Did I mention that I don't like telephones?

[mdlbear]

That goes double for telephone wiring. Spent much too long trying to get the livingroom phones reconnected after the plumbers managed to disconnect the old outside wiring that I shouldn't have been using anymore anyway. What I have now is a totally jury-rigged piece of junk, but it at least works well enough to provide a dialtone. On the correct line, which was the most recent in a long chain of problems.

At least the two Cat-5 cables from the livingroom to the server closet were intact; would have been much harder if I'd had to replace them.

Comments

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Phone Wiring is a fairly easy science. The best wiring to use for phone lines? Cat5e. That way, you have 3 extra pairs of wire to work with down the road if you find you need them.

The best part about it is that since it's not cat6 and you have no intention of making it GigE, you don't have to worry about minimum radius for spec.

Basically, run it vertically or horizontally, then turn it into the hole for breaching the wall. Keeping an eye on the length required, I find it's easier to run from where it's going to (on the inside) than where it's coming from (on the outside). That allows for pulling as much as necessary, tacking it into place, and then pulling back any overage.

Phone wiring is RJ-11, 2-pair. Line 1 is the internal pair, line 2 is the external pair. Just remember what colors you're using and it's a breeze. (hint: write down the wire colors you're using on both the outside box and the inside punchdown.)

Yeah, you know all this already. Lots of people don't, though, and they may read your journal. :)

[mdlbear]

Yeah; though figuring out the correspondance between the cat5 and 4-wire color codes was one of the things that took a long time a couple of years ago -- it's not terribly well documented. All of the really old phone wiring is 4-wire, of course.

The things that took a long time this time were stupid things like bad crimps on the plugs, not being able to find any of the eighty zillion RJ-11 patch cords I know I have, and stuff like that.