In alt.home.repair on Wed, 30 Jul 2003 13:26:18 GMT "CMF"
posted:
"meirman" wrote in message
.. .
In alt.home.repair on Wed, 30 Jul 2003 11:47:04 GMT "CMF"
posted:
I disconnnected all the phones and accessories except one and still
had the problem. I disconnected that one and connected another and
still had it. Then I disconnected the two phone lines I had put in
(one because the previous owner put a second wall over the phone jack
in my bedroom, and I couldnt find it.)
I was ready to start on the two that the builder put in, but with less
than millimeter of extra wire beyond the squeeze connector (what do
you call it. Like a fork you push the wire between the tines), I was
afraid I wouldn't get it back together. I'd been without a phone for
a day or so, so I ran a wire from a second floor bedroom window to the
phone company interface downstairs outside. I only had the phone by
my desk and I ran a wire down the hall to my bedroom.
Busy with other things, I went for a year that way, until a neighbor
complained. I put it back the original way, and everything was fine.
Then a year later it happened again, and I went back to the outside
wire. This time it was a year or two, but when I was using the
inhouse wires, my 56K modem broke, and when I had to go to the outside
wires, I got better connection speeds with a 33K than I had gotten
with the 56K when I went through the house wires. I think I had only
gotten 28000 with the 56K but was getting 33333 with the 33 and the
outside line.
I didn't want to go back to the house lines, even if they worked for
the phone, but I tried them after two years and they work. And they
work well. I got 49,333 and 50,666 connections, and later it went up
usually to 51,333.
What's going on?
I'm slightly suspicious of the wall-phone connections in the kitchen,
which use those fork-tine-squeeze-things. Should I take them apart
and solder all 4 wires there? But I think there is more to it, partly
since I didn't touch them and it keeps not working, then working.
--
Also, given my situation, so far from CAT5 I'm not even close, do you
see a problem with using the yellow and black wires, or whatever color
they are, to take output from my computer sound card and run it to the
other rooms, where I will have small amplifiers with speakers so I can
listen to web-radio in all my rooms? I'll be careful not to overload
the sound card (and if worse comes to worse I can use the one a friend
gave me or buy another) but I wonder if there is some other issue I
have totally forgotten about.
Thanks a lot.
Mr. Meirman,
I have forwarded this to myself in order to look more in depth on it. I
would love a digital picture of that fork thing (I'm guessing punchdown of
some kind but I can't figure what it would be doing on a kitchen phone) if
Sorry, I don't have a digital camera. It's not in the phone but the
Bell Telephone or Western Electric wall plate for a phone. The ones
with the two silver colored or aluminum studs that one can hang a
phone on, even many aftermarket phones and phonemachine/phones.
I'm not sure if the wall plates they sell in Radio Shack have that
same squeeze-between-the-tines connector, or some other kind.
The tines are really flat sheet metal, connected at one end like a
fork, but a quarter inch wide or more while the slots are much
narrower, the width of the wire. You push the insulated wire in and
the metal cuts through the insulation.
Next time there are problems I will solder the connections, but want
to wait until there are problems, so I can have a better idea if that
was the problem.
I still don't think they shorted (It's arranged like a big sideways H
with red/green/black/yellow in separate legs of the H. How could it
short, how could it keep the phones not on that line from working?
Maybe it was the phone company all along? Nothing I did? Could the
phone company leave me humming for a whole day? I can't remember if I
called repair or not. I've been making a lot of mistakes lately.
you can take one. And, I bet the gauge on that black/yellow wire is way to
small for sound. I don't suppose you are in the DFW area by any small
chance? I would love to take a look at your setup. I am out in Wide Awake
Wylie, TX.
My brother is. Does that help?
I coudl stop by when I come to
visit, probably in the fall.
Boy, you guys in Texas think distances are nothing. Is that U shaped
lake I see near you the one I see from the plane? No wait, I zoomed
out and you're only 6 miles from my brother.
Maury
Meirman
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