Extension wiring problem

[cbeeb]

My mother-in-law has a simple enough telephone set-up, or so I thought! When she didn't answer the phone, I went and checked, and found no dial tone on her phone, which is attached to the only extension in the house. I removed the extension from the master socket and tested a phone, which worked. The master socket has an orange wire in terminal B and a white wire in terminal A.

I went back to the extension socket and removed the front plate. As I did so, two stripped wires (orange and white, and white and orange) slipped from their terminals, and I wasn't sure which terminals. The two blue wires did not appear to have been stripped or connected.

So I looked at numerous online sites, and eventually decided that the two orange wires should be inserted in terminals 2 and 5. I did this (both ways round), but no dial tone resulted.

I am at a loss as to what I should do now. I don't have a circuit tester, but I don't believe that there has been any damage to the cable. Any suggestions?

[Keith_Beddoe]

@cbeeb 

Who provides her phone service?

[imjolly]

the master socket should have the 2 extension wires also connected to terminals 2 &5

the connection to A & B is the incoming openreach connection

[cbeeb]

BT.

[cbeeb]

I don't understand. The first phone socket inside the house is wired as I describe. Is that not the master socket?

[rbz5416]

How did you remove the extension socket from the master, just remove the faceplate? If so then you'll see which colour wires are feeding the extension. They should be on the faceplate & use the same terminals 2 & 5 as the extension.

Note that you need to replace the faceplate on the master socket before the extension wiring is connected to the incoming wiring.

If you still need help then posting pics of both socket's wiring may help.

[Keith_Beddoe]

BT.

Then its more likely she has a fault on her phone line.

Report it online, or ring 0800 800 151.

[cbeeb]

Thanks for your reply. I guess I will have to go back and take some more pictures.

[rbz5416]

@Keith_Beddoe 

He's already said a phone works in the master socket...

[rbz5416]

The design of master sockets varies a little but should be something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTWZs5ntiO8

The usual arrangement is the blue/white wires for the telephony (2 & 5) & the orange (3) is just used for the ringing, which she may need if it's an old phone. But that's not to say that someone hasn't done it the other way round at some point.