Greetings, and some newbie questions

[bobbyk]

Greetings all,
I'm a longtime lurker of this site as I found the information you guys provide invaluable to helping me rebuild my estate sale find a few years ago, my coveted WE 202. With your help I was able to resurrect the long since dead phone by rebuilding the dial, completely rewiring it, choosing the correct subset, and even a little touch-up painting. It's happily been in service for over 5 years now thanks to you guys.

Now I've run into a little snag. Recently I was prodded by those nice guys at AT&T (sarcasm) into switching to u-verse service. Until the installer showed up I had no idea u-verse was VOIP. To keep my 202 working it appears I'll need a mod to get it to play nice with VOIP, like the dialgizmo. I'm not really interested in permanently modifying the phone to work with VOIP, but it is an option if anyone has a better idea.

I also have a bell 2500 I purchased for parts. I was going to build a subset for the 202 from it before I found the one I'm currently using (302 innards with a repro cover), so while I wait for my dial gizmo I figured I'de set the 202 aside and use the 2500. To my surprise it doesn't work with VOIP either. So now I'm stumped- I've searched here and can't find any information on how to make this older touchtone phone work with u-verse. Out of 5 phones in my house, the only one that actually works is an old trimline that has seen maybe 5 calls in the last 10 years.

So what can I do  for the 2500 ? It worked fine till u-verse and it's a nice backup phone. Can anyone help ?

[JimH]

So what can I do  for the 2500 ? It worked fine till u-verse and it's a nice backup phone. Can anyone help ?

It's probably a polarity issue with the 2500, which they are sensitive to.  Does it receive calls and ring?  Are you just having problems dialing out?  If so, try reversing the red and the green wires either at the jack or inside the phone.  This solves the dialing problem in many cases. 

[bobbyk]

It did, I've used it off and on since I purchased it, but it doesn't work on the VOIP system. I get a dial tone but pressing the keypad only produces dead air. I don't hear the tones when dialing. I'll recheck to see if it rings when I get home tonight but as far as I know it's never been touched internally by anyone but Bell.

[dsk]

Hi, and welcome again.
Sounds exactly like the polarity problem Jim mentioned. I had the same problem with my 2500, Everything worked except for the dial pad.  I switched the 2 wires, and it worked.  Since my phone jacks at home was not consequent wired, I ended up with putting in a rectifier, but the best would probably be to wire all jacks the same way.

dsk

[poplar1]

If the polarity is correct, you should hear the tones in the receiver while dialing. If the polarity is reversed, you will hear only a click when you press a button.

[bobbyk]

I'll take a closer look at the jacks but I'm willing to bet the installer miswired the new system when he installed the internet upgrade. The installer ran a cat5 from the phone junction box, up the side of the house to my computer where the gateway resides.


I'll just bet that he looped back to the junction box from the gateway to avoid running new wires in the house, and got something crossed.

*sigh

Excuse my ignorance, but what should the polarity be red to green ? red=pos, grn=neg ?

[poplar1]

Red is -48 VDC on a landline (negative).

[bobbyk]

Well...would I expect to see -48V coming back from the VOIP gateway phone jack ?

There should be 2 wires for the internet service, and 2 for the phone system, right ? The 'old' landline was only 1 pair IINM and DSL shared that pair with the phones. TBH I'm not sure if the lines from the utility pole are even directly connected to the inside phone lines anymore since there's an internet gateway in the mix now.

NVM, I think I found the correct wiring on page 11 of this link.
http://docplayer.net/9642604-U-verse-ipdsl-hsia-with-cvoip.html

[unbeldi]

Polarity doesn't mean a lot anymore today.  I don't think it even is guaranteed by the phone company anymore.
Analog telephone adapters (ATAs) and embedded media terminals (EMTs) in cable boxes can be wired with either polarity, because some assume that the customer might use a standard modular telephone cord to extend the jack on the adapter into the house from one of the existing phone wall phone jack, rather than placing it at junction box outside or in the basement.

But yes, most VoiP adapter also adhere to the 48 V nominal line potential.  It is codified as a requirement in DOCSIS compliance.
Polarity is not.

[bobbyk]

So would it be safe to assume I should change the polarity in the phone, then plug it into each jack in the house to see if all the jacks are wired consistently ?

Note to self :
Green= tip, Red= ring. Yellow= tip, Black= ring.

Remember the tip is the positive (ground) terminal and the ring is negative. Historically phones were all negative with respect to ground.

Black (neg) meter lead to the tip and red (pos) meter lead to the tip should indicate a negative voltage.

[unbeldi]

I would wire the phone according to the original diagrams, since presumably we are collectors of antique phones first and don't just want to make old phones work.
Then check the cords you are using for proper polarity.  This is not guaranteed either, there a plenty of products out there with messed up color coding.  Years ago, I bought incredibly cheaply a huge lot of spade-to-modular cords, hundreds of them, but they didn't all have the same color sequence.  It should be black, red, green, yellow, but some had red and green swapped, some had red and black swapped, and so on.  The mixups are somewhat annoying, but having the cords available is great when you know which wire should go where.
So, then go around and check your outlets.

Here is a forum topic with the standard pinout of modular connectors:  http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=16196.msg167876#msg167876

Of course there are tools for such work too.  A typical one is pictured below, they only cost a few dollars each, and show not only polarity, but can also indicate other faults.

[bobbyk]

I would wire the phone according to the original diagrams, since presumably we are collectors of antique phones first and don't just want to make old phones work.
Then check the cords you are using for proper polarity.  This is not guaranteed either, there a plenty of products out there with messed up color coding.  Years ago, I bought incredibly cheaply a huge lot of spade-to-modular cords, hundreds of them, but they didn't all have the same color sequence.  It should be black, red, green, yellow, but some had red and green swapped, some had red and black swapped, and so on.  The mixups are somewhat annoying, but having the cords available is great when you know which wire should go where.
So, then go around and check your outlets.

Here is a forum topic with the standard pinout of modular connectors:  http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=16196.msg167876#msg167876

Of course there are tools for such work too.  A typical one is pictured below, they only cost a few dollars each, and show not only polarity, but can also indicate other faults.

Good tip.
I didn't think about checking the cord between the outlet and the phone. I admit I use a very cheap cord between the jack and caller ID unit my 202 was connected to, so the same cord was used when I plugged the 2500 into it.

[poplar1]

It's also posssible that a caller ID box or answering machine will have two jacks wired in parallel and with the wires in the same order left-to-right. Since the  wiring of plugs on a standard line cord (except 8-conductor) are mirror images of each other, an answering machine or caller ID box with jacks wired identically will reverse the polarity of the line, when compared to using a phone without the CID box or answering machine.

Wall jack:                        Jack in Back of phone:
BK-R-GN-Y                         Y-GN-R-[BK]

[Jim Stettler]

If you have all your phones wired correctly, and all your jacks  wired correctly you can use a Double-Pole Double-Throw (DPDT) switch to create a reversing switch.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If your polarity gets flipped, you can flip the switch up (on) to reverse the polarity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Wiring the switch is simple:

There are 3 sets of terminals on the back of a DPDT switch ,

tip and ring land on the top pair.
The house jacks on the center pair
ring  and tip on the bottom set of terminals (jumper them down from the top pair but land the colors opposite of the top pair.
Mount the switch next to the incoming phone line   with correct polarity in the down position.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If your early TT phones quit dialing, flip the reversing switch up to the on position and they will dial again.

JMO,
Jim S.

[bobbyk]

poplar1 nailed it.
the jack was wired right, none of my cables were internally crossed but the caller ID box seems to have the jacks in parellel, leaving the phone jack on the box in reverse polarity. The 2500 works perfectly with the caller ID box uninstalled. Guess I can make a small adapter cable that crosses red/green so I get correct polarity at the phone...

Guess it's a bit late to ask, but I won't harm the 202 leaving it connected to the caller ID box for a while longer ? I imagine I'll have to get this situation remedied before my dialergizmo arrives. Luckily I know right where my rj-11 pliers and connectors are.


Actually, to anyone thats used the dialergizmo- should I connect it between the phone and caller ID, or caller ID and wall ?