Help wiring a phone socket

Jessica C

I need to wire my phone line to this socket but have no idea where to begin.
The wire coming out of the wall has orange, green, blue and brown wires.
Do I screw them into the empt holes in the socket, or should they join up with the existing wires some how?

Appreciate any help!!!

indie armada

you need to know which of the wires commin out of the wall are live. it will be a pair so could be blue and orange, brown green ect.
which ever pair is in use you connect one of the wires in to the red and the other wire to the green on the point in the picture by loosening the screw and wrapping the wire around it then retightening the screw.
it would take somebody with the right equipment about 2 mins to identify the right wires and connect it.

Jessica C

indie armada wrote: »

connect one of the wires in to the red and the other wire to the green on the point in the picture by loosening the screw and wrapping the wire around it then retightening the screw.

That's what I needed to know, fantastic. Thank you!

grousedogtom

You should get about 50 volts dc across the pair that you need to connect to the green and red on the phone point

indie armada

if you have no test equipment just plug your phone into the phone point in the pic above and with the cable comming out of the wall stripped tip random pairs off the red and green screws untill you get a dial tone. can be tricky but quite posible, just make sure not to tip the live cores off each other as this will result in your line being shut down at the exchange due to a direct short.

Jessica C

Ok lets hope I dont shut it down....
Thanks!

Buford T Justice

When you look at the back of the socket and you can see all the pins that are on in the socket, you only want the two that are in the very center of the socket. join your two wires to them, doesn't matter in what order and bob's yer uncle

Solair

The eircom line coming in has several pairs of wires. Each is capable of carrying a line.

Typically your line will come in on the orange pair : orange & orange with White stripes.

However, it may also come in on the blue pair etc depending on how it was wired.

Older installations may use other colour schemes.

Very old wiring typically uses a single grey & White pair

As the other posters have said, figure out by trial and error which pair has the line on it. Plug your phone in & check for a dial tone.

Dial 199000 to verify it's your line ; this will read your number back.

You only need to connect two wires to the centre terminals on the socket : red & green in this case.

The other terminals are not used in single line installations.

Polarity does not matter- you can connect the line either way around!

Lofty123

Hi All,
Hope someone out there can help.
had to move my main phone socket today, did so and rewired it as it was, orange wire to L1 & Blue wire to L2.
Now I have no dial tone, just a buzzing noise on the line. I read elsewhere on the forum that I may have shorted the line at the exchange:eek:
How do I check this, and if I report a fault is it going to cost me a fortune?

Thanks

paddy147

Lofty123 wrote: »

Hi All,
Hope someone out there can help.
had to move my main phone socket today, did so and rewired it as it was, orange wire to L1 & Blue wire to L2.
Now I have no dial tone, just a buzzing noise on the line. I read elsewhere on the forum that I may have shorted the line at the exchange:eek:
How do I check this, and if I report a fault is it going to cost me a fortune?

Thanks

Ring Eircom (1901) on your mobile and they will do a "line test" of the land line there and then.

If they find a fault,then they will send an engineer to the local exchange and also possibly to your house.

It wont cost you anything.

Lofty123

Thank you:)

meercat

lofty
any chance of a pic or link to phone point you connected

you sure you used the correct wires

pic of wires will help too

Solair

Lofty123 wrote: »

Hi All,
Hope someone out there can help.
had to move my main phone socket today, did so and rewired it as it was, orange wire to L1 & Blue wire to L2.
Now I have no dial tone, just a buzzing noise on the line. I read elsewhere on the forum that I may have shorted the line at the exchange:eek:
How do I check this, and if I report a fault is it going to cost me a fortune?

Thanks

Usually there are a few 'pairs' of wires coming into your house. Each pair potentially carries a line. It's possible that spare pair may have a live connection to the exchange, even if it's not used.

To me it sounds like you may have connected two wires that are not actually from the same pair. So, you could have L1 connected to one line and L2 to another line.

Try various combinations of the wires until you get a dial tone.

Just dial 199000 to check that the number of the line matches your phone number as even disconnected lines often have dial tones.

It's extremely unlikely you've tripped something at the exchange.

With regards to colour codes, sometimes there isn't one on some of those incoming lines as they are only intended to be accessed by eircom engineers. So, you might need to just connect by trail and error.

An eircom technician would use a linesmans' phone which has clip connectors to find your line.

Just plug a phone into the socket and touch the wires off the L1 and L2 lugs at the back until you find a dial tone.

If there is a line fault on the line outside, eircom won't charge you.
However, if you've caused a line fault, you will definitely get a bill for the call out.

Lofty123

thank you all, tried rewiring using other colours as suggested and hey presto dial tone is back and phone fully working.
still don't understand why original configuration didn't work, but hey, all's well that ends well:D

Thank you all again. what a great community!

Solair

bit odd that it didn't work with the original configuration unless somehow you mixed up the colours or something. It's easy enough to do as they're often really tight spaces and dark.

Glad it's working

Just dial 199000 though to make 100% sure it's the right line lol

Also, for what it's worth the polarity on Irish lines doesn't really matter.

Eircom doesn't use polarity reversal signals (BT in the UK reverses the line to indicate Caller ID info is coming) and eircom also uses 'balanced ringing' so, the ring signal's applied to both wires. In many other countries it's only applied to one so if you get the line wired up with the L1 and L2 (A and wires swapped it can cause issues, but not in Ireland.

So, in general, it doesn't really matter if the line's connected in the correct polarity or not.

paddy147

Lofty123 wrote: »

thank you all, tried rewiring using other colours as suggested and hey presto dial tone is back and phone fully working.
still don't understand why original configuration didn't work, but hey, all's well that ends well:D

Thank you all again. what a great community!

If you have Eircom Broadband comming in on the line aswell,then check your broadband is working and check that you are getting the correct broadband speed too.;)