Adding a phone jack

paintdrying

How do I connect actual land line phone wires. I want to add a few phone jacks. I will be using the new style jacks that you plug the phone into. All my phones are rotory. I also want to run a few night lights off the phone lines. These connections need to be 100 % as I do not have a cell phone. I was hoping to just tap into a line in the basement but I could come off the main outside.

rrolleston

Night lights on phone wire?

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joecaption

Is this a really old post?

md2lgyk

Well, the OP joined this forum in July 2012 so it's not a super-old post. What I'd like to know is where in the world is there still a phone company that accommodates rotary phones? And where can you even buy one?

To answer the OP's question, phone jacks are wired in parallel just like 120V outlets. They have four terminals, each with a different-colored wire. The bulk phone wire has the same four colors. Only two actually have to be connected, but I've always just connected all four rather than try to figure out which two to use.

paintdrying

Ha, ha. I think I found what I need. Bigbox sells these gel filled connectors. The lights from a phone line is an old idea. http://www.gizmag.com/led-rj11-lamp/13289/

A Squared

I'll bet that every phone company in the US will support one. The POTS (plain old telephone service) that comes over a copper wire pair is a standard that was established when rotary phones were common. I have a rotary phone in my house. It's one of those pea-green Bell desk models, the same as they were 40 years ago (in fact it may be 40 years old) I have it just as a curiosity, but it plugs right into my land line and works fine. Kinda hard to press one for English, but other than that it's plug and play.

brric

What are you referring to as night lights?

md2lgyk

Then you would lose that bet. My parents lived in California, and had the same wall-mounted rotary phone for over 40 years. More than ten years ago they had to replace it because the phone company updated their equipment and would no longer support rotary dialing. He complained about that until the day he died - waste of a perfectly good phone, he said. And he had trouble hearing the artificial bell ringer on the new one.

A Squared

Interesting. Okay, how about this: I bet that the telephone utility I use in Anchorage Alaska will support a rotary phone.

Wanna take that bet?


Edit: Did a little reading on the subject and it would appear that most utilities will support rotary dialing, although obviously not all.

gregzoll

No, Paintdrying has been sniffing too many paint fumes again.

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A Squared

well, to answer the question, I just completely re-did the phone wiring in my house. I brought new wire in from my service box to a punchdown block I installed in a central location. Then I ran wire from there to each jack location. I used Cat 5 cable, but mostly because that's what I had on hand. 4 wire telepone cable will work just fine and it will have the proper color coding.

md2lgyk

No, not really. I'm sure you know what your local telco will support.

Beautiful state, by the way. Had the occasion a few years ago to spend some time at Eielson AFB.

dftc

You can tap into the line in your basement if you want. Phone lines are low voltage so they are a little easier to DIY safely than other wiring. It sounds like you have a very old network installed currently, possibly with hard-wired phones (since you refer to plugs as "new")
For your purposes you can buy some of the old 4 wire phone cable and some 'jacks' with screw terminals. The terminals are almost always color coded to match the proper wire color.
There are lots of good tutorials with pictures available on the Internet and most of the "electrical wiring made easy" type books have a section on this as well.

As far as lights, I guess it's possible, but please buy lights designed for use with phone lines. Also, it should go without saying that you should not try to tie you phone line into a high voltage cable to get power for lights.

A Squared

Ahh, too bad. Thought I could pick up some easy cash that way.

Kyle_in_rure

Most areas I've seen still support rotary phones over regular lines, you just can't use them for those voice recording menus, which isn't entirely a bad thing, I hate those anyway.