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Comcast was here, now I have a Wiring Question

Started by tjmack99, March 16, 2011, 06:44:56 PM

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tjmack99

Not sure how much you can make out in this picture. But Comcast was here to fix a short in the system, which killed our phone connection. They located and fixed the short, and in the process "cleaned up" the connections coming in and out of the basement "junction" (for lack of a better term) which is pictured here. The main line seems to come through this junction, then the lines exit to all the extensions in the house. Not quite sure what they did, but my WE 500 set (which sits on a shelf just above) connected via a 4-prong plug to this junction (the gray line in the left of the picture) no longer works. Can anyone tell from this picture where the 4-prong extension "should" be connected to make it functioning. It worked previously, but I don't recall what the configuration looked like before.

Any help would be appreciated!

McC

Adam

Is the quad (four-conductotr red/green/yellow/black inside wiring wire is called "quad") going off to the left the wire that goes up to your jack?  If so, that's your problem, its red wire is hanging. It needs to be reconnected to where the reds of the other quads are connected (the lower screw terminal).  It's possible it just broke off.

But, be careful: Maybe the phone guy removed that wire because that was the short.  If the short comes back (your phones stop working) after you reconnect that, the problem is in that jack and/or the phone plugged into it.  You may have to leave that red wire disconnected if you can't find the problem with that jack and/or phone.
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

Phonesrfun

That is bizarre.  I cannot tell from the picture which wire is coming from where.  If it is Comcast, are you getting your phone service from a cable modem/ATA, or does Comcast provide POTS service in your area?

If we could go closer to the source and identify where the source is coming from....either from an NID box on the side of the house or from a cable based router also called an ATA (Analog Terminal Adapter).

Also, which one of those wires goes to your 4-pronged plug?  All we can see from the photo is where the wires currently are, and not where they are going inside the house.  

It's a long shot, but it also appears that the wire going off to the left in the photo has had its red wire broken off from the connector block.  Try connecting it to the same connection that the other red wires connect to and see if that solves the problem.  Please note that since there is no way to trace your wires based on the photo, the above suggestion is only a shot in the dark.

Someone is just going to have to trace the wires out to see where they go, and someone SHOULD try to do a more professional job of dressing up the wires.

Have fun.
-Bill G

tjmack99

Thanks for the quick reply, the line coming in from the left does indeed lead up to the phone. It makes sense that the loose red wire is the culprit. It was obvious once you pointed it out. :) But unless the new connections we've added since moving in (alarm system, additional lines) changed something, I wonder why there would suddenly be a short with that particular phone connection, as it was original to the house and was working when we moved in.
Thanks!

Phonesrfun

All of the following is assuming that when you do connect the red wire, you find that you have a short in that line:

I have seen all kinds of reasons for shorts "happening"  You will kind of need to trace the wire from there to the phone.  Sometimes, just hanging a picture can cause a short if the wire snakes through a wall, and the nail driven into the wall pierces the wire.

Other times, wires are snaked around door moldings and over time the door has squeezed the insulation enough times to break the insulation and short it out.  It looks like you have moved into an older house.  That wire probably goes up, under, around and through lots of places to get to its destination of the jack your phone plugs into. 

You just need to start down there at the connection block and follow it it to the phone, and inspect every inch.  If you cannot visually find it, you may need to get some wire and make another run.
-Bill G

RDP

Looks as though good ole Comcast didn't want to trace the short so just cut the line. No Mo Short Sir.
Our Cable company here has got servicemen like that, if it wasn't that my disability got in the way I'd do my own service work but.....

Adam

Quote from: RDP on March 16, 2011, 07:43:45 PM
if it wasn't that my disability got in the way I'd do my own service work but...

I hear ya.  I don't have a disability, but for many years I've crawled in my last crawl-space and climbed in my last attic.

Ah, the good ole' days!

:)
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

AE_Collector

#7
If you have a single telephone line (not two lines/phone numbers) AND you have an alarm system that is monitored:

The gray 4 pair is taking the tel line from the protector (is it just out of the picture on the right side?) to the alarm jack on the blue pair and it returns from the alarm jack on the oronge to the block. So at this point the oronge pair should be considered the feed to that block. Obviously the red lead is broken off or removed from the block but that was likely removed to clear the short and restore service to all other jacks. Reconnect the red lead and if it pulls dial tone when you reconnect it you will have to disconnect it again and investigate that jack and telephone set.

Terry

bwanna

#8
IF the pair on the left of the photo is the one in trouble, repair should have clipped both the red & green wires....there will still be trouble on the green conductor that will either cause a hum or static or both. cutting one side would clear the short & bring back dial tone. ( except, of at the location fed by the trouble pair). so, maybe it was just a mistake. curious if you reconnected & what happened?

for future reference, the blue/white pair of the cat5 is the dial tone coming in from your cable modem. from there dial tone goes into your alarm on the blue/white pair of the 4pair & back to feed all the other jacks on the orange/white pair.
donna

bwanna

ya...what terry said.... ;).. i had to cook dinner while i was posting..so i didn't see your post. but did you mean "kills" dial tone when re--connected? when we say "pulls" ...we mean we hear dial tone. :)
donna

AE_Collector

Quote from: bwanna on March 16, 2011, 08:27:02 PM
ya...what terry said.... ;).. i had to cook dinner while i was posting..so i didn't see your post. but did you mean "kills" dial tone when re--connected? when we say "pulls" ...we mean we hear dial tone. :)

By "Pulls Dial Tone" I meant seizes the line causing dial tone until it times out.

Now Donna, you don't really expect the "new age" telephone repair people to have a clue what an imbalance is do you! They *fixed* the problem by cutting one of the wires and then they called it "cleaning up the connections coming in and out of the basement" according to tjmack99's first post in this thread. I'm surprised they didn't unplug the wiring from the phone output jack on the cable modem and then plug one of his phones into the cable modem and call it "fixed".

Terry

bwanna

terry, isn't that funny how one word means the totally opposite thing. :o

from what i have seen, most of the time the "vo-ip" providers don't ever bother back feeding into the copper wiring. they plug a phone into the modem & that's all the customer gets!
donna

tjmack99

Hi all, thanks for the wisdom and suggestions. Haven't yet tried to re-connect the red wire, will try this evening. In the repairman's defense, he did do more than clip a wire to "fix" the short. He disconnected all the extensions, and started with the main one, which worked. Then he re-connected each additional extention one at a time, until he determined which one had the short. Unfortunately he either didn't tell me which one it was, or when he re-connected them they just all worked and he's not sure which one was the problem. He did say that when the alarm company came in they didn't hook it up correctly, and he had to do something to "give the alarm priority" over the other lines.

tjmack99

The plot thickens!

I discovered the following pictures I posted previously, related to another phone I wanted to put in the same spot in the basement. As you can see, the phone cord was attached to the 2 lower left mounts, not to the same ones as the other wires. Would that make any difference, or explain anything?

RDP

Excuse my ignorance but, the terminal block in the photo, Is this a standard terminal block or are the left terminals jumped to the right underneath the block?

If not, I don't see how you could get service to the left line the way it's hooked up.