When I got up this morning, my phones have no dial tone.

The first thing I did was look for a phone off the hook.
Then I went out to the NID, and plugged a phone into it. Works fine.
So the problem is somewhere in the wiring.

I checked the wiring at the terminals. Everything is good, solid
connections.

I went around to every jack in the house and plugged in a phone.
Nothing.

I'm at a loss. I expected to find a loose wire in the NID, but now I
don't know how to proceed.

My NID has a cut-out for each phone jack. They just snap/pivot, and
the circuit is disconnected. Disconnect all of them. Then, one at a
time, reconnect and test the outlet, and see which one(s) work. I
assume that when you used the test jack, that you removed the jumper
cord that connects your house circuits to the common point.

I had a similar problem, and found that the installer had provisions
for only 4 circuits, but had connected 5, putting two together, and
didn't do a good job of it. Took me about 1/2 hour to track the
problem down. I made careful note of which jack now connects to which
cutout.

PITA.

If you have the older junction block with the screw/bolt terminals,
disconnect each line, and proceed as above. I crimped lugs on to each
wire pair to make connections and disconnection easier in the future
(a house I owned before this one).

Hope that helps..

On Sep 1, 12:13 pm, Mitch@... wrote:
When I got up this morning, my phones have no dial tone.

The first thing I did was look for a phone off the hook.
Then I went out to the NID, and plugged a phone into it. Works fine.
So the problem is somewhere in the wiring.

I checked the wiring at the terminals. Everything is good, solid
connections.

I went around to every jack in the house and plugged in a phone.
Nothing.

I'm at a loss. I expected to find a loose wire in the NID, but now I
don't know how to proceed.

I had that problem recently. One phone out of several plugged in was
killing the circuit. Unplug them all, then plug in one at a time into
the same jack to verify their operation.

Red

On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:37:31 -0700, professorpaul
wrote:

My NID has a cut-out for each phone jack. They just snap/pivot, and
the circuit is disconnected. Disconnect all of them. Then, one at a
time, reconnect and test the outlet, and see which one(s) work. I
assume that when you used the test jack, that you removed the jumper
cord that connects your house circuits to the common point.

Is there an arrangement where you don't have to do that?

In my NID, there is one jack per line, and I have to unplug my house
to plug in a phone (Unless that other jack is for the same line????)

On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:13:07 GMT, Mitch@... wrote:

When I got up this morning, my phones have no dial tone.

The first thing I did was look for a phone off the hook.
Then I went out to the NID, and plugged a phone into it. Works fine.
So the problem is somewhere in the wiring.

I checked the wiring at the terminals. Everything is good, solid
connections.

I went around to every jack in the house and plugged in a phone.
Nothing.

I'm at a loss. I expected to find a loose wire in the NID, but now I
don't know how to proceed.

Don't forget that there are a lot more things than phones plugged into
the phone line these days. Modems, burglar alarms, separate bells or
lights, special electronic boxes (I have one that does redial, hold,
and memory dial for the whole house with one box.)

In my NID, there is one jack per line, and I have to unplug my house
to plug in a phone (Unless that other jack is for the same line????)



That's how mine works, too. There's a short black phone cord plugged
into each line. I have to unplug it in order to plug a phone in and
listen.

By the way, my wife's office line works.

I have literally every phone jack in the house unplugged, and can't
get a dial tone on any of them.

mm wrote:
On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:13:07 GMT, Mitch@... wrote:

When I got up this morning, my phones have no dial tone.

The first thing I did was look for a phone off the hook.
Then I went out to the NID, and plugged a phone into it. Works fine.
So the problem is somewhere in the wiring.

I checked the wiring at the terminals. Everything is good, solid
connections.

I went around to every jack in the house and plugged in a phone.
Nothing.

I'm at a loss. I expected to find a loose wire in the NID, but now I
don't know how to proceed.

Don't forget that there are a lot more things than phones plugged into
the phone line these days. Modems, burglar alarms, separate bells or
lights, special electronic boxes (I have one that does redial, hold,
and memory dial for the whole house with one box.)

If there is a monitored alarm system installed in
the home there will be a special jack "RJ-31X"
that the alarm panel plugs into. This jack has a
pair going in and a pair going out. When the alarm
panel is unplugged from the RJ-31X, the pairs are
hooked together. Since alarm systems are designed
to seize the phone line, the jack is there in case
the alarm malfunctions. You unplug the alarm and
jack switches the phones back on. For some very
good information on modern home phone wiring, take
a look at this web site:

http://www.homephonewiring.com/splt-alarm.html

[8~{} Uncle Monster

Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!

I had the same thing happen a few years ago .. .. about this same time
of year .. .. what I found was, on an outside wall, the phone jack was
mounted with the contacts "down". Moisture had condensed on them and
caused corrosion which shorted out the contacts. Replaced the jack and
all is well again.

Mitch@... wrote:
When I got up this morning, my phones have no dial tone.

The first thing I did was look for a phone off the hook.
Then I went out to the NID, and plugged a phone into it. Works fine.
So the problem is somewhere in the wiring.

I checked the wiring at the terminals. Everything is good, solid
connections.

I went around to every jack in the house and plugged in a phone.
Nothing.

I'm at a loss. I expected to find a loose wire in the NID, but now I
don't know how to proceed.

Mitch@... wrote:
Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!

A fellow I know who worked as a phone company
repairman found a corroded jack at a little
old lady's home. It was caused by her cute
little dog peeing on the jack.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

Mitch@... wrote in message
...
Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!

I hope you have those kid-resistant clear plastic plugs on all the open
power outlets! Kids love to stuff things in holes, and while the phone jack
was just a PITA, the regular outlets could get tragic. 2 years old is old
enough to start reminding them that plugging things in is a job for grownups
only, whenever you see them playing with cords, or watching you plug
something in.

(No, I'm not parroting stuff from a nanny book- just remembering stuff I did
as a kid, and what got told to me years later that I did. Kinda suprising I
am still alive, and still have both eyes and all ten fingers and toes.)

aem sends...

aemeijers wrote:

Mitch@... wrote in message
...

Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!


I hope you have those kid-resistant clear plastic plugs on all the open
power outlets! Kids love to stuff things in holes, and while the phone jack
was just a PITA, the regular outlets could get tragic. 2 years old is old
enough to start reminding them that plugging things in is a job for grownups
only, whenever you see them playing with cords, or watching you plug
something in.

(No, I'm not parroting stuff from a nanny book- just remembering stuff I did
as a kid, and what got told to me years later that I did. Kinda suprising I
am still alive, and still have both eyes and all ten fingers and toes.)

aem sends...



The original smiley face was my younger brother after he bit down on an
extension cord )

Norminn writes:

aemeijers wrote:

Mitch@... wrote in message
...

Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!
I hope you have those kid-resistant clear plastic plugs on all the
open power outlets! Kids love to stuff things in holes, and while
the phone jack was just a PITA, the regular outlets could get
tragic. 2 years old is old enough to start reminding them that
plugging things in is a job for grownups only, whenever you see
them playing with cords, or watching you plug something in.
(No, I'm not parroting stuff from a nanny book- just remembering
stuff I did as a kid, and what got told to me years later that I
did. Kinda suprising I am still alive, and still have both eyes and
all ten fingers and toes.)
aem sends...

The original smiley face was my younger brother after he bit down on
an extension cord )

Wet thumb in empty light socket.

My older brother told me to.

About a dozen years ago, I was working on a flooring project and I
temporarily stuck the tv cable line in the phone jack . The cable line
had a male coupler in the end of it and I wanted to get the cable off of
the floor real quick. I forgot about it. And a few hours later a female
friend came to my door mad as hell.

She said you didn't have to keep hanging up on me..? The most I
thought it would do was disable 'that' jack..

On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:25:08 GMT, "aemeijers"
wrote:

I hope you have those kid-resistant clear plastic plugs on all the open
power outlets!

Definitely.

On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 22:02:27 GMT, Mitch@... wrote:

Eureka. I decided to go checking each jack for shorts.
My prime suspect was the unused jack by the counter where the kids
have breakfast.

My 2-year-old must have jammed something in the jack, because when I
removed it, I immediately noticed that the 4 contects inside the jack
were all mashed together.

Don't blame your 2-year-old. I did that.

I disconnected it, taped up the wires, and everything works.

I got lucky on choosing that jack first!