Re: Channel Vision whole house DSL filter

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Stock" <me7@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:570mc9F2a87dcU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> I bought one of these for the new DSL connection, but I've got a couple of
> issues.

I'll take a stab at it, knowing I'll probably be stabbed *for* trying, but
hopefully a consensus might occur in subsequent follow-ups.  (-: Your
situation is similar to mine.  I've got a separate phoneline which handles
voice and the alarm panel and another line for DSL and voice as well.  With
the recent increase in rates, I am going to try dropping the second POTS
line with the alarm connection and use the DSL line.  I've been researching
the issues involved in running an alarm through a DSL connection and have
come across some consistent advice I'll attempt to relate without error!

> 1) How does one wire up the RJ31 jack? i.e. what wire goes where?

An RJ31 jack is typically used a line seizure device.  Since it's critical
that the alarm panel is able to dial out immediately when an alarm is
triggered, the RJ31 jack allows the alarm panel to disconnect any phone call
in progress *downstream* from the jack and then grab a dial tone and dial
out.  That's why they are almost always the very first device connected to
the phone network after the phone line enters the home.

DSL complicates the issues because some people want to be able to seize the
voice line so the alarm can dial out WITHOUT interrupting their DSL
connection (which could be relaying images from the house cameras that you
might want to see remotely to confirm an alarm condition exists).

Which do you want to do?  Is it acceptable to you for the DSL line to go
down when your alarm dials out?

The RJ31 jack is larger than a regular RJ11 phone jack because the phone
lines must be able to enter the jack, go into the panel, through the
"line-seizure" switch, back out through the jack and finally on to the phone
wires that serve the household phones.  The reason for extra wire is that
one pair is goes to the alarm panel and the other pair is used for wiring
downstream to the house phones.

> I've got an ITI Simon alarm that seems to have four power wires and two
> phone wires going back to the alarm panel. I gather I just need to wire up
> the red/green to the center of the RJ31 connector.

It depends.  If the unit is already set up to seize the line in a case of an
emergency, all you would do is maintain that wiring.  But I am not sure what
you are connecting to where.  Let's start by ascertaining exactly what you
are using.  Is this it?

P-0411 ADSL Filter and Surge Module

It's got four incoming phone lines and a security system "Bypass/Normal"
switch on the front.

> 2) There is still static on the phone line, even with the filter
installed.
> Modem seems to work OK, so I'm not sure if the filter sucks or I have a
> connection issue.

Lots of potential problems.  Static can be a grounding problem, oxidation on
connections or just loose wiring.  Or a lot more complicated.Let's start
with a traceback from the Network Interface at the "Customer Access point
(CAP)."

I'd probably start at the entry point, plug a phone into the network
interface CAP jack to see what I heard and mentally gauge the interference
level.  Then I would split that line to a filter (you should have gotten a
few RJ-11 filters with your DSL kit) and the other to the DSL modem.  You
should be connected to just that splitter and none of the other phone wiring
in the home at this point.  Not even the alarm.  To troubleshoot this kind
of problem, you really need to isolate components as much as possible from
each other.  The home phone wiring is a little like X-10 in that different
types of devices have different impedances and electrical properties that
can interact badly.

I'd make this test because you should now NOT hear any noise on the phone
connected to the splitter leg that's got the DSL filter plugged into it.  If
you do hear noise on the voice side, you may have wiring issues outside of
your control.

What you do from this point depends on your phone layout.  I have a very,
very primitive poor man's patch panel made out of a few phone harmonicas.  I
then run modular line cords (I got *such* a deal when the local HW went
under) to each of the phones in the house.  No phone jacks, just little
modular cables coming from holes in the floor behind furniture tacked down
with insulated staples.  I use couplers and splitters to distribute the
signal within rooms if need be.

It was a heck of a lot easier than installing wall boxes or even surface
jacks since we thought we would only stay here a few years more -- that was
a long, long time ago!  I just had to make the hole big enough allow the
modular clip to pass.  No push down tools, no blocks - although I started
that way.

The biggest advantage of this barbaric system (I can hear the catcalls
already!) is that you can easily unplug one house phone at a time at the CAP
to see which leg is screwy when there's a problem.  Sure you can do that
with blocks, but it took me 2 hours to run 8 phone drops and when I move, I
suppose I could reclaim a lot of that gear.  I'd glad I didn't spend much
time on running POTS wires - the Uniden 5.8 cordless pretty much enables me
to put a phone wherever there's an outlet for the charger with a single line
running to the base station.  Now the only cords that matter go to the PC
for faxmodems and to the alarm and the emergency corded phones.

Anyway, I would see what I heard through the DSL filter right at the first
split from the CAP.  Let's get some more info for the traceback:

Do you have one or two or more phone lines?

Are they properly grounded?  Lots of times phone grounds get loose or
corroded and that can create a noise problem.  At least inspect it visually
if not with a meter just to make sure.

Is your Channelvision DSL filter mounted nearby and grounded as well?  There
shouldn't be any current flowing from the ground connection on the DSL
filter to the ground connection for the incoming phone line.

There's an interesting discussion of how grounding issues can generate hum
and noise here:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/ampins/groundloops/grndloop.htm

Do you want to be able to use any jack in the house for DSL or will there
just be one or two phone jacks you will use for DSL?

A little more detail will help people in determining what to do next but the
most important thing I can think of first is what I suggested.  Disconnect
*everything* at the CAP and split that output to the DSL modem (just plug it
in along with its power supply - no PC needed for this test!) and to ONE
corded phone.  If you still hear a hum, it's probably something the Telco
boys have to deal with.

Once we get more information about the noise problem we can move onto to how
to wire your jack correctly!

Is yours a self-install kit?  That saves the Telco's boatloads of bucks but
it often means that no trained technician ever looks at your entrance phone
wires, which could easily be 20 or 30 years old with a badly corroded
ground!

Tom_W - are you listening? (-:

--
Bobby G.