Shared Knowledge
“Telephone Cables”
If you are having a problem
with a 2-line telephone or even a single line telephone, check the cable
between the telephone device and the telephone jack. Once upon a time,
telephone cables only came with 2 wires in them or good enough for only one
phone.
To get a 2-line telephone to
operate you must use a cable between the device and the wall jack that has 4
wires in it. To confirm you have a 4 wire cable, look at one of the male
connectors and you should see 4 gold-color metal tabs in it that make contact
with 4 wires in the telephone jack when the cable is inserted.
Problem
with a single line telephone?
There is a “standard” as to how telephone wall jacks are wired for 2 or 3
telephone lines (newer homes actually have a 6 wire telephone cable run in
walls) but who ever wired the jack might not have followed the standard and if
you are unlucky enough to have picked up only a 2 wire telephone to jack cable,
it is possible your telephone is sitting on the wires in the jack meant for
line 2 which you do not use. Using a 4 wire cable should correct this problem.
After running into the 2 wire telephone cable problem more than once, I now just throw all 2 wire telephone cables away I find.