On Fri, 30 May 2014 07:39:47 -0700, RobertMacy
wrote:

On Thu, 29 May 2014 23:05:16 -0700, mike wrote:

...snip...
I just went thru this.
No dial tone, but DSL worked.
I disconnected the line. Had -50V on one wire and zero on the other.
Looks good to me...
but it wasn't zero because it was the ground return.
It was zero because squirrels had chewed thru it half a mile
away and that line was open.
The DSL managed to get thru the hot wire and the earth ground at the
junction
box. The phone needed a good return line.
Sounds like yours might be shorted somewhere keeping the line off-hook.

Yours was open fialed the low frequency stuff, of course, but the high
frequency could still get through.

OP might have a 'short'which caused the switch house to 'think' he's
always OFF HOOK, probably went through that sequence of loud recording
followed by no more POT line power, thus he hears dead silence, no calls
come through and callers get BUSY tones.

So, disconnect your line from the houw wiring, measure the impedance
between lines at your box, if it's not you call the phone company. If it's
you, start tracing down the problem.

As to the question, everyone who attributed the DSL working to high
frequencies was probably right. The Verizon woman on the phone also
said the phone and dsl used different frequencies. Thanks everyone.

As to the problem, I was going to measure voltages, but first I went
outside to check things. Verizon will now check one's line and she
said they could tell if the problem was at their end or mine. She said
she got a green meaning the phone company's situation was good. One
can also do the same test online, and then it follows with more
instructions on testing (which I assumed would be helpful but later
realized it was no more than what I already knew (disconnect each wired
to see if the dial tone comes back) , and arranged in an order that
wasn't best for me.)

So I did get a dialtone outside the house, and then I tugged on the ends
and pushed in on the ends of the 12 inch modular wire I was using to
connect to the round wire. Then I went in and for a few reasons forgot
to test for 5 more hours, at which time everything worked.

So it either fixed itself after 32 hours or more, or my fiddling with
the wire restored a connection. Thanks everyone for the help.

I'm going to replace the chain of modular wire - round wire - modular
wire with