On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:00:42 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:27:54 -0400, wrote:

New installations are no longer done with JK 2-pair They now use cat
5. The OP has described the wiring in their new OLD house as being
2-pair with one of the second pair clipped off or missing.

The old JK only had 3 wires. The 4th (black) wire showed up with the
Princess phone. As has been pointed out here, the yellow was for
party line selective ringing.

That's what I thought it was for.

Also, I remember one house built in 1969 that had 6 wire cable:

orange
orange stripe on white
green
green stripe on white
blue
blue stripe on white

The only wires connected were the 2 in use (I don't remember which 2
it was).

They always used the center-pair for the first one. That way no matter
what happened with polarities, there would at least always be a
connection. Something I found in an old, POTS history book once.