ObiHai OBI202 adapter and AE40 Phones

[twillkickers]

I hope this is the right section for this thread! I have an ObiHai OBI202 unit and I've connected that to my 1960s home's legacy 4-wire telephone wiring. I've placed the ObiHai unit in the basement and connected it to the splitter down there. My phone in the basement (Automatic Electric Model 40) works fine without any issues. However, the same phone upstairs (second floor) does not work! I can hear a slight humming when I pick up the receiver. When I measure tip to ring voltage upstairs I get a little over 0V. In the basement I get 46V. I used the Klein Scout Pro 3 to test continuity between the phone port in the basement and the phone port on the second floor, and it says I have continuity.

I went even further to see if I could hear noises from the basement phone on the upstairs phone. I picked up the phone in the basement and ran upstairs as quickly as possible, and I could catch the busy signal, but it was very very faint. Does anybody have any advice on how I should troubleshoot this issue? Is the phone line too long?

[Babybearjs]

I'd be double checking the wiring. if the phone was working prior to the changes and is now not, then something got disconnected somewhere. if no wiring changes were made, Id  switch the sets to see if the AE 40 in the house works in the basement. if it does then its not the phones... if not, then there is your first problem.

[twillkickers]

Already switched the phones, and it's not the phones that are the problem. Why would the Klein Scout Pro 3 show the wire as connected properly if there is a problem with the connection?

[RB]

For starters, I would remove the black and yellow wires from the obi connection. I do not believe they are needed.
Next, plug both phones directly into the obi and test.
Then, I would ask why is there a splitter at the obi? Single line phones in homes are all parallel. unless you are using 1/2 of splitter to feed your house, and the 2nd phone directly into the other
I would then clarify how exactly each phone was connected.
I would suspect both phones to be assoc. with either port 1 or port 2 on the obi. but not both. unless you are using 2 lines???
You may have a bad splitter connection too???

[twillkickers]

Thanks for the reply. Both phones work when plugged directly into the Obi.
When I say splitter at the Obi, i'm referring to one of those old 4-way junction boxes for an in-house telephone system. I have phone ports in every room connected to the same line. I've connected all the existing infrastructure in my house to port 1 on the obi.

My cable tester says everything is connected, which I think is further evidenced by the fact that I can hear tones coming through the upstairs connection. They are just very faint.

I am thinking about using a tone generator and probe to check the wires in the attic? Maybe that would help detect at which splice the error is at. The phone system is junctioned several times inside the house and there are a couple junctions in the attic as well.

[twillkickers]

Just sent an 800Hz frequency over the line from the basement, I was able to pick up the sound on the phone on the second floor. It was a bit fainter than ports closer to the location of the Obi though. Does the Obi need some sort of amplifier to get to the whole house? Or is it more likely to be caused by a loose splice along the line?

[RB]

Could be either.
How many phones are on that one line?
Maybe you are overloading the obi???
I do not know what the total ren limit is for an obi.
But, I would still inspect your house wiring.
And maybe replace the splitter with a standard 2 way???
Also, if you have phones in every room, unplug all but the two you have mentioned, and test.
If good, plug in another, one at a time till it fails

[twillkickers]

Thanks again for the advice!

I have figured out the source of the problem. Apparently the run to the second floor has a failed green and/or red wire. I switched to using the black wire as tip and the yellow wire as ring, and was able to pick up a dialtone and make calls! The good news is the Obi 202 can handle 2 AE40s without issue.

Slightly related note: inspecting my house's wiring using a tone and probe set, labeling the cables with numbers, a creating a cable map really helped me isolate the issue as well! It was nice being able to figure out where everything was going. The routing had been tweaked a lot over the years and I was able to eliminate a lot of unnecessary splices in the attic that were probably going to phone jacks that had since been covered up.