How To Install Telephones

When I was young we had one telephone in the house. It was "permanently" wired to the wall in the hallway by a technician from the phone company, and the phone belonged to the company. Today things are different. There are dozens of phone companies. You can buy phones of hundreds of different kinds from stores all over town, and you may wire them up yourself.

The modular plugs and jacks used in phone installations come in four common sizes. The smallest size is RJ-H and you will find it on the ends of the coil-cord that attaches the handset to the phone. With your telephone "ON HOOK" (hung up, in its normal resting position, the way you keep it when it is not in use) remove one end of the handset cord and look at the plug. You will see four little brass conductors on the plug and four wires inside the jack. This is described in some catalogs as a 4-4 connector. It has room for four contacts and it has four contacts.

The next-larger size is the RJ-11, and this is the most common size in use. The phone is generally connected to the wall by a cord with RJ-11 connectors on both ends. This is a 6-4 connector, because it actually is large enough to have six contacts on the plug and six wires in the jack, but only the four in the middle are supplied. The cord that is crimped into the plug usually has all four wires in it, but the middle two (red & green) are the only ones used by a single-line phone, and your phone cord may only have those two.

The third size connector is the RJ-12. This is a 6-6 connector. It is the same physical size as the RJ-11 but it is supplied with all six contacts and wires installed. This is used when you want to have 3-line phone capability. You can still plug a regular RJ-11 plug from a one or two-line phone into the RJ-12 jack and have access to the first and second lines (#1=red & green) and (#2=yellow & black). To use the third line you will need a genuine RJ-12 plug to reach the outer two wires (blue & white) for line #3.

The fourth size of modular connectors is the RJ-45. This is an 8-8 connector. It is wider than the RJ-11 and RJ-12 (which are the same size, remember) and has eight contacts on the plug and eight wires in the jack. Even if you use RJ-45 plugs, the first phone line attaches to the middle two wires (red & green), etc.

Assuming you will never need more than two phone lines, purchase RJ-11 outlets and four conductor phone cable (red & green, yellow & black). This cable sells for about six cents a foot in thousand foot rolls, a little more in shorter lengths.

Just inside or just outside your house there is a cord that has an RJ-11 plug on the end. This is where your house's wiring connects to the phone company system. It attaches to a single RJ-11 jack which was installed by the the phone company. In case of trouble this is detached and a working phone is used to test the line to see whether the external line is working.

Disconnect the plug from the phone company jack before working on the wires. Beginning with the junction block inside your house and carefully following the color-coded wires, matching the colors throughout, connect all the outlets. Allow enough extra cable at each outlet to make wiring easy (about eight inches).

If you have only one phone line (between your house and the phone company) you only need to hook up the red and green wires at each outlet. The other two are for a second line when needed, and then only those outlets that need the second line need to be connected.

To connect a single-line device (modem, fax machine, single-line phone, etc) to the second line, remove the wall outlet where you want Line 2 and rewire it as follows: connect the yellow wire to the "red" screw and the black wire to the "green" screw. Tape the ends of the other two wires so they don't touch anything. If the line continues from this outlet to another, connect the red wires together, and connect the green wires together.

If you assemble connecting cables with RJ-11 plugs on both ends to go between your phone and the wall, the color sequence must be opposite on one end. When telephone-type connectors (RJ-11, RJ-12, RJ-45) are used for computer communications they are wired the other way (except for modem connections), so be careful.

If you would rather not rewire the outlet to connect to Line #2 (or Line #3), you may order a line changer from me. This consists of a six foot cord that connects from the wall outlet to your single-line appliance (modem, phone, fax, etc) and is custom wired to connect that appliance to line #2 of the outlet (Line #3 adapter available also - please specify). Send me a check for $5 and I'll mail you the adapter (postpaid - first class). Mail your check to: Gordon Speer, 3304 Woodlawn Road, Sterling, IL 61081-4144. Specify "Line #2 adapter" or "Line #3 adapter." Add 25c/ft if you need additional length beyond six feet. DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR MAILING ADDRESS!

"Well AT&T you asked for it!" ....Jean Louisa Kelly - (the MCI girl)