We're doing some remodeling and I need to move a phone jack. Turns out this old house has three wires running to the phone jack. What's up with that? I've always seen pairs but never an extra wire. Interesting.
Couple of thoughts about this: (1) the fourth wire is cut short, below the black tape, or (2) this isn't telephone wire, but some other 3-conductor that the electrician had on the truck when s/he wired the phone. I think the phone system has had tip and ring for about 100 years
Tuns out it was your first guess. The black tape isn't actually tape, but the 4th wire. It's wrapped artistically around the other wires for some reason.
I swapped the wires on the jack, putting the DSL on the second line and then hooked the Vonage line to the main pair, allowing me to have the DSL in the basement and then plug phones in around the house. Of course I had to swap the pairs on all the jacks I cared about. Since the wires are run serially around the house I had to back track to the master bedroom, where I really wanted to have the phone...
3 comments:
Couple of thoughts about this: (1) the fourth wire is cut short, below the black tape, or (2) this isn't telephone wire, but some other 3-conductor that the electrician had on the truck when s/he wired the phone. I think the phone system has had tip and ring for about 100 years
I bet it was #2. This house has a lot of weird stuff in it. I think you're right about the wiring being something left over that got re-used.
Tuns out it was your first guess. The black tape isn't actually tape, but the 4th wire. It's wrapped artistically around the other wires for some reason.
I swapped the wires on the jack, putting the DSL on the second line and then hooked the Vonage line to the main pair, allowing me to have the DSL in the basement and then plug phones in around the house. Of course I had to swap the pairs on all the jacks I cared about. Since the wires are run serially around the house I had to back track to the master bedroom, where I really wanted to have the phone...
In the end it's all working great!
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