klem kedidelhopper wrote:
Well I guess that before tearing my house wiring apart I'll go to the
demarc, (after this monster storm the Northeast is having is over) and
see if the line to the CO without the premises wiring in parallel with
it gets me a good connection.

If you can get into the "phone company only" side of the demarc, do so.
It should have a surge protector for each line, with three terminals:
two for the line and one for ground. Sometimes these go wrong. You can
temporarily disconnect the line from the surge protector (on a nice
sunny day) and see if that improves things. (It may help to have a
couple of sets of 6-32 screw, nut, and washer to make this connection.)
Since you have two lines, you could also swap the protectors to see if
there is a change. Don't run without the surge protector forever; just
long enough to see if there is a change. Also, there is 48 VDC across
each line and up to 90 VAC if it rings, so be careful. You can also
check for water, flora, and fauna in there. When you are done,
carefully put it back together the way it was.

It is also worth applying an eyeball to the pedestal (underground cable)
or splice cover (overhead) where your wire joins the cable in the
neighborhood, to look for missing/damaged covers, signs of trees or
critters or water getting in, etc. These are not really your baby to
fix but you can point them out to the lineman.

Matt Roberds