I think I’ve made an expensive mistake…

I believe that I have changed the ‘master’ socket in the house, and I now understand that I’m not supposed to do this as it belongs to BT. My phone no longer works – but before I call BT and confess all can anyone help?

Its an old house – and from what I understand has pre 1980 wiring. There is a lozenge shaped connection box just inside the front door (which I haven’t touched) and a wire to a modern white socket box. This is the box I replaced and I have sadly throw it away. From t’internet I followed the connection Blue – 2; Orange – 5; Green – 3. I used the correct tool and have tried both secondary and master sockets (as I wasn’t sure if the lozenge box was the master or not??).

When a master socket is fitted the phone rings, but continues to ring after answering. There is no dial tone.

I have tried a different phone.

BT say the line is ok.

Broadband still works.

Any ideas on what to try next?

Thanks for any help.

Jo

When you say no longer works, do you mean it just doesn’t ring. That’s pretty much all the Master box does over a normal extension box (it has a large capacitor to make the phone ring).

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html

I think you only need two lines unless you have an external ringer.

Sounds like you have the ring wire in the right place but have the wrong wires for the voice side of things, you could try differnt combinations of wires on to pins 2 & 5 until you get dial done, most phones these days or if you are using a master socket wont need the ring wire.

oh and never trust BT when they say there isn’t a fault on the line.

Try the blue wire and the blue and white wire into terminals 2 and 5. The blues are all you should need, hope this helps.

Doesn’t work = no dial tone. If you answer an incoming call there is no connection, it continues to ring and the person at the other end just hears it ringing out.

I understand the green line is the ringer. When the green is connected to terminal 3 I get a ringing tone. If I disconnect the green then it doesn’t even ring for incoming calls.

Arctic Beast – will try swapping the blue and orange when I get home… Thanks.

oldschool – I only have 3 wires – blue, orange and green. They are solid coloured wire, there is no white undercoat or over marking.

thanks for the help so far 🙂

Footflaps – I didn’t check if the one i removed had a capacitor or not. I wasn’t sure if that was the only difference (or even what difference that made…)

how many individual wires do you have there? what you can try doing is opening up the lozenge shape box outside and see what pairs are connected in that end and most probable those 2 will be the ones to go on pins 2 and 5

Are sure it’s a master socket that you have used and not an extension socket?

Just the three wires – one green (ringer works ok in position 3), one orange, one blue.

I think your initial comment of trying the blue and orange swapped around is a good one to start me off.

Jo

Winston_dog I have tried both (as i wasn’t sure which was needed). Presently have the master connected as this at least gives me an incoming ring (which the secondary one didn’t)

Jo

From a legal standpoint everything from the socket (not the lozenge) backwards is the property of BT. If you do something which knackers the network they could seek compensation. There’s also surprisingly high voltages kicking about; something like 40V IIRC. Not enough to kill you, but enough to smart. (I once had my hand in a PC when the phone rang; I got zapped via the connected modem card, made me just but didn’t hurt half as much as the gouges left in my hand by soldered pins as I tore it out of the chassis).

An NTE5 master socket has two halves; a sealed top half and a bottom half you can remove. If you didn’t have that then you should’ve wired an NTE5 in front of it.

The “master” socket you’re now fitting isn’t going to be a master socket, it’ll be Something Else. The only way you’re going to be fitting a BT Linebox is if you’ve mugged a BT engineer for it.

As it stands, I’d be very tempted to ring BT, say you’ve got an old GPO box and can you have a Linebox fitted please?

mugged a BT engineer for it

Obviously someone on Ebay has Openreach socket 😀

If it is knackered I think there is just a standard charge to fix it, same charge as moving a socket. About £150 I think.

Some info here

Obviously someone on Ebay has Openreach socket

That’s dodge city. Either it’s stolen or counterfeit.

Seems I’m partially incorrect.

http://www.clarity.it/telecoms/nte5.htm

You can’t get Openreach-branded NTE5 modules unless you’re a BT engineer. Seems you can get unbranded ones.

Some useful info on that page as to what your wiring options are.

open the lozenge shaped box,you will see the 2 wires that enter the property in 1 side,and the internal wiring on the other,ensure you have the same 2 wires into 2&5 in your new master socket,
ps there should be 4 wires orange/blue green/brown.you don’t need a ring wire only for extension/slave sockets and with modern phones you don’t need that either.

where the cable comes into the house and goes into the lozenge box there should be two wires the same two wires are the 2 you need to connect to the master 2 and 5. you ony need the 3rd which goes to 3 if there are any extensions what did u change it for and what type of socket did u change it to

OOOPS just replied on my works lappy,I can here the flying monkeys coming for me 😈

I think Cougar may have the answer. Cheers!

ArcticBeast – have just tried swapping the wire – no result 🙁

Cougar – now you mention it the box I removed did have a fixed top, I hadn’t realised the significance of it. The replacement was called a master (from B&Q) but it doesn’t have the fixed top, so I assume it isn’t what I need. I will try the box in your second link.

I understand that legally I have messed with BT property, but if I can fix it with out paying £150 then I will give it a go

Sparkyrhino (I much prefer to think of you as a sparkly rhino) I will check the lozenge wiring as well, but I suspect it is the wrong box.

Thanks everyone 🙂