Home Phone HELP!

[Raffi]

Been having intermittent telephone problems at home, line goes dead, can only receive incoming calls, lots of static, and sometimes dead. Being somewhat hand, I opened the box to take a look inside to see if I could diagnose the problem.

The phone company says if its not their problem they will charge me $80 to come out and look, and I want to see if I can be sure of whether it is their problem or not.

Can anyone give me any ideas, I was stumped...

Raffi

[LCHIEN]

there's two regular RJ-11 jacks pictured there. Allowing up to two lines into your house but i'll assume there's only one.

If you bring a standard working phone out to the box unplug the RJ11 going into your house (this disconnects all the house wiring) and plug your test phoine it into the active RJ11 then you should have phone service on that phone. If you don't then the problem is on their side. If you do, the problem is on your side.

Loring's advice is spot on. I should add emphasis to his direction to use a standard phone, as opposed to one with wireless or answering machine, as these require they be plugged into house power to operate. The simple standard phones are powered from the phone cable entirely. That's what you want to use.

yes, i meant to say that - use a simple line-powered phone, no power wart, no radio, no nothing

[Uncle Cracker]

Loring's advice is spot on. I should add emphasis to his direction to use a standard phone, as opposed to one with wireless or answering machine, as these require they be plugged into house power to operate. The simple standard phones are powered from the phone cable entirely. That's what you want to use.

[JSUPreston]

Raffi, how many phones do you have in the house? I've installed and rewired a few of thos boxes before, and your's is wired up a lot differently that I'm used to seeing.

[JSUPreston]

BTW: The left side of the box should still be covered. That's considered phone system property. Your responsibility starts at the two RJ11 jacks. If you do call the phone company out, you probably should put the cover back on that left side before they get there...assuming it was covered to begin with.

[steve-norrell]

Been there, done that.

I had to do what Loren suggested to convince the phone techies that it was the line and not the wiring in my house. Eventually they came and did some kind of a work-around.

Could it be that they are letting land lines deteriorate in the hopes that we would all go wireless. Imagine how much they would save if they had no wires to maintain. (Oops, was that a mini-rant?)

Regards, Steve

[JoeyGee]

Is it just me, or is there a lot of corrosion one one of the terminals on the Telco side of that box? Again, I would test the jacks as others have mentioned. If the line is intermittent, I would move that wire around a bit on the corroded side to see if the line drops.

[Tom Slick]

I recently had intermittent issues with my telco. I sprayed the terminals and wires with de-ox-it, then loosened and tightened everthing.....fixed!

[Raffi]

Thanks for the responses:

-Yes, I plugged a line (old style phone) into the jack, and it worked, only intermittently
-I have a phone jack that I rigged to have just the two lines coming out of it, and I touched it to the four "phone company" bolts, again, dead.
-When I touched one lead to the ground, and one to one of the two lines for my house I got a faint dial tone and a ton of static (see picture #2)
-I opened the left side of the box so I could test the line coming from the telco

[LCHIEN]

you're not supposed to touch any of that stuff on the left, Your access is the two RJ11 on the right.

[LinuxRandal]

The lower right (hard to tell from the picture, but I believe the left). The phone jacks (like your phone plugs into, unless you still have the old four PRONG style). You unplug their plug and plug in your phone.

I can tell you there was intermittent problems over around my parents. My parents were NOT having problems, until the phone company came out. It turned out, they fixed a problem down the street, and forced the cause to find a new home. Mice in the metal junction box.

[BobSch]

Unplug the jacks in the box, call the phone co and have them check the line. they should be able to see the fault. From your description of being able to pull a dial tone by touching one side to ground, it sounds like one of the two wires coming in is bad.

[Raffi]

thanks folks, I'll be giving verizon a call

[David D]

Thanks for the responses:

-Yes, I plugged a line (old style phone) into the jack, and it worked, only intermittently
-I have a phone jack that I rigged to have just the two lines coming out of it, and I touched it to the four "phone company" bolts, again, dead.
-When I touched one lead to the ground, and one to one of the two lines for my house I got a faint dial tone and a ton of static (see picture #2)
-I opened the left side of the box so I could test the line coming from the telco

If you plug into the RJ11 in the TELCO box and you still have a problem, then the problem lies on the TELCO side. You shouldn't have to worry about being charged for anything. The problem will be their responsibility.