86 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
How to Connect a disconnected Second Line to the House (Main) Line...
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(general knowledge & experience courtesy of The Hooded Man)
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Chances are that a few of you have ran a BBS or had a private line at one
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point in your life, and that telephone number had seen its demise, either
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from taking your board down for odd reasons, couldn't afford the bill, or
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US Sprint caught ya for that 1-800 you abused. Whatever the reasons, you
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now have a dead phone jack in your room. Well, some of us could only have
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one jack, either that's the way the room was wired, or you couldn't afford
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another one. Well, wouldn't it be great to connect that dead line with the
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rest of your house so that you could at least have a jack close by to call
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out with? *I* thought so, therefore I devised this...
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This How To involves nothing really complicated, nor vandalistic. You
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don't even have to buy a long stretch of phone cable. All you need to do is
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go outside and look around within your property line (or at the corners) for
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a dull grey-green box that will have stickers identifying itself as Your
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Local Phone Company equipment. Now, wait until it's dark, because I'm
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pretty sure a repairman wandering by wouldn't exactly be pulling up just to
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help you.
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When you think it's a safe time to operate, take a pair of pliers, maybe
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some thin gloves, and a flashlight. The box that I performed this one on
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was two-foot tall, thin, and rectangular shaped. It bore a sticker that
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said "Call The Local Phone Company before digging," and that's about it.
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No Keep Outs, or Property ofs, or Warnings, or anything else like that. Odd.
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Well, the box is pretty easy to open. Look on the bottom of the right
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hand side for something that looks like a small wheel, about an inch or so
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in diameter. Within the "wheel" is a nut, which is what the repairman uses
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to open the lid of the box. Take the pliers and just turn it enough to lift
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the front cover, therefore being able to remove it, and lie the cover on the
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ground somewhere nearby. On the inside of the cover should be some kind of
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inspection checklist, which has no interest value whatsoever.
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Here comes the interesting part - Nice jumble of wires, eh? After I saw
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inside the box for the first time last night, it took me a couple of minutes
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to get my bearing of what wires did what. Look for the cables that come in
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from the outside. In my case, the box was sticking out of the ground, and
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the cables came naturally from the bottom. If two houses share the box like
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mine did, then take a note of how each one branches off, and where the wires
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go. You will only be concerned with four wires, total. Everything else is
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for the phone man's concern. Inside the box should be a plastic board that
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has nuts & bolts (terminals) extruding with the wires firmly attached to
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them. If the phone men in your area are pretty organized like mine were,
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then all you need to do is find the two wires (one will be white, hopefully)
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that have a label with your old number, and possibly a description or
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address of your house. Now, look at the two terminals that your #2 lines
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connect to. See the terminal right above them? Those should be the
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terminals for line #1, the main house line (every home comes equipped to
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handle two phone lines - pretty hoopy thinking, eh?) To confirm this, 1.
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the white wire of line #2's terminal should be right below the terminal for
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the white wire of line #1's - more than likely, the non-white wires of both
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lines were different colors from each other (for me, line 1 was blue, and
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line 2 was orange) - if you were to trace the four wires of both lines, they
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should be coming out of the same cable.
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Now, knowing where the two lines are connected to the terminals on the
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plastic board, loosen the nuts to where you can remove the four wires if
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you tried. A Note - there may be more than one wire on a terminal, perhaps
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a grey one or dull colored. If so, ignore these wires - just concentrate
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on the four main ones of the two phone lines. Take the white wire of Line
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#2, and hook it on to the terminal with white wire of Line #1, and tighten
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those two nuts. Repeat again with the other wire, connecting it to the
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similar terminal of the other line, so that when you are finished you will
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basically have what you had before, except that the two wires of Line #2
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will be connected to the wires of line #1. Make sure all of the nuts are
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tightened, and it looks pretty much like before, and put the lid back on.
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Pretty simple, eh?!
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Well, that should do it. I advise caution by possibly wearing gloves or
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having a friend as a lookout (and to also run into the house to check out
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the phone jack to see if you did it correctly and a dial-tone is present).
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I'm not sure how offended your local phone company may be, because if they
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discover tampering then they might get real offended and actually perform
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an investigation, which might lead to fingerprinting. But, I wouldn't
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expect anything that major. All in all, this little proved theory of mine
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(based on the fact that houses are provided with two lines) saved my friend
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and I fifty whole bucks, just to have a repairman do the same thing that we
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did. Fifty dollars... shame isn't it? Ripped off by your own Phone
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company. Oh well!
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Hope this text file helps anybody who needs the info!
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- You may be able to get in touch with - The Hooded Man
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me at "Atlantic Anarchy BBS" User #2 (Anarchy, Incorporated)
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(919) 846-1802 12/2400 bps
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Amiga and IBM Warez <123 Megs> (2/07/90 at 11:10 am)
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