I am trouble shooting static on the line. Oh those many years ago, of me crawling under the house, and bringing cable out to the junction box. Adding another line for a computer modem, and now only having one line with STATIC.

I disconnected every line that comes to the outside box, only have the LIVE line hooked up, and still a little static when I called home today to talk to wife. Thinking of rerunning just that line, as our phones are all wireless with just a base station.

Do they sell a tool for telling if line is HOT or in helping distinguish if a line is line X at one end and LINE X at the other?

Same thing for RG6 VIdeo, and Ethernet for that matter.

I assume there is a tool for each type to help tell if the cable you are holding is the one at the other end.

Gonna make an order at Monoprice, wonder if they sell any test equipment?


I made a hand held set that I could alligator clip to the outside box, and phone sounds clean, so must be inside house.

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Microman
Do they sell a tool for telling if line is HOT or in helping distinguish if a line is line X at one end and LINE X at the other?

To see if a line is active or not you can just use a voltage meter. To figure out which ends are which at each end start by picking two wires and bridge them together at the one end, then at the other end run use a multimeter to check for continuity until you find the two that make the circuit complete.

MIcroman.. most cheap 'test' equipment is nothing more than a continuity tester. It won't help you with noise on the line at all. I've got a plug in 'phone line' tester that works that way and also tells me if the POTS signal is strong enough. My cheap Ethernet cable tester helps me find out if I've wired one of the jacks or plugs wrong (and it happens).

Noise on a phone line can have various causes.. What sort of noise IS it ? 60Hz hum from a power line that is too close ? Radio signal interference from an ungrounded antenna effect ? Crickly crackly static ? Is the noise environmentally variable (gets worse when it rains, when the bugs or rodents that are eating the wire insulation get zapped, etc..) ?

The big problem with household phone lines is that pre 21st century installers usually daisy-chained the damn phone lines, instead of running each line separately to a single punch-down block where they are connected with a line that runs outside to your Subscriber Connection block.

Best suggestion ? Pay the $2 per month 'in the house' maintenance fee to your phone company. Wait a month. Then call and complain, and have them rewire the lines for you. Of course you may get a horrible job, but... for a couple of bucks !

Butt sets include a tone generator for such purposes, but I've always just hooked up a radio on the pair I want to verify.

Plug the phone straight into the dmark box on the outside of the house. Then call the phone and see if you have static. If you still have static, call the phone company. If not, replace the main line to the house.

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C(-)ris

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cbelt3


The big problem with household phone lines is that pre 21st century installers usually daisy-chained the damn phone lines, instead of running each line separately to a single punch-down block where they are connected with a line that runs outside to your Subscriber Connection block.

pre 21st century? I've never seen a residential single family home wired with a punchdown block. Well, I did, but it was a 2 million dollar house.

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C(-)ris

I had wicked static several years ago. When connected directly to the Network Interface, there was no problem so, I knew it was an inside wiring problem. I finally found one jack I had installed but was not using. Lint had built up inside the plug port. Once I vacuumed it clean, the static disappeared.

Good 20th century phone installers ran the outside line to a screw terminal block inside and then ran individual lines to each location where a phone would go. No daisy chaining involved. But you can find a lot of places where an installer or home owner cut corners.

When the phone company first started selling DSL, my analog phone line started having high levels - to the point that it was quite audible - of impulse noise.

It turns out that they were switching their DSL customers over to the quietest pairs.

This made dial up a real PITA. I called to complain, and they basically said - tough.