VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > ViaTalk > should I go and check my house wiring?

should I go and check my house wiring?

I would probably check the phone box first... If something shot your wires, I'd want to make sure the phone company didn't plug back in. I'd also want to make sure I've got good connections there. If that's all good, I'd check the wallplate where I have my PAP2 next. My thinking is that you would have to have a disconnect somewhere between your box and the outside phone box.... If it works only on your box-pugged phone, I'd suspect a broken wire / short somewhere between there and outside.

Hope you find the problem.

reply to mfoam99
I would guess that the hit came through the power line, not the phone wiring.

reply to mfoam99
Was the equipment on a UPS or at least a surge protector?

reply to mfoam99
A year ago my neighbors house was struck by lightning. My adapter and the router port it was attached to fried. My phone line is disconnected from the local phone company at the box coming into the house.

There never seemed to be any other issues with my house wiring, thankfully.

Assuming you are still disconnected from the street, you may have had a similar thing happen. A connection could have opened up from a lightning strike or you may have a short. The most likely place these might have happened are in the wall outlets, so check them first.

Perhaps you could try to plug your ata into different wall jacks to see if you can isolate the problem.

Good luck.

reply to mfoam99
Thanks for all of your good advise. I did have surge protectors although admittedly cheap ones. I did have the wires disconnected from the house so I cant imagine that the phone company reconneced especially since I havent trimmed my bushes near the house in a long time. I like the idea of hooking up the ata at different phone jacks but not sure if my ethernet cable is long enough to do that. I will have to check the continuity of the jacks and see if I can isolate the problem. Does Viatalk control the amount of voltage that the ata sends and would have have an effect?

The ATA acts like a local Central Office in the POTS world, sort of. It powers the phone line in your home. When your phone is on-hook, the voltage level of the two wires for you phone is 48 volts, and essentially the same as not having a phone on the line. When a phone is taken off hook, it places a load on the line (allows current to flow) and the voltage will drop. It has been a long time since I worked with these details, but I believe it drops to somewhere around 20 volts. That current flow is how the ATA or a central office detects a subscriber has gone off-hook and then a dial tone will be placed on the line.

If you have a voltage meter that you are able to check the voltage level on the line from the ATA you should see 48 volts when it is not connected to the wall. If you can monitor that when you plug into the wall and see that the voltage level drops (you would probably have to jury-rig a phone chord to do this) you will know there is a short somewhere in your home wiring, or something plugged into a wall outlet. Now we are all assuming there is not a phone or other device (answering machine, modem, fax) somewhere plugged into another outlet that could be the problem. I once had a combo phone/answering machine causing an issue I thought to be a VT problem. So double check to make sure you have no other device plugged into any phone outlets - they may have been fried, as well.

Now if the voltage at the ATA remains 48 volts when plugged into the wall, you will need to check other outlets. Any that don't have 48 volts indicate there is an open circuit between your outlet with that ATA and that one. If the open circuit is in the phone outlet your ATA was plugged into, a wire could have been fried in the event that took out your ATA and router, but the outlets without devices connected would likely be unaffected. The most likely place where the wiring could be fried would be where wires are connected to other wires or connectors.

Now I don't believe you will need to have your LAN connection to the ATA to do this troubleshooting. I think it will supply 48 volts to the line even if not registered. All you need is power. You need to check to verify this, but I believe it to be the case.

If I had to bet, my first guess would be there is another device connected in your home affecting the line. My second suspicion would be that a connection opened up in the phone outlet your ATA connects to, or somewhere in the path from your central wiring block to that outlet. My last guess would be a short. For a short, there would have to be an electrical arc that burned through the insulation of the pair of wires causing the two conductors to be touching.

Good luck and keep us posted as to your progress. I'm curious how this works out for you and what may have happened.

reply to mfoam99
I had a lightning strike outside my house about 6 years ago.

I had surge protectors and UPS devices on items...

It still fried 2 PC Motherboards, a lot of stereo equipment, a TV, cable modem, router etc... I was using vonage at the time. It fried the vonage box.. and also melted some of my phone and cable wiring in my house.

reply to mogulman

reply to mfoam99
Yeah... Insurance covered it. The biggest problem was the wiring.