How to rewire this phone jack

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Eisenfaust8

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I need help with what to do on this phone jack. I thought it would be a simple swap with the screws, but as you can see on the right side of the old jack, there are 4 wires that are in small little round holes. The other picture is the new jack without such holes. Do I just transfer the wires held by the screws and forget the little ones?

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What is a phone jack? :hide:

Honestly, I use to just copy what is seen on the older unit.
 
The jack is labeled R,B,G,Y as red, black, green, yellow. That is how I would hook it up.

Yes forget about the little ones. Those are the wires from the actual jack. Your new jack has them preconnected with the jack.
 
Line # 1 is usually just the red and green wires. The other two are usually for secondary phone lines.

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Some times you find red and green reversed. Do not correct that. I did that and found I was getting someone else's calls until I put them back the way I found it.
 
Unless you are still using 1960's party lines, there should be no way to receive other person's calls from reversing wires. Those wires are dedicated to one household.

Then again, you silly canooks may be working with an entirely different system that we in the US are dealing with. :p
 
havasu said:
Unless you are still using 1960's party lines, there should be no way to receive other person's calls from reversing wires. Those wires are dedicated to one household.

Then again, you silly canooks may be working with an entirely different system that we in the US are dealing with. :p
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Not a party line although the first time I ran into it was in the 70s.
The last time I had a basement suite put in I questioned why they didn't run a second wire from the road. He said I am not supposed to tell you how but we just switch red and blue for the second line.
I know it worked because my daughter lived in the suite we put a another phone in the basement so she could answer my phone. For that phone we just went back to matching colours.:)

Just talked to an old phone guy. it was done with houses that only had 3 wires. Was often used used for telex and fax machines. He was not sure if they still do it, as he has been away from it for 25 years.
 
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That makes sense. I just find phone lines so archaic these days. My house phone uses wireless technology via a nearby cell tower, and my alarm system has its own cell phone technology built in to alert the police.
 
And really, who has a landline today?

Those little pesky low voltage wires - I just rip them out!! Along with the door bell wires!!!!!! (remote door bells work great - most of the time).

I pay $35 a year for MagicJack (VoIP). My local cable company wants $40/month for a "landline" connection ($540 per year).
 
My land line phone was $55 a month, then $17 a month in taxes. We got Smart Talk, that transferred my phone number, confirmed that when I dial "911" it reads my address, and it works off the cell tower just down the street. We now pay $15 a month and mama is completely happy.
 
Your phone only uses two wires. Most of the cables have four wires so you can have two lines in one cable.
Swapping red/green for green/red will not get you someone else's calls unless you are on a two party line. The two wires on the phone are known as tip and ring. One party rings tip to ground the other party rings ring to ground.

And if you damage the ground rod with your lawn mower your phone won't ring.
 
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Christmas trees and bumblebees, that's an old saying I heard early on that's helped me remember the color coding (Rd/Grn and Blk/Yel).
 
JoeD said:
Your phone only uses two wires. Most of the cables have four wires so you can have two lines in one cable.
Swapping red/green for green/red will not get you someone else's calls unless you are on a two party line. The two wires on the phone are known as tip and ring. One party rings tip to ground the other party rings ring to ground.
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I think I would know if I had a party line.:nono:
 
I still do at my cottage and I have had the issue of the lines being swapped and my phone ringing for the other guy. The telephone has to be wired special. You can't install a phone from a non party line at my house. It screws up both phone lines.

And if you damage the ground rod with your lawn mower your phone won't ring.
 
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JoeD said:
I still do at my cottage and I have had the issue of the lines being swapped and my phone ringing for the other guy. The telephone has to be wired special. You can't install a phone from a non party line at my house. It screws up both phone lines.

And if you damage the ground rod with your lawn mower your phone won't ring.
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In the 70s I worked for a company that had branches all over BC. Each was just a salesman working out of the house. They all had the same problem with phones, they wanted a private line, a business line and a telex machine.The answer every time was you can just have two phones on one set of wires to the house and the wire was still 3 wire.. What I remember of party lines , after they got separate rings you still shared the line and could only use one at a time. That is not what I am talking about.
 
Sounds similar. Probably the three lines were tip, ring and ground. One phone rang tip to ground. the other rang ring to ground.

The system where you had different rings for everyone and everyone heard the rings was a different party line system.
 
JoeD said:
Sounds similar. Probably the three lines were tip, ring and ground. One phone rang tip to ground. the other rang ring to ground.

The system where you had different rings for everyone and everyone heard the rings was a different party line system.
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I can't find any thing on it. They do you different frequencies but that doesn't explain it. The yellow was the ringer and it would give 90 volts DC, you can imagine how I know that.
 
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