On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:03:50 GMT, Jethro wrote:


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Tip and Ring comes from the old days when phones were connected using
a "phone plug" and "phone jack", the same 1/4 inch plug/jack that is
used today to connect audio like electric guitar and headphones. The
tip was the tip of the plug and the ring was the shank. If your house
uses standard color code then the tip is green and the ring is red, or
the tip is black and the ring is yellow, but dont depend on those
colors.

Hmmm
At the outside box, my house wires (blue-green-yellow-black) are
stripped and connected into the phone company's plug. I saw no
plug/jack arrangement. Blue & green are the colors common to all my
house 'jacks'.

Didn't you say early on that you unpllugged the house from the phone
company? That plug/jack will do just fine to get rid of the voltage
in the hosue wiring.

My house only 28 years old, was built without a plug/jack outside, but
the phone company put one in for free (in the long run to save
themselves money, because they couldn't otherwise expect a customer to
be able to tell his house's problems from theirs.)

To get infinite resistance between the tip and ring, or whaever are
your two wires, you have to have everything with a bell or ringer
unplugged from the phone wiring in your house. And probbaly
everything that doesnt' have a ringer also. It's the wires that are
supposed to be separated from each other, not the appliances that plug
into them.


Now that I see you have done, properly I hope, the first set of tests,
I should tell you that I have suffered from hum for several years. I
did the Disconnect Everything tests and didn't find the problem. Then
because I was short of time, and I hadn't been able to use the phone
for a day, I ran some phone line from my computer, out the window, and
plugged into what I think RickH has been calling the demarcation, the
box outside the house. A bit later I plugged a phone in next to the
computer, and I ran a wire to my bedroom.

I ran that way for a year, until I had some time and was determined to
find the problem. I connedted things back the original way, and every
thing worked fine. For a year or two, then the hum was back.

This time I spent more time trying to solve the problem. My house has
insdie in the basement a little connection block where several sets of
phone wires are pushed into pinch connections, one set was original
with the house, one set I used to run phone line to the basement and
the master bedroom (where the original owner had sheet-rocked over the
phone jack) and the attic and the bathroom.

Anotehr set, of only two, I put in and it went to a jack 6 inches away
for use by my burglar alarm, and I think there was a 4th set but I
don't remember what it was for.

The wire is cut short with this type of device, when connections are
made by pros, but when I make the connections I live a few inches of
wire beyond the pinch connector.

Anyhow, if you have a connection place anything like this and you have
more than one set of wires, you can disconnect one set, and find out
if the hum is in that one or the others. In my case the hum was in my
set. Maybe mice? I only need two wires and I've run four, so I
should disconnect the red or the green and replace it with the yellow
or black. If that doesn't fix it I should replace the other. You
would use your colors. But I've been busy.