Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

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lbmofo
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Thu May 13, 2010 2:01 pm

Worst case, go get a DECT 6.0 multiple handset phone system and put a handset everywhere in your house :) Only the base would require a phone jack and all handsets would communicate with the base.

kayembee
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by kayembee » Thu May 13, 2010 2:05 pm

Yes, that is probably what I will have to end up doing. Like I mentioned I will have lost all the conveniences I once had like my fax machine, caller ID displayed on my TV and any other conveniences I haven't realized that I have lost.

Thanks!

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Thu May 13, 2010 2:13 pm

I got one of them DECT 6.0 phones so only need 1 phone jack for the phone service but for other things you mentioned, I needed dialtone distribution throughout the house. For instance, my Dishnetwork receivers would display CallerID on incoming calls; it works great but you'd need to distribute your dialtone. If you have time and you are up to it, start over from the beginning of this thread and do a once over. All the info you need is within.

kayembee
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by kayembee » Thu May 13, 2010 2:30 pm

Yes I am sure the questions are in the forum but as I indicated some say disconnect all the wires, others say connect the wires. If I have to connect the wires not sure which ones need to be reconnected. Then what happens to the other wires? Is my wiring affected by the SMART Box? So, yes I can read back through the thread, but the suggestions are not consistent. I have posted an SOS on another site to see if I can get any additional help.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Thu May 13, 2010 3:56 pm

If you had only 1 wire bunch going into the house, then you would just take the wires off the screw terminals, cut the copper leads and you'd be done. The wires have to come off the screw terminals because of the type of NIB you have.

However, from your pictures, (I think) you have 2 wire bunches going into the house, after taking the wires off the screw terminals, need to connect the 2 wire bunches together using butt splice scotchlok connectors (white-blue to white-blue and blue-white to blue-white; leave all other wires alone, let them hang loose. If you have copper leads on the other wires, see below). Unless you know the screw terminals you connected your wires to (in your pictures) are for sure isolated from Telephone Company, I wouldn't connect the wires to the screw terminals as you have them.

Once you have connected white-blue to white-blue and blue-white to blue-white using butt splice scotchlok connectors, all your L1 (Line 1) jacks inside the house should be connected so that you can distribute your ooma dialtone throughout the house.

The problem is you may have L2, L3, or even L4 jacks inside the house.

After you took your wires off the screw terminals initiallly, if you haven't cut the copper leads yet, you can probably still tell which wires were on the screw terminals by examining whether they have copper leads or not. Let's say you have the white-orange/orange-white wires with copper leads, then you'd want to connect the white-orange wires to the white-blue wires and orange-white wires to the blue-white wires to connect all the L1 and L2 together.

I lack expertise in phone installation so I wouldn't know what connetors to use if you want to connect more than 3 wires together.

Maybe it is acceptable to use a bolt and nut to connect more than 3 wires together and use black electric tape to insulate the bolt/nut? Can someone confirm? Of course you'd want to make sure your ooma dialtone is disconnected from your house wiring while you are messing with wires at the NIB to avoid shorting anything and then damaging your ooma.

For your case, since your wire bunch only has 4 pairs, worst case scenario, you have to connect white-blue, white-orange, white-green, white-brown together from both wire bunches (that's 8 wires all together) and then connect blue-white, orange-white, green-white, brown-white together from both wire bunches (again, that's 8 wires all together). This method is really extreme but once you do this, all your jacks inside the house should all be connected together and dialtone distribution should work.

tip/ring
L1 white-blue/blue-white
L2 white-orange/orange-white
L3 white-green/green-white
L4 white-brown/brown-white

kayembee
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by kayembee » Thu May 13, 2010 4:14 pm

OK this sort of makes sense. Not sure I have enough time to do this tonight. It might get dark before I'm done. Can I use one of the connectors you mentioned to connect the bunches of wires? I am also assuming that I need to have some of the copper exposed at the ends of these wires. I might get my daughter to help me. I sure hope this will work.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Thu May 13, 2010 4:23 pm

The connectors that I mentioned, I've seen some that can connect 2 wires together and some that connect 3 wires together. So not sure what is the best way to connect more than 3 wires together. I am thinking the bolt/nut method with eletrical tape covering it up afterwards to avoid shorting but not sure if this is an acceptable way; hoping to have experts chime in. If you never cut the copper leads on your wires, if they don't have the copper leads on some wires, that means they were never connected to the screw terminals in the first place.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by kayembee » Thu May 13, 2010 4:42 pm

Unfortunately I clipped off the copper so I don't know what the original leads were. Now I have to hope that connecting the blue wires and the orange wires I should be good to go. I had a phone line and a fax line before I got the Ooma. The red connectors that I have will hold up to three wires. So I would put the wires together as you mentioned.

This may be a silly question, but to I connect the white-blue with the white-orange to make one wire that is inserted in the red connector and then the blue-white with the orange white to make the second wire to be inserted into the connector? Just need to make sure I do this right tomorrow.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by tommies » Thu May 13, 2010 5:11 pm

Some picture of my NIB, this is old style & a bit different from your. The point is the blue/white wires and white/blue wires (together I call them blue pair) are connected using the 2 port splice connector (yellow in color) since I only have two bunches wires (same as yours)

I just bought the splices at Low's, and it's in a pack of 25 pieces: (<$7.00)
* 5 blue tap connectors for tapping to an existing line
* 10 yellow 2 port connector for connecting two wires <<< you need this
* 10 red 3 port connector for connecting three wires.

There is no instruction on the package, but the usage is pretty straight forward, just insert the wires fully and then squeeze the top with a plier, you can even do it with your own fingers.
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by tommies » Thu May 13, 2010 5:31 pm

kayembee wrote:Unfortunately I clipped off the copper so I don't know what the original leads were. Now I have to hope that connecting the blue wires and the orange wires I should be good to go.
The basic is simple, you just need to connect the wires with the same color together.
I had a phone line and a fax line before I got the Ooma. The red connectors that I have will hold up to three wires. So I would put the wires together as you mentioned.
Does it mean that the phone line and the fax line have distinct phone number?
This may be a silly question, but to I connect the white-blue with the white-orange to make one wire that is inserted in the red connector and then the blue-white with the orange white to make the second wire to be inserted into the connector? Just need to make sure I do this right tomorrow.
Uh No question is a silly question. From your pictures, you have 2 CAT5 cables come out from inside the house. Each cable has four pairs of wires, but you probably need two pairs for now (blue and orange pairs)
  • connect the two blue wires with white strip together. each bunch wires only has one wire of this color.
  • do the same for the two white wires with blue strip.
This will do for your line 1. If needed you can do the same for the orange pair for line 2.

PS.
Do not mix the blue wires with any others color wires. I say it again, only connecting the wires with exactly the same color together.
tommies

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