Tired, Punchy and my head hurts
First the news… Yes… it’s been a week since I’ve posted. Work, Baby… Family… you do the math.
Today was filled with a DIY project that was filled with so much promise. And met with failure. We have a room with no phone jack that direly needs one.The room has a cable jack… But we don’t use the cable.
I had an idea… what if I ride the phone signal on the unused cable from a room with both phone and cable to the room with just cable. I got two wall plates that each had a phone jack and a cable connector. I got a 3′ long coax cable to sacrifice for connecting the back of the cable connector to the back of the phone jack. I figured I’d cut in half, strip the cut end and attach it like I was wiring a phone. I also got a little multimeter… hoping that might help. Granted I know nearly -0- about electronics (I’m a software guy)… so the multimeter was more of an amusement.
I walked into the parking lot of the hardware store. Booty in hand. I was looking at the multimeter walking about 2 feet from the row of cars and pickup trucks. BANG!
Did you know that a 15 ‘ 2 inch diameter wooden dowel, hangs more than 2 ‘ out of a pickup truck and right at forehead level? Neither did I. This would be the part where my head hurts.
Well, I got home… Watched Rothlisberger forget that black doesn’t mean Steelers on the West Coast. And tinkered. I cut the coax and stripped the cut ends. On each plate I attached the copper core {D} to the Pair 1 ring terminal (red) and the copper screen {B} to the Pair 1 tip (green).
My first test was to connect the two plates with coax. Then attach one plate to a phone line and the other to a phone. This would test two things.
- Was I wired correctly?
- Would coax carry a phone signal?
The test worked.
So, I ran phone wire in one room over to where the cable jack was on the wall. I connected a small piece of coax to my makeshift jack and connected the other end to the wall jack. Then I connected the phone line to my makeshift jack. Then I picked up a good phone. The phone still worked.. so I hadn’t shorted out our phone. Theoretically, my phone line was now on the cable in the house.
I went to the cable jack in the room with no phone. Hooked another piece of coax to it and to my 2nd jack. I assumed that both cable jacks in the house were on the same line. This assumption proved wrong. Nothing came over the line. My guess is that there is a splitter somewhere before where I am patched in and the signal is not propagating.
the idea seemed good, but I’m back to square one.
Ah well. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.
