Changing spur/star wiring to NTE5.

Evening all,

I have a friend with a pretty poor connection. He has had a very intermittent connection since moving into the place a few years back but thought it was due to his location out in the country side.

We have determined that he doesn't have a master socket as such, The line comes in on a drop wire through the roof to a box which then has two house extensions connected straight to that. I assume this is star wiring.

I told him about removing the 'usually' orange wire and sent links to guides. Being a bit ambitious he snipped the orange wire in the loft which he said knocked out his phone.

Obviously he snipped the incoming line from the drop wire.

He temporarily has that snip twisted together to maintain a connection. Now this needs sorted and hopefully sort out his net at the same time.

I believe one of the extensions goes to a socket in his living room and another to the kitchen.
Would it just be a case of reconnect the incoming line to the socket in the living room and make that a master socket then connect the kitchen one to the new master socket? Job done?

I see two possibilities. Obviously for both that snipped wire needs a proper join putting in.

The way you suggest will work fine as long as he is happy to run a CW1308 grade twisted pair wire (proper telephone cabling) between the kitchen and living room. It needs to be from a reputable supplier from such as RS Components (who do sell on Amazon) as there are plenty of cheapo low quality or non-twisted flat imitations than claim to be CW1308.

It is important to use one of the twisted pairs between the two sockets. For example blue or blue/white with white/blue. Blue or blue/white with anything orange or green or whatever would be using a "split pair" and cause disastrous interference.

What I might do would be replace the box in the roof, assuming it is inside not on the eaves outside, with an NTE5 master fitted with an NTE5B faceplate instead of an NTE5A. (The NTE5B is a blank plate with no socket but with the IDC connectors on the back). Both the sockets could then be run from the IDC connectors on the back of the NTE5B. That's as long as it isn't already an NTE5/NTE5B and we are up the wrong tree as to what the problem is. Note that the same applies to your method, if it is an NTE5/5B.

One of the two current sockets is probably an LJ 2/1A (master) and the other an LJ 2/3A (extension), see this page. The difference being the cylindrical capacitor at the top. The LJ 2/1A should be replaced with an LJ 2/3A in my method. In your method it is the LJ 2/1A that should be wired from the loft.

In all cases he may choose to fit filtered faceplates for neatness, such as the ADSL Nation XTE-2005 for the NTE5 if he does it the way you suggest, and the XTF-68/85 for extensions. (The 68 and 85 are the sizes of the possible backboxes). Clarity and Solwise are also recommended suppliers of equivalent kit.

I expect you know an IDC/Krone tool is a good idea for inserting the wires.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 16-Jul-14 19:26:41)

Is there any noise on the line when listening to the quiet line test? If there is call out an engineer, he'll fault the circuit and install an NTE 5.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I see two possibilities. Obviously for both that snipped wire needs a proper join putting in.

The way you suggest will work fine as long as he is happy to run a CW1308 grade twisted pair wire (proper telephone cabling) between the kitchen and living room. It needs to be from a reputable supplier from such as RS Components (who do sell on Amazon) as there are plenty of cheapo low quality or non-twisted flat imitations than claim to be CW1308.

It is important to use one of the twisted pairs between the two sockets. For example blue or blue/white with white/blue. Blue or blue/white with anything orange or green or whatever would be using a "split pair" and cause disastrous interference.

What I might do would be replace the box in the roof, assuming it is inside not on the eaves outside, with an NTE5 master fitted with an NTE5B faceplate instead of an NTE5A. (The NTE5B is a blank plate with no socket but with the IDC connectors on the back). Both the sockets could then be run from the IDC connectors on the back of the NTE5B. That's as long as it isn't already an NTE5/NTE5B and we are up the wrong tree as to what the problem is. Note that the same applies to your method, if it is an NTE5/5B.

One of the two current sockets is probably an LJ 2/1A (master) and the other an LJ 2/3A (extension), see this page. The difference being the cylindrical capacitor at the top. The LJ 2/1A should be replaced with an LJ 2/3A in my method. In your method it is the LJ 2/1A that should be wired from the loft.

In all cases he may choose to fit filtered faceplates for neatness, such as the ADSL Nation XTE-2005 for the NTE5 if he does it the way you suggest, and the XTF-68/85 for extensions. (The 68 and 85 are the sizes of the possible backboxes). Clarity and Solwise are also recommended suppliers of equivalent kit.

I expect you know an IDC/Krone tool is a good idea for inserting the wires.

Robero,

Many thanks for the detailed explanation!

This is what we have in the loft (Not outside or anything) at present.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/PVuHnxL.jpg[/IMG]

So option one is to run a new CW1308 cable between the living room and kitchen and connect to the drop wire with a new terminating box? Would we have to pull a cable for the living room to the drop cable too? Make the item in the living an NTE5A master socket?


Option 2:

Fit an NTE5B socket in the loft and connect both existing extensions into the IDC points on the back of it? Would we be better to run the CW1308 with this option also?

I'm guessing doing the easiest option would be the preference.


Option 1 parts:

CW1308 cable
Connection box
NTE5A for living room

Option 2 parts:

NTE5B box for the loft
2 off LJ 2/3A for living room and kitchen

I already have a good quality IDC tool so that is sorted.

Looks like there used to be two separate lines. The incoming dropwire pair one - orange and white is connected to pair one of one six wire.

Pair two of the dropwire - green and black is connected to pair one of another six wire

In reply to a post by partial:

Looks like there used to be two separate lines. The incoming dropwire pair one - orange and white is connected to pair one of one six wire.

Pair two of the dropwire - green and black is connected to pair one of another six wire

That is what I can make out. We found another similar box in his hall which runs up to the loft also but it is now unused so possibly that is the case.

I guess I'll need to go round with a multimeter and buzz the cables out (Disconnected of course)

So if one line is unused that means we only have one cable feeding down into the room which makes it easier. So NTE5B JB in the loft and then just normal secondary sockets there after then?

Difficult to say as you have only posted a picture of a joint in the loft and no evidence of star wiring.

In reply to a post by partial:

Difficult to say as you have only posted a picture of a joint in the loft and no evidence of star wiring.

I was just going by what he believed it was. I guess without a clearer picture we can't tell from that. To me it does look like one extension goes to one pair from the drop line and the other goes to the live pair of the drop wire.

I'll need to go out with my multimeter to confirm I think. So would star wiring be if both extensions fed back to the live cores and connected together there? That's what I have in my head.

I think I'll go down the route of the NTE5B socket into the loft with connecting the extension socket into that.

There is no extension in the picture you have posted, just two separate lines jointed, one that is likely to be unused.

Fitting an NTE at this point will make no difference to anything other than spending an hour wasting your time and listening to someone moaning about their broadband.

If you want to eliminate star wiring, you need to find the point where the star occurs.

Edited by deleted (Wed 16-Jul-14 22:28:12)

In reply to a post by partial:

There is no extension in the picture you have posted, just two separate lines jointed. Fitting an NTE at this point will make no difference to anything other than spending an hour wasting your time and listening to someone moaning about their broadband. .

But we need to join the snipped cable into something, This is why I'm going to go that route. At least if it connected properly and not twisted together then that is half the battle!!

We can then figure out the issue from there on out with going through the sockets in the living room and kitchen.

Maybe he got confused with the description and presumed it was the star wiring. I haven't seen it in person. Just arming myself with info before travelling to his.

Edited by deleted (Wed 16-Jul-14 22:31:27)