Odd master socket wiring - can't get 2ndary socket working

Hi all,

I'm having a bit of trouble getting a secondary phone socket wired up correctly. I've read and re-read everything on www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm yet can't get a dial tone (on the secondary socket) for love nor money.

Some details:

Master socket in lounge is working fine. Micro filter is attached splitting into phone and modem. Looks like a standard(?) NTE5 to me, customer-detachable section looks like this one - www.readman.dsl.pipex.com/other/UKphonecatwiring_files/image027.jpg

Secondary socket - I've replaced the blank panel in our study with a Mercury 283942 socket (www.chsinteractive.co.uk/images/products/1205455605-24103700.jpg), and wired blue/white to 2 and white/blue to 5. 1,3,4+6 are all unconnected.

Now things get messy. When I looked at the master socket wiring closer, I discovered that there was no external BT drop wiring connected to the A+B points. Instead, the blue/white and white/blue from the extension cable is connected to points B + A respectively.

There is no sign of the external BT line anywhere.

Now I'm pretty confused and wondering what to try next. It's probably worth mentioning we live on the 5th floor in a block of flats so maybe the actual external line doesn't actually make it into our flat...? I'm just clutching at straws tbh!

Any help anyone could offer would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Rob

Are you sure that the cable is the same one at both ends?

It could be that the BT lines come to a central box and then run out from there using internal cable to each individual flat. And possibly the extension is wired back to the distribution point too but not connected.

OR

Is there a junction box that you are unaware of?

photos might help - are you saying there is only a single pair connected anywhere on the master ?

Thanks for your thought guys.

MHC - had a further hunt around and found a box in our boiler cupboard (photo below). Appears it wasn't the same wire I was connecting at master + secondary at all. All the socket cables are labeled with tags BT1/BT2 etc up to BT5, with BT1 being the master, others secondary (I'm trying to enable BT4 btw). This box in the boiler room has the other ends of those 5 extension cables + another extension cable coming from somewhere outside our flat. This external extension cable has blue/white + white/blue connected to the same colours on BT1 - hopefully this'll be clearer when you look at the pics.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6529/boxinboilerroo...
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/9072/mastersocket.jpg

Any thoughts on how to proceed?

Cheers,
Rob

I am guessing that the master socket is actually BT1 the one in your hand, in which case the line from outside comes to the boiler cupboard and is crimped onto a CAT5 pair to your master.

What you should do is take a coloured pair from this cat5 cable at BT1 and connect it to the faceplate of the master socket, i.e. pins 2 and 5 using an IDC insertion tool.

This pair then can be joined to the appropriate extension back in the boiler cupboard.

Wiring looks like it was installed by the builders, as BT dont use CAT5e cable for internal work.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I am guessing that the master socket is actually BT1 the one in your hand, in which case the line from outside comes to the boiler cupboard and is crimped onto a CAT5 pair to your master.

What you should do is take a coloured pair from this cat5 cable at BT1 and connect it to the faceplate of the master socket, i.e. pins 2 and 5 using an IDC insertion tool.

This pair then can be joined to the appropriate extension back in the boiler cupboard.

Wiring looks like it was installed by the builders, as BT dont use CAT5e cable for internal work.

Possibly not the builders or electricians either - they never use Cat5e! Although the crimps used are BT gel filled style and not many people use those.

As you suggest, choose another coloured pair - Brown would be the best choice as it nor normally used in telephone cables. Connect those to 2 and 5 at the master then on the extension socket connect the same coloured pair and finally in the boiler cupboard connect the pairs together using a suitable crimp or IDC

Many thanks guys - will have a go at this tonight. Probably safe to assume this fixed... I hope!

Take it one step at a time, and if you get stuck someone here should be able to assist.

If you keep the master as it is - and there is no reason to touch the Blue & Blue/White connections you can plug your modem in there and logon here.

The only small problem I can see is that the removable half of the master front plate will be "tied" to the socket as you will be using the brown pair from the Cat5e.

a9801Rob,

My cousin had similar wiring issues and whilst the wiring was exposed he nipped out and got one of these http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/... to replace his old master socket.

He connected the pair from the internal BT junction box (blue/white and white/blue) to the back of the socket, ran his phone extension from the filtered faceplate and connected phone + router to the front of the faceplate. Now he's got a really good stable BB connection and both phones work perfectly.

Best of luck,

4M2.

Edited by 4M2 (Wed 09-Mar-11 14:01:29)

And what will that do apart from mess up the line even more.

1. Interfering with the main incoming connection is illegal.

2. Installing a splitter in place of a master will cause numerous problems and make fault finding impossible.



Note to the OP - do NOT follow this suggestion.