Home Improvements

[kelsochris]

Alright, we started our big home remodel this week and the phone hub was in the way.  We had to disconnect the phone  line from the hub enorder to dig foundations and pour concrete.  I kinda need to hook the phone up temporarily until we need to move the hub to the new location.  Unfortunately the guys didn't leave me any clue as to which wires go where.  For starters the hub has four scew and nut terminals with wires going to each terminal from the house th4en the incoming line has four different colored lines coming from the street.  Unfrotunately the incoming lines and house lines are not the same colors.  Should I just bite the bullet and call ATT to hook it up or can someone help me out.

[GeorgeK-NJ]

You don't have to many options / combinations of connections.  If you cross wires, you won't hurt anything, it just won't work.  Normally if you only have 1 single phone number/line you only need 2 lines, the others are spare. 

[Larry.Jenkins]

Try hooking up the reds to reds, greens to greens.

In our area it's blues and whites.

Larry

[Allen Worsham]

Go to a neighbor's house and look at his. Be sure to take a digital photo of it incase you forget the pattern.

[Randy@Yorktown]

This MAY help.  Some years ago, the phone wiring in homes changed from a two pair scheme with red, green, black and yellow wires to cables with up to four pairs.  The new scheme will have mating pairs with a solid color and a complimentary white with the same color stripe.  Sometimes, the solid color wire will have a white stripe.

In the "old days"  the red and green were the primary pair and the yellow and black would be for a second line and, in some case were used to carry power for fancy phones that are, by now, history.  The phone company jargon for identifying the function of each wire was "tip and ring" which referred to the parts of the phone plug that used to be common-place.

This would be the standard conversion between old and new schemes but, as has been noted above, you're not going to hurt anything by experimenting.

Primary pair:

green = tip, red = ring,  converts to:

white with blue stripe = tip, blue with white stripe = ring

Secondary pair:

black = tip, yellow = ring, converts to:

white with orange stripe = tip, orange with white stripe = ring

HOPE this helps.

[71166]

After connecting as Randy said call your home phone from a cell phone to check is working correctly.  Sometimes the orange/white pair is connected to another line which is not yours.  While your working on it just plug a phone into the jack that is on top to check it out.   Roly

[Grandpa Bill]

You could post the colors of each wire to eliminate a lot of guessing. You could use a meter to see which incoming wires have a voltage on them. Then look at where the cable coming in the house are hooked up and see which color they are using. Blue/blue white are comonly used but by no means a standard. I think my U-verse line is using the orange pair.

[Randy@Yorktown]

Uncle Bill, you are correct in not taking the blue-blue/white for granted.  However, there are at least four standards...EIA/TIA 568A, EIA/TIA 568B, USOC 6-wire, and USOC 8-wire.  In all cases, the blue pair is pair 1.  It is always referred to as the direct substitute for the green and red.

[kelsochris]

Thanks for the info gang.  I did the trial and air approach and it took about three minutes to get it up and running.  I will be looking at moving the hub here in about a week or so once the framing  starts goin up and the cable really gets in the way.  I think this will be a really good time to update the system.  Unfortunately we haven't made it to the era of Att U-verse out here.  The neighbors a hundred yards up the street have it but the wires don't run this far yet.