My phone sex hell, by Westbury man
Oct. 26th, 2012 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerOkay, the sex was about as metaphorical as it can get, given that my problem was with getting things to connect that really didn't want to.
For some time now we have had a lash-up of adaptors in the hall, whereby the television, the broadband router and, oh yes, the phone were connected to the master socket in the hall. This was not ideal, because the things tended to get stepped on and end up in bits, and the phone plug tended to come out for reasons not readily apparent. Jan has been asking me to fix this for several years, and I've been putting it off. Well, friends and neighbours, I finally got to grips with it the day before yesterday and I'm here to tell you that I was right.
There was this kit, you see. A plug, two wall-mounted sockets, about a hundred feet of wire, colour-coded according to the approved system, blue, orange, white with an orange bit and white with a blue bit. Nice single core, eye-straining tiny but relatively easy to strip. I followed the instructions, mounted the first wall socket, connected everything up, plugged it in. The router worked. The phone didn't. I tried and tried. No phone. Investigating the plug, I discovered that it was an RJ11 plug in a BT adaptor, which also had a BT socket in it. Checked the old connections. Everything worked. Tried the phone plugged into the adaptor on its own. Nothing. I theorised that it must be a faulty adaptor, and went out to try and get a replacement. Surprise, the replacement didn't work either. I tried to explain to the Countess, who had been staying out of the way, and she mistook my confused incoherence for guilty prevarication and that was fun too. So there I was, with a wall socket mounted, the wire ready for the second socket, and no way of connecting it to the phone line with which our phone would actually work. I knew it wasn't a REN problem, because the phone worked fine with everything else on the old connection but would not work on its own on the new. What I didn't know was how to fix it.
So, on the morrow, off to various electrical places in quest of alternative extension kits. I learned a lot. I learned that nobody in shops knows anything about anything you really want them to regarding the goods they sell (my friends who work in shops honourably excepted), that every single extension kit I could find is colour-coded completely at random and has no instructions, that the wires inside are microscopic copper strands which are far more brittle and fragile than the plastic core that surrounds them, that said plastic core will stretch to infinity when you try to strip it rather than come apart under any pressure that won't actually cut the wires, that three metres is not quite long enough and five is way too much, and that if you can't match the colours of the wires to any standard system then connect them left to right and hope. Incidentally, the web tells me that every single extension kit I've seen on sale in these two days is obsolete.
But now we have one wall socket connected, with the phone and the router plugged into it, and both of them work, and I have sore fingers, fingernails chopped right down to get rid of the tears and chips, a seething hatred for everything connected with telephony, and a strong desire to leave it at that. Especially since, if I try to connect the wire fr the second socket to the first one, the phone stops working.
Let me speak proudly. The phone is working. So if you've tried to phone us in the last few years and not got through, or if you're at a loose end and feel like talking to somebody weird, we are now phoneable. I just wish it could have been a little easier.
For some time now we have had a lash-up of adaptors in the hall, whereby the television, the broadband router and, oh yes, the phone were connected to the master socket in the hall. This was not ideal, because the things tended to get stepped on and end up in bits, and the phone plug tended to come out for reasons not readily apparent. Jan has been asking me to fix this for several years, and I've been putting it off. Well, friends and neighbours, I finally got to grips with it the day before yesterday and I'm here to tell you that I was right.
There was this kit, you see. A plug, two wall-mounted sockets, about a hundred feet of wire, colour-coded according to the approved system, blue, orange, white with an orange bit and white with a blue bit. Nice single core, eye-straining tiny but relatively easy to strip. I followed the instructions, mounted the first wall socket, connected everything up, plugged it in. The router worked. The phone didn't. I tried and tried. No phone. Investigating the plug, I discovered that it was an RJ11 plug in a BT adaptor, which also had a BT socket in it. Checked the old connections. Everything worked. Tried the phone plugged into the adaptor on its own. Nothing. I theorised that it must be a faulty adaptor, and went out to try and get a replacement. Surprise, the replacement didn't work either. I tried to explain to the Countess, who had been staying out of the way, and she mistook my confused incoherence for guilty prevarication and that was fun too. So there I was, with a wall socket mounted, the wire ready for the second socket, and no way of connecting it to the phone line with which our phone would actually work. I knew it wasn't a REN problem, because the phone worked fine with everything else on the old connection but would not work on its own on the new. What I didn't know was how to fix it.
So, on the morrow, off to various electrical places in quest of alternative extension kits. I learned a lot. I learned that nobody in shops knows anything about anything you really want them to regarding the goods they sell (my friends who work in shops honourably excepted), that every single extension kit I could find is colour-coded completely at random and has no instructions, that the wires inside are microscopic copper strands which are far more brittle and fragile than the plastic core that surrounds them, that said plastic core will stretch to infinity when you try to strip it rather than come apart under any pressure that won't actually cut the wires, that three metres is not quite long enough and five is way too much, and that if you can't match the colours of the wires to any standard system then connect them left to right and hope. Incidentally, the web tells me that every single extension kit I've seen on sale in these two days is obsolete.
But now we have one wall socket connected, with the phone and the router plugged into it, and both of them work, and I have sore fingers, fingernails chopped right down to get rid of the tears and chips, a seething hatred for everything connected with telephony, and a strong desire to leave it at that. Especially since, if I try to connect the wire fr the second socket to the first one, the phone stops working.
Let me speak proudly. The phone is working. So if you've tried to phone us in the last few years and not got through, or if you're at a loose end and feel like talking to somebody weird, we are now phoneable. I just wish it could have been a little easier.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-26 05:03 pm (UTC)That's by no means an easy job.
Many modern phone sockets use IDC (Insulation Displacement Connectors) so that you don't have to strip the wires, but when you force them into the prongs, the metal prongs pierce through the insulation to get to the wire core.
So you end up either doing it with your fingers and a small screwdriver, or buying the specialist IDC tool (£1.50 from Amazon)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Solwise-TOOL-KROHN-PLASTIC-Plastic-insertion-tool/dp/B000LXPLTG
Also the first socket on the line (I believe) has to be a Master socket, and the subsequent ones shouldn't be (but I really know nothing about this, my brother would though, as he's done this professionally, rewiring tower blocks and hospitals ... if you want I could put him in touch with you to give some aid/assistance)
But, seriously, well done for getting it working!
no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 11:27 am (UTC)I learned that nobody in shops knows anything about anything you really want them to regarding the goods they sell
Oh yes!!! I've found I have to do so much research and often end up far more knowledgeable than those trying to sell things to me. Oh well it helps but it takes so much time!