Stormin' Norman wrote in
:

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?

Yes.

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.

As I said, I'm reluctant to do that. I hate to mess with the only phone
line that works. Also, it's my internet connection line. I don't think
it's a phone, or at least one of them, where the answering machine
doesn't work either. After all, an answering machine is just a
specialized phone.


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.

I tried that. Doesn't work as far back towards the splitter as I can get.
Odd that both sides of the splitter should fail, but there is a signal in
and out of the splitter. The ho,emade 'splitter' is a metal box with a
barrier circuit strip. The line from the phone company box goes to two
screws on the strip where it branches to four other screws on the barrier
strip, which in turn feed the lines to the two phones. All those screw
pairs in the splitter show a dial tone. This is about 20 - 30 years old
and has worked with no problem up until now.

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

It would have to be two jacks as there are none before the splitter.
Seems unlikely but you never know.

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.

Other questions?


--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.