sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Reverse Polarity Issues

Has anyone else noticed that some commercial telephone devices work 'better' when you wire the incoming line to it in reverse? Bell Equipment's Sonecore series CID boxes have a message wait indicator that lights up solid when the line is in use. When you wire the device in reverse, the light works instantly as expected. Wire the ring and tip the it SHOULD BE, and the light waits a few seconds before finally giving in and working. Also, MultiLink's TheStick (line sharing device) prefers reverse polarity. Wire the line port right and your butt set will tell you the stick's ports are actually in reverse. You can hear an extra 'click' then when the stick performs an extra switching operation. Wire the line in reverse and your butt set/ tester will light green on all the ports and the stick switches faster. I have also encountered phone systems that set up their USOC jacks unconventionally...for example the Comdial Executech sets up their two-line port like this: ring(2) ring(1) tip(1) tip(2) while a conventional one is tip(2) ring(1) tip(1) ring(2). This encourages reverse polarity by habit of wiring a different way. There seems to be some sloppiness that makes it very difficult to wire to correct standards every time. Most building I have encountered are reverse anyhow, guess it's a losing battle.

I haven't seen polarity as an issue on modern equipment. Only place I know where ring has to be ring is on a GS circuit. Just because you have something wire tip and ring doesn't mean the battery is where it's suppose to be.

Update. The lightbulb went on and I realized the issue with the reverse polarity. TheStick expects that you plug standard phone cords into a wall for the line and hence to all the devices. A standard RJ11/Rj14 line cord is flipped, so one side is BRGY and the other side is YGRB. The flip came from the old days when modular connectors just started catching on to maintain compatibility among equipment. I was wiring directly into the line jack with CAT3 and following the usual color codes (that's a straight thru patch cord actually), hence actually reversing the line according to TheStick.