In alt.home.repair, on Fri, 31 Jul 2015 16:22:07 -0400, J Burns
wrote:

On 7/31/15 12:17 PM, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Fri, 31 Jul 2015 02:11:33 -0400, J Burns
wrote:



If your NID has a disconnect jack, you could plug in a phone there to
see if there's any problem outside your own wiring.

This is the first time I can recall scratchiness in the phone, so I'm
not going to worry about it.

My phone wiring is so old that there's not even a disconnect plug at the
service entrance. I think it's two insulated wires twisted around each

You probably know that in most places, the phone company will put a NID
in for free.

I'm usually foggy about technical jargon, so I looked it up. An NID is
the box where home wiring connects to telco wiring. It may or may not
have a jack.

In 1996, I discovered that my phone electrode wasn't bonded to my power
electrode, 30 feet away. In 1998, lightning hit a tree 30 feet away. It
blew the "fuse" on the pole across the street, but my computer and phone
equipment were OK. I told the phone guy I thought the ground surge would
have wiped out my stuff if I hadn't bonded the electrodes.

For half an hour, he hemmed and hawed. Then he blurted it out. The
electrical code called for bonding, but it was against telco policy
because they didn't like replacing fuses.

I would have liked a jack, but I figured it would be dangerous to let a
company like that replace my NID.

other. I could use a browser to get a GIU interface with my DSL modem.

And you can get DSL with a dial-up internet connection

It kept a record of what it measured when I dialed up.

Or is this a record of when you dial a phone call?

It also kept a record of what it measured when you dialed up. How do
you see the record? Is it on the "web page" or the "page" that displays
when you use your web-browser to go to 192.168.100.1 ?

I've wondered about whether one can get DSL when he has dial-up
internet. Is that what you have? When I got DSL, it was always on
and didn't need me to make a connection, and at first I just assumed it
was always like that.

That showed me
that my old wiring handled the frequencies very well.

No kidding? How would I do that?

For my current modem, I type the IP 192.168.100.1. Sometimes the modem
manual tells you the IP. In this case, I looked it up in Network in
System Preferences. The procedure to find the IP is probably a little
different in Windows.


It turns out instead of looking for gold-plated phone modular
connectors, there are screws inside the NID that I plan to use. That
will get rid of their modular connection and my own.

This shows how confused I was. There was no chance of getting rid of
*their* modular connection. I misunderstood which wires were going
out and which were going in, which from the customer part and which from
the phone company part of the nid. So I spend 30 minutes yesterday,
cleaning and connnecting to the two screws, but I had unplugged the
modular plug to plug in a phone (right there) in case I got a call, and
it didn't work (because the modular plug was unplugged). and I put it
back the way it was.

I stuffed the surface mount jack inside the NID so it will be even
dryer now, and it all clean now and should last 5 years, but next day
that's not too hot, I'll connect it to the screws as I intended.

I didn't have a small wire brush so I used a pointed automobile battery
clamp wire brush and it did a good job on both the jack and the plug.

I wonder if the jack and plug in the NID are gold-plated.

and it won't get
moldy or whatever because it can be tightened down, compared to my wire
that blew in the wind. I don't know if slight moviement of the plug in
the jack would clean the connection or allow it to get dirty.

The one place I found resistance in my home wiring was in a screw-down
connection indoors. Grease should prevent that in a jack or a screw
connection.