Communications: Voice, Radio and Data - Phone wiring issue

I can't get a second jack on a single line to work. Here's how it was wired (by an unlicensed pro, who seems to have dropped off the planet) and I hope you can understand the following description:

From the telco box there's Cable 1 which consists of 6 wires (Red, Green, Black, Yellow, Blue, White).

From the room with the second jack comes Cable 2 with 6 wires.

G (green wire) from Cable 1 and B from Cable 2 are joined by a connector.

R from Cable 1 and Y from Cable 2 are joined by a separate connector.

G and R from Cable 2 feed Jack 1. Jack 1 works fine.

On the other end of Cable 2, G and R feed Jack 2. This jack does not work, even after replacement with a new jack.

Does this seem like the correct wiring configuration? Probably easier to explain if I could diagram this- I'll see what I can do.

Thanks very much for any help.

Sounds to me like you need to use the Black and Yellow of Ca 2 for your new jack.

The ideal way would be to use Red and Green all the way.

The Yellow and Black are normally used for a second line.

Thanks for the reply, stanwills. I'll give it a shot in the morning.

Green/Red = Line 1.
Black/Yellow = Line 2.
White/Blue = Line 3.

If you have only one active phone line and single-line phones only the Green & Red wires should be used, as Stan said. Connect all greens together and connect all reds together.

Rick,

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm just going to remove the original crimp connectors and run the R and G from both Cable 1 and Cable 2 to Jack 1 and Jack 2. I was trying to make it work with the crimp connectors but there's really no need.

Much appreciated.

Update: Please help.

I removed the crimp connectors and connected the R and G from Cable 1 to the kitchen jack. No go. Then I tried running the R and G from Cable 1 to the bedroom jack: no go. How could this be?

With the wiring in the OP, the kitchen jack worked. I don't understand how removing the crimp connectors and simply running Cable 1 to the kitchen jack and connecting the R and G would not work. Baffled.

Any help would be appreciated- thanks.

Can you take some pictures from the Telco box as well as your block inside your house? If so, place them on a site where you can place an URL on this site. One place is called tinypic (http://************/). That may help find the problem why you are not getting connections.

Don't be offended by this: Did you strip the insulation off the wires before you connected them? You'd be surprised how many people don't do that.

Thanks for the suggestion, rbwest. I'll take some pictures if this isn't sorted out soon.

Rick, no offense taken, and I appreciate your checking back on this thread. This is a "block" type jack (not sure if that's the correct term) where the insulation is not stripped but instead slipped into slots and mashed down into place.

Turns out that when I mashed the wires down with the "block" one of the wires backed out of the slot enough to mess with the connection.

So I reinstalled with a screw-type jack, running Cable 1 from the NID to the kitchen jack and connecting the R and G. This works. So now the dumb question of the day:

How to run another jack in the bedroom? I tried connecting the R and G from Cable 2 to the same screws on the Kitchen Jack but this didn't work. One thought was that Cable 2 is somehow not going where I think it is- it's buried in the wall and I was assuming that it goes to the bedroom jack but maybe it doesn't- but I can always run another length of Cat5 into the bedroom from the Kitchen Jack.

If so, do I simply connect the R and G from the new cable to the same screws of the Kitchen Jack?

Thanks for the continuing education on this remedial issue.

Do you have a multimeter? Set it to ohms. Short the R & G on Cable 2. Now go into the bedroom and see if those two wires are shorted. If they are, go back and separate the wires. Check the bedroom again. If you now see no short you know you have the correct cable.

While you have the bedroom jack open, make sure it's wired to R&G.

Thanks Rick. No multimeter so I think I'll just run a new cable from the kitchen jack to the bedroom jack. One end of the new cable will be wired R and G to the bedroom jack and the other end will be wired R and G to the same screws on the kitchen jack.

And so it goes... much appreciated.

Jackpot! Wired things up as described in last post and things are working fine. My guess is that the original Cable 2 was someone cut or shorted somehow. Thanks everyone for the help-- and enjoy the weekend!

Nicely done! Thanks for letting us know.