On 28 Jun 2017 13:56:37 GMT, KenK wrote:

I have three phones - two in the house, one in a separate
office building. The two in my home don't work. I traced
signal to the box and barrier strips where the line is split
and goes to the two phones. Signal ok at that point. Phone in
kichen has signal from the splitter to a connector that goes
between bare phone line and female phone connector. Have
signal there where line is connected with an old repairman's
test phone with alligator clips. Phone doesn't work. Tried the
other phone. Doesn't work. Tried a spare phone that works
IIRC. Doesn't work. Only place for a problem is between bare
line connection and female connector. Not likely but that is
what I find. Afraid to test with working phone - don't want to
damage my only working phone by messing with connection or
plugging in a possibly bad phone. The other splitter line goes
to an answering machine. It doesn't answer the phone if I call
it on my cell. No convenient place there to use alligator clip
repair phone - all phone line standard connectors.

Doesn't make any sense.

Any theories to try?

TIA

Are you saying you have three, wired, extension phones all on the same
number? The one in the out building works but the other two do not?

If the above describes the problem, take one of the phones that
doesn't work and, as a test, connect it to the jack in the out
building. If the phone works when connected to that jack, then you
have a wiring problem in the house.

Take the above working phone and start by connecting it to the jacks
in the house from the beginning of the circuit to the end. You should
be able to isolate the two points between where the circuit has gone
dead.

Odds are, you have a bad splitter or a loose / broken wire at a jack.
You could also have a defective jack.

You can use your test set if you like, but you are not going to damage
a regular telephone by plugging it into a miss wired jack.