Re: Need 66-block help. 1 POTS line, 8 jacks

[Bill Kearney <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> For the uplink to the demarc, there is 1 pair of wires. From the top
> of the 66 block, I ran one of these wires down the far left column and
> the other down the far right column, punching down the first 8. I then
> took one of the phone jack lines, used the blue and blue-white wires
> to punch down to the 2 center connections on the top row. I have a
> dial tone for the jack, but......

No, this is not the right way to wire up a block. You'll have a rats
nest on your hands trying to get all the handsets wired into that
left/right row mess.

What you should do, as Lewis suggested, is punch all the wires from each
handset down along one side.  Then punch a line down along the other
side for each tip/ring pair needed.  The use the metal bridge clips
along the center to carry the signal over from one side to the other.

This will mean you'll punch the incoming line from the demarc down at
one point and then run a pair of lines for each of the 8 handsets.  It's
not uncommon to take a wire and punch it THROUGH a connection instead of
terminating it there.

If you have a real punchdown tool you'll notice it has two sides to the
tip.  One has a cutter blade and the other doesn't.  It's that second
side you use to punch down a line without cutting it.

Using that dull side of the punchdown tool you can use a longer section
of wire and loop it from one post to another.  If you've terminated all
three pairs from your handsets you'd loop the wire to each active post
and skip over the unused ones.

And make note, your DSL modem has to get a clear line directly from the
demarc.  But your handsets shoud NOT get this same line.  The handsets
should ONLY get a line that's been through a DSL filter first.  You can
use just one filter.

What I've done before is wire a pair of jacks near the block and put a
filter in between them.  They make fancier ways to do this but a plain
old in-line filter and a pair of boxes is often a lot cheaper.

So bring the pair in from the demarc to the block.  Run one pair to the
DSL modem's jack.  Run another out to the filter.  Then run that pair
back to the block and distribute it to the handsets.  If you need to use
another handset at the DSL modem then remember to put a filter on the
line after the modem.

-Bill Kearney