How To Wire A Phone Line?

Maz · May 26, 2005

does i need to have a terminal box nowaday to collect the main phone line before i wire the master phone socket? took my apart when the window people replacing my front door and frame, and the old terminal box is broken, any bt tech peeps here can help? if i need which type (terminal box and master socket) do i need and where i can get them from?

any help will be grateful, thank guys

Brettster · May 26, 2005

Im not 100% sure Tony but IIRC your first box where the phone line comes into the house must use a master socket. you can get them from maplins and places like that.

any extentsion phones, need to use normal non master sockets.

as long as you can remember which holes the wires go into it should be easy to just swap it over :)

Rodders_UK · May 26, 2005

The sockets that Maplins sell have wiring diagrams on the packs with wire colours - you can get master sockets and slave sockets there (the master sockets have a capacitor in for the ring circuit)

eXOBeX · May 26, 2005

Hang on, is this going in a house or an IS? :D

The two wires coming in will usually work either way round. They connect to points A and B in your NTE5 LineBox. On a normal "Master" socket they connect to pins 5 and 2 respectively.

If you have a multimeter you can put them the right way round anyway. Set it to a volts DC range and put it across the two wires. Then:-

If you get -48V, the wire on your black probe is A, the one on the red probe is B.

If you get 48V, the wire on your black probe is B, the one on the red probe is A.

The Master socket will extract the ringing current and present it on pin 3. If this is missing, some telephones won't ring when you call them.

Between Master and Secondaries all you need are pins 2 (blue, white bands), 3 (orange, white bands) and 5 (white, blue bands). Others are unused but can be connected just for neatness.

Lots more info here.

Maz · May 26, 2005

Thank guys, i forgot to say, before i took everything out, the old setup was the phone line come in from outside, then its collected to a terminal box (2 wires), then another wire goto to the main master socket (5 or 6 wires cant remember), i just wonder do i need to collect the 2 wires from the outside to a terminal box or can i just collect that 2 wires stright to a master socket?

Regards Tony

btw the garage is big....hehe :D :D :D :D :D ( not finished yet, still got to render the brick effect to match the house.)

Maz · May 26, 2005

The two wires coming in will usually work either way round. They connect to points A and B in your NTE5 LineBox. On a normal "Master" socket they connect to pins 5 and 2 respectively.
If you have a multimeter you can put them the right way round anyway. Set it to a volts DC range and put it across the two wires. Then:-

If you get -48V, the wire on your black probe is A, the one on the red probe is B.

If you get 48V, the wire on your black probe is B, the one on the red probe is A.

do i have to collect this 2 wire to a NTE5 linebox? or can it go stright to the master socket matey? and does it matter which wires goto point A/B? thank for the advice guys.... :) :) :) :)