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From: zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil (Rich Zellich)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: A Phone Set Wiring Question
Message-ID: <14686@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 13 Nov 90 19:10:40 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 820, Message 8 of 8


I recently moved to a newly-built home, into which I had had two
three-pair cables installed.  One cable is for possible future use;
currently I have two lines used on the other cable.

On hooking up various phones I, too, found that one single-line phone
would take *both* lines off-hook.  This is a "novelty" phone - a
slightly-undersized payphone lookalike, so it is not wired for any
DC-operated lights, keyset use, or anything like that.  It is also a
fairly good phone, which I have been using as my main telephone for
several years now.

I haven't yet tried to disassemble it to see where the other two wires
are going.  What I would like to find is one of the little
three-inch-long cords used to connect a phone to a wall jack, with
only two wires wired for use instead of all four -- that should fix the
problem without having to modify the phone.  Of course, finding such a
cord is turning out to be a problem ... I can't even find a four-wire
one anywhere so far (without cannibalizing one from another phone,
anyway).

On the reverse side of the coin, I have a recently-acquired 6-outlet
surge protector that also has a pair of phone jacks built in.  *It*
only has two wires connected, so I can't use it to protect both lines
into one of my two-line phones (an old GTE telephone-terminal with
built-in 300 baud modem).  The phone/terminal has two single-line
input jacks, and I have to split the two-line service at the wall jack
(and feed only one of the lines throught the protector to the
terminal), rather than at the output side of the surge protector.
Guess the surge protector is worth about what I paid for it (under $10
from EggHead Discount Software on a super-sale deal).