Beowulf wrote:
Any help greatly appreciated! I had phone service reactivated to my home
(giving up cell phone)-- the phone line (black) comes into my wall to my
basement rafter, consists of two plain wires that each connect to a pole
(bolt with nut) on a thing that is connected to a basement rafter.

Ok, so I know I connect the wires from the phone lines to those two poles
where the main line comes in, but is the order important? What I mean is,
I know phones generally only need only two lines, such as green and red,
for usage, so I attach the gree and red wires to each of the two poles of
the thing on the rafter, but does it matter which pole gets red and which
gets the green?

Also, the modular phone jacks have terminals for green, red, black, and
yellow, which I connect, but are the black and yellow really needed if
only green and red are attached to the main pole terminal on the basement
rafter? And if the black and yellow are needed, is their order of
attachment on the main pole terminal important, and should the black go
with the green, and the yellow with the red?

I appreciate any help, I am having one hell of a time getting this sorted
out, in part because of the phone company-- they hooked my up to my house,
I had a dial tone, then 5 minutes later the line went dead; there was no
dial tone at the "Demarc(ation) box" phone jack so I know the problem for
now is on their end. Their repair is coming back to check for a short etc
at the main box. But once they confirm a dial tone at the box I am on my
own, frustrating and I want to understand this to get my phones working
once I have a signal from the phone company.

Thank you in advance,
Randall


Have your taken a look at one of the many web sites about telephone wiring?

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/phone_wiring.html

http://www.hometech.com/learn/wiringst.html

http://telecom.hellodirect.com/docs/...s.1.040401.asp