[PLUG-TALK] Telephone Test Set

[drew wymore]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 8:22 PM, Pete Lancashire <pete at petelancashire.com> wrote:
> yep know about them too much (old gig), thats why was trying to find the banjo
> sometime an old pots phone can be the pits outside falls over, cant keep the
> G3 on the hook :-). and for me the butt set was about 5 feet in front
> of me hanging
> behind the back door where it has been for about 3 years !!!
>
> but I do have at least 50 5xx/25xx's let me see if one has a modular
> cord hanging
> from it, you see I use to be a collector of said iron.
>
> let me go look in the basement a bit more .. get back in a few
>
> -pete
>
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Richard C. Steffens <rsteff at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Rich Shepard wrote:
>>>    One of the lines here intermittently loses the dial tone, or shuts down in
>>> the midst of a conversation. Verizon charges a lot of money if they send a
>>> tech and the problem is inside the house. Therefore, I'd like to isolate the
>>> problem to inside or outside.
>>>
>>>    One way to do this, the Verizon tech rep told me, is to open the junction
>>> box on the side of the house when that line is dead and hook up a phone to
>>> the dead line. If it's dead outside, too, then it's their problem and they
>>> fix it at no cost to me.
>>>
>>>    Does anyone have a test handset I could borrow to try this the next time
>>> the line is silent? I can't see needing to buy my own since I'd have highly
>>> infrequent use for it.
>>>
>>
>> If I understand your problem correctly, you are over thinking it.
>>
>> This does not usually require a test handset, but just an ordinary
>> telephone. I keep a Western Electric 2500 set on hand for just such
>> purposes -- plain old desk style telephone with no whistles, although it
>> does have a bell.
>>
>> When you open the network interface box on the outside of the house you
>> should see an RJ-11 plug connected to an RJ-11 jack. Disconnect the
>> plug, which is the house side of your wiring, and plug in your phone. If
>> you have dial tone, than the problem is in the house. If not, the
>> problem is in the street.
>>
>> Of course, if your house is old enough, and your phone connection also
>> is old enough, you might not have a modern network interface box
>> (they've been in use since at least the early 1990s). If that's the
>> case, you can still work this out with a jack you can get at Radio Shack
>> or similar. It would take a bit longer, since you'd have to disconnect
>> the house side wiring from the street. You'd have to do that with a test
>> handset, too.
>>
>> The first step is to open up the network interface box and see what you
>> have.
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dick Steffens
>>
>>
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I have a butt set and toner but they're sitting in storage .. if
someone else can't come up with the gear I can dig it out if need be.

Drew-