sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Terminating 25 Pair Cable

Can someone please post the color code and NON ABBREVIATED names for the pins (example: LG - Lamp Ground) on the 66 punch block so when I get my cable and telephones I can immediately hook up and use them. Thanks.

Also, would this work with my KSU:

https://cgi.ebay.com/GTE-AUTOMATIC-...e_Electronics_R2?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

This is the standard wiring plan for a 2564 set. Most others are similar with variations:

White/Blue is tip for line 1 (1T)
Blue/white is ring for line 1 (1R)

White/orange is A for line 1 (1A)
Orange/white is A1 for line 1 (A1)

White/green is lamp ground for line 1 (LG)
Green/white is lamp battery for line 1 (1L)

White/brown is tip for line 2 (2T)
Brown/white is ring for line 2 (2R)

White/slate is A for line 2 (2A)
Slate/white is unused (insulated and stored)

Red/blue is lamp ground for line 2 (LG)
Blue/red is lamp battery for line 2 (2L)

Red/orange is tip for line 3 (3T)
Orange/red is ring for line 3 (3R)

Red/green is A for line 3 (3A)
Green/red is unused (insulated and stored)

Red/brown is lamp ground for line 3 (LG)
Brown/red is lamp battery for line 3 (3L)

Red/slate is tip for line 4 (4T)
Slate/red is ring for line 4 (4R)

Black/blue is A for line 4 (4A)
Blue/black is unused (insulated and stored)

Black/orange is lamp ground for line 4 (LG)
Orange/black is lamp battery for line 4 (4L)

Black/green is tip for line 5 (5T)
Green/black is ring for line 5 (5R)

Black/brown is A for line 5 (5A)
Brown/black is unused (insulated and stored)

Black/slate is lamp ground for line 5 (LG)
Slate/black is lamp battery for line 5 (5L)

The complete yellow/blue pair is spare.

Yellow/orange is buzzer tip (SG)
Orange/yellow is buzzer ring (SB)

The complete yellow/green pair does not exist in 2564 sets.

The complete yellow/brown pair is spare.

Yellow/slate is ringer tip (RT)
Slate/yellow is ringer ring (RR)

There are no violet pairs in the cord of a 2564 set, so there is no connection for them at the KSU.

To answer your second question embedded in your first:

The GTE WA-1400 card illustrated in the e-bay listing will work as a standard line card, much like any other line card. I certainly wouldn't spend that kind of money and shipping for it.

One other thing that may save you some time. Don't just remove the jacket from the cable and have 25 pairs of wires flopping in the air. Trust me, you won't be able to find the wires you are looking for and you'll end up with a tangled mess.

Here's a cut and paste from a post I made some time ago, it's out in the forum with a lot of other valuable posts made by many other people.

Once again thanks to Ken for teaching it to me.


If you strip the sheath from a 25 pair cable, you very quickly end up with 50 tangled leads. I know this, cause that's what I did time and time again.

So what you do is strip an inch or so of sheath off the end. Then you find this cloth string (which I thought was just there to piss me off). Then you wrap some electrical tape around the exposed 1" of leads (leaving the string out of it), and then pull the string back with some pliers, which cuts the sheathing. You're probably too young to remember, but they used to have a similar thing in a band aid wrapper.

Anyway, now you've got a foot or so of exposed wire, and an empty sheath hanging loose. You carefully and neatly trim the loose sheathing off, and then wrap electrical tape around the leads (about an inch or so up from the sheathing), back down to and around the sheathing which wasn't trimmed off.

So what you end up with is 25 pairs, taped at both ends. This keeps them secure. Then, as you punch down each pair, you gently pull it from the taped end, do the punching, leaving the remaing pairs secured by the tape. You'll find that the needed pairs are generally right next to each other in the cable.

Now when it's all punched down, you have a tight looking punch job, the leads remain twisted as you use them, and it's very easy to find the pair you are looking for. And finally, the end of the sheathing is wrapped neatly, adding to the professional look, as opposed to a bunch of wires just sticking out of the sheath.

Wow, I'd never bother with this tape thing, unless perhaps the conductors didn't have tracers on them. Just ring off the firt inch or so, use the string to strip the jacket, cut the jacket neatly, then separate the 25 pairs into 5 groups by color - White/Red/Black/Yellow/Violet.

With OSP cable, which doesn't have the tracers, just the primary colors, it's easy to lose track of which White goes with which Blue/Orange/Green/Brown/Slate, or which Blue goes with which White/Red/Black/Yellow/Violet. Here I will strip off an extra length of jacket, and using the twist of the individual pairs, separate them a pair at a time, and tie a knot about an inch from the free end. Then, put them into groups, and punch, splice, whatever...

Yeah, I guess that would work too. All I know was when I stripped the jacket off, all the wires seemed to launch a great conspiracy against me - first the pairs would seperate and then become a tangled mess.

Plus I'm colorblind, so having everything held down securely whilst I searched for it was a big help..... and Ken went way out of his way - making a personal visit to get me lined out. He showed me how to punch down the block, using the method I mentioned earlier, it took him about 2 minutes to punch the block down, but that included 90 seconds of talking to me, explaining what you had mentioned - there are really only 5 colors you need to memorize, what a spudger is, lots and lots of Q&A.

I can see how if you did this sort of thing everyday you'd find ways to get it done more quickly, but me... meh. I was happy if I got one 66 block punched down a night, and sometimes that meant doing it 2 or 3 times before I was satisfied with the way it came out looking (side view).

I just ring the cable where I want the jacket to end. DON'T CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH, then bend back and forth and the jacket with 'crack' open all the way around. Then pull the resulting 'sleeve' part way off and start pulling and punching pairs. The patial ringing of the jacket is the hard part to learn. I use a dull knife to ring the jacket. John C.

Sorry, guys, it is the old Bell System way....bunting the cable with bunting tape...back then the cable sheath was gray and bunting tape was 1/2 width gray vinyl tape....finished product was neat, the cable was neat, the block was neat......

This followed what was taught using the original cloth sheath and silk conductor cover. The "strip string" was wrapped and and cinched off similarly to the tape....bunted, neat, and tight.

Do what works for you........

Never hurts to find out how the other guy does it! He may 'have a better idea', with a tip of the hat to Ford commercials in the late 60's. And now I know why all those old SWB 1A2 systems had black tape on the 25pr cables. Probably looked quite neat with grey tape, the black tape looked kinda messy, to me. And the buy-outs that went to work for the interconnects did it to the 'sand beige' ITT cable, which REALLY looked nasty! John C.

When I first started terminating 25 pair on a 66 type block I started from the top down w/bl.

Then the old timer said, "you now know the color code let's do it backwards so the cable pairs are not dangling in your face and your impact tool all the way up from bottom of the 66 block".

Try it in reverse and practice a few times. One will never terminate a 66 type block from the top down ever again.

Who Invented a better mouse trap? I thought 66 was the only mouse trap.