sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Bypassing PBX for extra analog lines house/small office.

Hello.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend the device needed to take the CO trunk line and allow it to be split before the PBX in order to gain analog lines within the house/small office without having to buy expensive Analog interface cards for the PBX.

If I just use a cheap $2 phone splitter that will take a regular line and split it into 3 jacks. It will loose signal strength correct?

I will need something that will split the CO line and amplify the strength to compensate for the fact that its being split right?

If anyone can recommend the proper device for this function, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for your help.


P.S. I'm aware of the bypassing the system will allow 2 people to be on the same line however its really just for faxes.

IMHO I gotta tell ya...this is not a good idea! I have spent many hours in my career sorting out messes that started with this very question. You would be better off to split out the analog stations and not messing with the CO lines at all. You would be best of all to go ahead and bite the bullet and get the analog card for your system.
No matter what you do you will have fax machines and callers stepping all over each other unless yours is a one person office!

If you just want to tap off the line for a standard device you could use a splitter (asking for problems) or for privacy you can get a passive splitter that has blocking diode built inside this prevent interupting call in process. I would also suggest you look at line share devices such as Command Communications. But as telecomtex said the best way is use the slt card in the system.

Aquafina:

No, splitting the line out in front of the system won't cause any loss unless you are really in a fringe area. In traditional residential wiring, the line is "split" all over the place, so you will be fine. It's very rare that any amplification is ever required on-premises for an application such as yours.

I have to agree with TelecomTex and METelecom, that if you really don't want to bite the bullet and do it correctly, then you probably should think about a splitter that allows the line to be shared without risk of interruption. They are frequently sold as "privacy" or "answering machine cutoff" adapters. I am pretty sure that places like Radio Shack or office supply stores have these things and they aren't very expensive.

If interruptions are of no concern whatsoever, then by all means, you can split the line as you mentioned. I just think it's going to reach the point where it's downright annoying and you'll end up changing it. Hey, give it a try. You certainly won't hurt anything if it doesn't work. Just remember where everything was originally connected if it doesn't work out and you want to put things back to normal.

If you don't have a lot of trunks coming in to your PBX and want to use one for a analog line then there is a possibility of having busy signals when people try to call in.

if you are set on splitting the lines use tg-1's viking makes them and they work fine as far as privacy. Again telecomtex and merritt are correct bite the bullet or buy some comswitches