member
MikeF2316
Well-known member
The pic of the "terminal block" almost looks like it came from my house!
Miss the Pontiacs
Well-known member
I think the term we used for them was Station or Drop protector. The aerial drop or telephone line comes in at the top. We were instructed to loop it and come in from the bottom. This was to do with if rain was to somehow follow the drop into the home it would harmlessly drip below the protector.
The brown wire was 3 stranded, we referred to it as bridal wire. The grey jacked wire we simply referred to as JKT or Jacket wire. The white of course is the ground. On non party lines we simply used the Red Green wires. Red was taught to us as Red Ring Ridge Right. Meaning the Red wire went on to the right side and supplied the ring side voltage for the bells. The ridge was meant the same as the ridge on a wire was for the ring side. A slight ridge was on Brown or one coloured wire was a way of differentiate one from the other leads.
We had one guy that was colour blind. Once the coloured cabling became standard he became our Union President.
The brown wire was 3 stranded, we referred to it as bridal wire. The grey jacked wire we simply referred to as JKT or Jacket wire. The white of course is the ground. On non party lines we simply used the Red Green wires. Red was taught to us as Red Ring Ridge Right. Meaning the Red wire went on to the right side and supplied the ring side voltage for the bells. The ridge was meant the same as the ridge on a wire was for the ring side. A slight ridge was on Brown or one coloured wire was a way of differentiate one from the other leads.
We had one guy that was colour blind. Once the coloured cabling became standard he became our Union President.
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In all my years of dealing with phone systems (but, not a phone tech - just an IT guy (programmer) that got dragged into a lot of stuff), I never heard that before. I know the colors but that is a great tip (and ring
).rjn2649
Well-known member
What about this?
Blue sky
Orange sun
Green grass
Brown dirt
?
Blue sky
Orange sun
Green grass
Brown dirt
?
b-boy
Well-known member
That looks like my house. Every time I see one of these, I'm amazed. It looks like a rat's nest, but somehow it all works.
Slate (or Gray) rock.
Trivia question: What are the colors & mnemonic for the other 5 colors used in telephone wiring?
Well the last color starts with V so I'm expecting a bawdy mnemonic.
ABSTIFFGS
Well-known member
while running backwards you'll vomit
white
red
black
yellow
violet
There's a few more non pc ones
theoldwizard1
Well-known member
I have never seen white or violet, but then I have not seen that many phone lines.
Shortly after I retired, they closed the office building I worked in. It was built in the 20s. There must have been HUNDREDS OF MILES of 25 pair telephone cable in the floors, walls and ceiling !
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These are the group colors in a 25 pair. eg. white with blue band/blue with white band up to five, then red/blue band etc.
Miss the Pontiacs
Well-known member
The illustration shows the order of pairs that would make up a 25 pair cable. If you had a 100 pair cable the first group of 25 pairs would be wrapped with a White/Blue wrapper or zip tie. The second a White/Orange wrapper, the third a White/Green and the last a White/Brown indicator. So you could have one huge cable. If you had a second 100 pair cable it simply would be marked with a metal tag indicating which would be the first group of 100 pair.
With Fibre this will slowly disappear. In our province a project is in place to replace or supplement the copper that serves your home is to be installed. At this point is only be completed in the cities. Where I live there is probably only a couple of subdivisions to be completed. I believe the remainder of cities have been completed.
With Fibre this will slowly disappear. In our province a project is in place to replace or supplement the copper that serves your home is to be installed. At this point is only be completed in the cities. Where I live there is probably only a couple of subdivisions to be completed. I believe the remainder of cities have been completed.
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ABSTIFFGS
Well-known member
The illustration shows the order of pairs that would make up a 25 pair cable. If you had a 100 pair cable the first group of 25 pairs would be wrapped with a White/Blue wrapper or zip tie. The second a White/Orange wrapper, the third a White/Green and the last a White/Brown indicator. So you could have one huge cable. If you had a second 100 pair cable it simply would be marked with a metal tag indicating which would be the first group of 100 pair.
With Fibre this will slowly disappear. In our province a project is in place to replace or supplement the copper that serves your home is to be installed. At this point is only be completed in the cities. Where I live there is probably only a couple of subdivisions to be completed. I believe the remainder of cities have been completed.
Fiber optic follows a similar color code
Blue
Orange
Green
Brown
Slate
White
Red
Black
Yellow
Violet
Rose
Aqua
Jim greengo
Well-known member
Just make sure you dont plow through any fiber optics,unless you've got lots of insurance.
ABSTIFFGS
Well-known member
LOL. I'm usually the guy putting it back together.Just make sure you dont plow through any fiber optics,unless you've got lots of insurance.
Jim greengo
Well-known member
At a previous employer, we had a backhoe go through a 100 pair phone cable once. Another time, an auger went right through a concrete vault (that was clearly marked) and wound up a few feet of 24 strand fiber.
Best one though... a horse ate through the fiber in a junction box on a wall next to where they tied him up.
Best one though... a horse ate through the fiber in a junction box on a wall next to where they tied him up.
Jim greengo
Well-known member
Years ago one of my guys put a excavator bucket through a bunch of unmarked telephone wires in a field putting in a sewer for a new building.
Phone co sent their sub out to fix it,somewhere in the process they decided to put a back hoe bucket into our sewer about 5' further east.
The psycho woman from their office called me yelling a out it saying they'd fix it,I told we would have to fix in case the city saw them fixing it and they werent plumbers I didnt want to get my *** ripped by a city inspector.
We fought over the sewer repair bill for months.
Phone co sent their sub out to fix it,somewhere in the process they decided to put a back hoe bucket into our sewer about 5' further east.
The psycho woman from their office called me yelling a out it saying they'd fix it,I told we would have to fix in case the city saw them fixing it and they werent plumbers I didnt want to get my *** ripped by a city inspector.
We fought over the sewer repair bill for months.