sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Diagnosing Short Circuits on 66/110 Blocks

Just had the telco out today at my 'rent house.
With his Tempo Sidekick, he was easily able to see that a line was causing a short circut - found the offending wire on the 66 block (turns out it was the cable that went to the poolhouse). Recently had garden work done so I suspect something got nicked...

Anyhow, got me thinking.....
How do you guys dianose/troubleshoot/isolate short circuits on 66 or 110 blocks.

I'm not a Telco man myself (more on the netops side).
Closest thing in my stash would be a cableiq just to see if a pair was short, but I would obviously need to plug into a rj11/45 *port end* to test.

That's exactly why I always use bridging clips. Isolate the pairs until the trouble is found.

If the pair has dial tone on it, then a butt set ahead of the short will tell you when you've isolated it. Ditto on using bridging clips on 66 blocks. Othewise, pull the jumper off and test.

If the pair doesn't have dial tone, a simple continuity tester or ohmmeter will do it.

Jim

Sidekick or Dynatel. Actually a simple continuity tester will do as well. Isolate the pairs and test. The others will provide a better read of the cable's integrity. With them, a technician can get a good approximation of how far from the test point the fault might be. Also, a continuity tester will not give any info on a noisy or intermittent pair.

Rcaman

With this sidekick, I could see easily the meter would spike, the minute it was connected to the ~inside~ portion of the wiring

He proceeded to isolate by removing the bridging clips until the meter went down.

This was a much quicker process than going to the port side and running a test

Curious, with a Multimemter, how would you acheive/do a similar test ?

1. Disconnect dial tone.

2. Place meter leads where dial tone was connected.

3. Read short (zero or near zero ohms)

4. One at a time, remove bridging clips per pair per drop.

5. When the meter goes to infinity, the last pair you disconnected is the pair in trouble.

Rcaman

Thank you Rcaman.

Could not have been explained any much clearer.

There was one more pair/clip....that was reading I believe 2 on his Sidekick. I've noted it, but sofar, with the offending poolhouse run out of the equation, it's just business as usual

The first thing a repairman should ask is "Do you have any outdoor jacks, or extensions in other buildings?" Then ask "Has anyone done any carpentry or masonry or digging work recently?"

Very true Arthur. After years of experience, troubleshooting is often as much technical as it is getting the right info from the customer. What they say vs. what really happened.

Jim

You have to take that with a grain of salt as well. Customers either don't know or they lie.

3 months ago, I was at the home of one of our commercial clients who also has a system in their home. They made some changes and the lady asked if line 4 could be added to all the extensions. "Of course" I said. (First mistake)

I did not install this system, so I had to figure out why things were done as they were. I finally traced the CO trunks to a 66 block in the garage. There, I found the 4th line. It was disconnected from the system. I tested for dial tone and, although no dial tone, it was wet.

I asked the lady if there had been any work done lately? Answer, None. (Second Mistake)

After wasting some time trying to figure why the CO pairs on the extended demarc did not appear at the outside demarc, I discovered a buried splice in the mulch. I found that some telephone company technician hard spliced the drop cable to the IW 25 pair going to that 66 block in the garage. Line 4 was not wrapped with the other pairs and was skinned and exposed to the wet mulch.

After properly re-terminating the drop to the protector and connecting 4 pairs of the IW to the protector terminals, I got dial tone on line 4.

By this time, the husband came home and he saw I was a little exasperated. After a few questions, I found out that EIGHT YEARS ago, they had a cable cut in the woods behind their house and that is how Verizon left their service. They had been paying for line 4 all those years and it was dead, to them, all that time.

So, yes, the advice to ask questions is always good, but the implementation can be troublesome.

Rcaman