Help !! I normally can find the info I need by searching the web, but not having any luck this time.

I am having phone problems. My line goes dead. I notify the phone company, they tell me that they do a line check and the problem is inside my house. Also, my line often has static noise and I get booted off frequently due not having a solid connection. The phone company is too damn big to care, they say the problem is not theirs.

Does someone know of a site that I can learn about how the phone lines work? Which one of those colored wires does what, how things work, etc etc etc? Local bookstore didn't have anything either. I wouldn't mind buying an inexpensive book if it covered my questions.

Well, to make a long story short, the phone company finally found the problem, it was in their central office computer software. Now my phone works! But I want to know more about how phones and lines and stuff works. Thanks in advance for your help.

Gene

-- gene ward (gward34847@aol.com), December 05, 2001

Answers

What I always do first is take a phone and a short phone line, go outside and open the phone box. I plug the phone in to it. If static is on that box out there, it is not inside your house, and it is their problem. We always get static after hard rains, and it is in their lines somewhere. Goes away after it dries out.

What we did in this old house. The phone Co. put one jack by the front door, minimal expence. Then we plugged in a 3-way plastic thing, and bought 3 50 foot phone cords, and ran them up thru the attic and down in the other rooms. Saved a bunch of money. And you can't get jacks in these old walls anyway.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), December 05, 2001.

Gene,

wow, this sounds exactly like the porblems we experienced for the past 2 winter while we lived in VA. We lived in the boonies and had Verizon or GTE for the ph company. We always had static in the lines when the temp was under 32 degrees. This effected my internet connection and I had a devil of a time staying connected. I had to call the ph company all the time to see if they could fix it so without their success in finding the problem I can relate to your comment about the ph company not caring. It was so bad that the ph techs would come to fix it and he came so often he knew the dogs and goats by name, LOL:):) One time they got close to the problem, was not grounded, but then it still produced static after grounding. It was so frustrating. We sold the farm so the new owners will ahve to deal with the aggrevation now. Good luck in getting it fixed.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), December 05, 2001.

You want to know how stuff works? Well, I have the ideal site for your - it's www.howstuffworks.com . This is a brilliant site - covers an enormous range of things, and very readable as well.

Could be a good resource for homeschoolers of teenage children as well - or advanced students (homeschool or not) of any age.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), December 05, 2001.

Gene,

What the phone company said is correct. They are only responsible from there office to the DEMARC (the plastic box on the side of your hose). If the problem is in the house its the customers issue. One little tip for others with similar problems. Most phone companies have inside line repair service plans, Linebacker, wire insurance. it goes by several names, but it will cover the inside wiring. What you do when you have a problem is add the inside coverage plan to your line for a month or two until the problem is fixed then remove it.

Radio shack has a book on phones that talk about wiring your own. A home phone only uses 2 wires so its pretty easy.

CO software would not cause static on the line. The problem might have been a bad connection in the CO, but it would not have been software. People are willing to accept blame that its a computer problem rather than a human problem.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), December 05, 2001.

You only have 2 wires that actually connect your service. A third wire is used for lighted phone pads. You can see the color code at the main box on your house.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 05, 2001.

Hi..

I don't know if the url Don listed has a page specifically for phone wiring. So, below is the site I used when I did some wiring in my old house. I thought it made the whole project very easy to understand. Good luck!

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/phone_wiring.html

-- pc (jasper2@doglover.com), December 05, 2001.

Gene don't pay for inside phone lines! A large roll of phone line cord is less than 20$ and is easily done yourself! Anyway you have it in the attic and have rats?

We were having problems with static after rains, we had the phone company out they searched out the phone lines with a large tool, alot like an ome (sp) used to find electrical lines. Sure enough we had a large crack in the housing of the lines buried by the phone company. As they dug it up patched it with nothing more than a huge glob of grease and wrapping it, we snickered to ourselves that this line was right below our, long gone, firepit which I used to cook everyday during our house building phase! They didn't charge us, but I am fairly certain from all the charred ground they dug up they knew exactly whose fault this was, ours :)

I learned a trick from my neighbor next door, the squeaky wheel gets greased, and though I pride myself on being a very strong woman, I did use her tactics, called everyday, talked to a repair service man, got his name and continued to call until they sent somebody. I must have a star * (probably a warning) by my name at the phone company as I always get fast prompt and very polite service :) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 05, 2001.

Jay, Color codes are not a good indicator anymore. The old, Green,Red, black, yellow wires are being replaced with many differnt colors. Stripped colors. Most new homes are wired with cat3 or 5 wiring so it can be used for both data and voice. So now you have 8 wires to deal with instead of 4.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), December 05, 2001.

Vicki, yes a roll is cheap, but it may not be easy. If its a newer home running wires is a pain in the butt. A phone line properly installed in a new home should be stapled down so you just cant pull a new cable with the old. Running wires between walls is not a easy task for someone who has never did it. Pay the $3 for 1 or two months and let the phone company fix the lines. Then remove the line service from your phone lines. $6 is a lot cheaper than $20 roll and you dont have to do any of the work.

-- gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), December 05, 2001.

AACK!

This is an old ploy by the phone company to get more money out of you. They will turn off your line in their office and wait for you to call. When you call, they say "our computer says everything is fine to your house. If you like, we'll send a repair crew out. If it turns out to be our problem, it will cost you nothing. Otherwise, there will be a minimum charge of $80. But tell you what - if you like, I'll sneak you into the 'linebacker' program. This is where for a mere $2 per month, if anything goes wrong with your internal lines, we will fix that for 'free' too."

USWest would do that within a month of every new install. I remember when I was young and moving around a bit - I went through this five times.

Most homes now have that little gray box you can open and there is a phone jack. Take your phone outside and plug it into that jack and see if it works. Then call the phone company and say the jack at the little gray box is not working.

If you sign up for linebacker, that just means they are going to pull this dirty little trick on more people because it pays.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), December 05, 2001.

Gene, go to where the telephone plugs in to the wall, disconnect it and look for corrison inside the jack especually if you have foul smelling water, the hydrogen fumes are attracted to copper via static electricity.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), December 11, 2001.