I was moving a phone jack from one location to another. I have a
bunch of phone wire from the hardware store that I'm going to fish
through the wall and hook up to the existing wire in the attic.
The existing wire doesn't have a black wire, just red green and
yellow. The stuff I bought has 4 wires. So I connected the three
matching wires and just wrapped the black one with electrical tape to
make sure it doesn't touch anything and it works just fine.
Any problem with this? What's the black wire for? Is the 3 wire kind
just an older standard for phones?

Lenny Fackler wrote:
I was moving a phone jack from one location to another. I have a
bunch of phone wire from the hardware store that I'm going to fish
through the wall and hook up to the existing wire in the attic.
The existing wire doesn't have a black wire, just red green and
yellow. The stuff I bought has 4 wires. So I connected the three
matching wires and just wrapped the black one with electrical tape to
make sure it doesn't touch anything and it works just fine.
Any problem with this? What's the black wire for? Is the 3 wire kind
just an older standard for phones?

You don't say, but assuming you are in the USA, the phone
only uses two wires to work, usually the red and green ones.
The black and yellow were sometimes used to power the light
in a Princess Phone back in the day, or in more recent times
the black and yellow are for a second phone line.

In the UK, as I understand it, they use a third wire to
activate the ringer.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.

In article ,
Lenny Fackler wrote:
I was moving a phone jack from one location to another. I have a
bunch of phone wire from the hardware store that I'm going to fish
through the wall and hook up to the existing wire in the attic.
The existing wire doesn't have a black wire, just red green and
yellow. The stuff I bought has 4 wires. So I connected the three
matching wires and just wrapped the black one with electrical tape to
make sure it doesn't touch anything and it works just fine.
Any problem with this? What's the black wire for? Is the 3 wire kind
just an older standard for phones?

Unless you have a party line or more than one line, the red and green
are the only ones you need (assuming the rest of the house is wired
correctly). The yellow is used on some types of party lines, and the
second pair (yellow/black) can be used for a second line (but is not
recommended with the usual 4 conductor cable because of potential
crosstalk between lines).

Does the wire from the hardware store have 4 wires twisted together or two
pairs, each twisted with each other only? If the latter, it can be used
for 2 lines, but wire constructed that way USUALLY doesn't use
red/green/yellow/black.

--
Rich Greenberg N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA richgr atsign panix.com + 1 770 321 6507
Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
Canines:Val, Red & Shasta (RIP),Red, husky Owner:Chinook-L
Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L