atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information butt set

i want to test a 66 block for dial tone with a butt set....do i put the black clip on the first pair or the second pair? or it doesn't matter if if i use red or black clip on the first pair? please help :confused:

Welcome to the board super58177

First you need to complete your profile so we will know who you are and where you are.



Tell us a little about yourself and more info on where, and what, you are trying to test. Do you have any prior telco experience?

Thanks :thumb:

I would google the name and model of your test set and most likely find a user guide. I've never found that it mattered which side the clips are on.

Each phone line is one pair of wires. They're called tip & ring, from way back in the cord-board days. The black goes on tip, red goes on ring. Tip is the top position of the pair on a 66 block. There are 25 different pair positions on a 66 block, assuming you're testing from an RJ-21X Demarc.

some have a polarity tester built in or a LED for polarity , if you want to check polarity you need to pay attenion as to which clip to tip and which to ring otherwise it dosn't matter .

You will also need to know if it is a ground or loop start line, chances are if it is just a plain old telephone line (POTS) it will be a loop start line. Also be careful the test clips are not touching each other, the will cause a short, which will at the least give you a lot of static but will probally knock out dialtone.
One last thing, if their are bridge clips on the block you will want to remove them, so you can isolate one side of the block from the other. If you have good dt with the clips removed, and loose it with the clips on you know the trouble is beyond the block.

Why don't you just try it and see for yourself. Not like you are going to blow something up and destroy the world.

-Hal

gotta a point their Hal

Well, you may not blow up the world, but I've had the fire department show up.

I was trying to find a new untagged POTS line installed on an old 66 block. This was a very old industrial building with 9 sprinkler risers. Come to find out they had these risers monitored by an old McCulloch loop (direct wire) to the fire department. When I clipped my buttset on that pair, it was enough of a short to cause an alarm.

Problem was, I didn't know what had happened until I had firemen standing behind me in the plant. They told me that an alarm came in on an old monitoring board that they weren't even sure that still worked or not.

Needless to say, with them there, I refound that pair and tagged it.

What color is the butt set, and where did it come from. I know this sounds like a dumb question butt it may be important.