In this video, I’m showing an example of an onsite service call where I was troubleshooting no dial tone. This video gives you an idea of what a real service call looks like and my thought process as I traced the phone line through the 66 block and the RJ31x jack using my buttset. This is something you can do as an independent information technology field tech working with Field Nation alternative companies.
I have been in the freelance IT tech industry since 2000, on Field Nation since 2010, and on Work Market since 2011. Field Tech Academy exists to give you the secrets of 20+ years of experience how you can succeed as an Independent IT Field Tech.
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Video Transcript:
I should be able to go to dial tone. Okay, I have dial tone. So now the next question is, can I dial out?
Hello, this is Michael with Field Tech Academy.
In today’s video, I’m going to be showing you a portion of a service call that I did
where I was training a technician on troubleshooting dial tone and using a 66 block and using a buttset.
Thought It might be educational to show those of you who may not be as familiar with telephony and 66 blocks, things like that,
what the process is that I went through on this call to try to troubleshoot the dial tone.
Let’s get into it.
I should be able to go to dial tone. Okay, I have dial tone. So now the next question is, can I dial out?
And you’re always listening for, if you’re straight dial, you know, and it doesn’t go, then you might have dial nine to get out.
You know, different things like that.
So I could theoretically plug my buttset in, to show you this, instead of using my alligator clips, I can use the regular RJ 11 on one end and RJ 11 on this end. Even though this is RJ 45, an RJ 11 plug will go into it because it’s going to touch the center pins and phone biscuits and phone ends,
use the center pins, the center two pins.
Even though this is not RJ 45 and this is it will still work.
There’s always a pair. So it’s always two conductors.
And you also can look in here and see like right here is where the conductors are. So I know that it’s going to be this one in this one.
So I’m going to put one angling up.
Okay, There we go. Sometimes a little tricky to get on it. And then the one directly underneath it.
Okay. So if this line was good, now of course, you want to make sure that you’re on your alligator clips and not this.
Now, the other thing you can do. You don’t have to actually hard clip it. You can literally go like, just hold them solid. Just make sure you’re not crossing over and you can just walk up and down the block anywhere you see pairs coming in.
And of course, it’s every two. So you want to make sure if you’re doing it out here in the middle, that you’re correctly, you know, like you you can see which two pair you’re supposed to be on. I’ve literally not found any dial tone yet.
And you can go on this mid left pair or the far left pair because again, they’re the same thing because it’s a U-shape.
So we know this is our source cabling, because we verified we had dial tone on this side and we did not have dial tone where we unplug this.
So we need to try to do is figure out where these pairs go. And so they’re zip tied in here so we don’t have any free movement, but that’s obviously our set of pairs. So we’re going to try to trace these down. So they’re coming down the end of the block area here. Okay. And these are going to, looks like they’re going to the block.
Okay. I do have dial tone there.
So you can do this completely up and down or you can come over to the one immediately to the right of it. That way you don’t have to be as precise on top of each other.
So I have dial tone.
Hi! Do you guys do network cabling? We got like 30 desks we need wired up. You guys do that?
I’m just testing. This is Michael.
And the line sounds pretty clear, doesn’t it?
All right, bye.
So that’s a clean line. I can dial out without a nine. You know, you’re always looking for anything that’s squirrely.
We have dial tone here, but we don’t have dial tone here. So something is causing us a problem. So that’s that’s good. It gives us, you know, it’s breadcrumbs.
You’re just taking it a piece of the time.
And you can also unplug the internal wiring, because sometimes you’ll run into a situation where this is shorted out or messed up on the other end and it shorts it out here.
Just to be sure
I may have done it on this one. I have dial tone.
This is last number redial. So you just do that and it’ll dial the same number again.
And it is the same number 0432.
So we could have something on this cable shorting us out. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to test for dial tone.
This pair goes to the bottom. Ok, there I’ve got dial tone. Don’t have dial tone coming out.
This Is that jack I was telling you about for security systems. That, so this is the source from the phone company comes in to this pair and it’s an eight conductor deal. And the idea is that this jack can seize control so that it doesn’t go back out to the next in line.
So it’s almost acting like it seized the line.
I’m curious, I have dial tone now. No dial tone. So I have dial tone coming from the telco. But I have no dial tone here when this is plugged in. When this is out, I have dial tone.
So when this is in, it’s killing the dial tone.
So it’s clearly not letting it flow through the system.
If you get value out of this, please like the video and subscribe to the channel so that you’re informed every time I upload something new. Check out my website at fieldtechacademy.com. I have a lot of downloads available for those of you who are on Field Nation and WorkMarket to help you flesh out your profile and make them stronger.
I also offer one on one coaching if you need a little bit of help to kind of get to the next level in your
independent field tech journey,
then I’m here to help. I also have a client list on my website that is available.
Most everybody knows about Field Nation and WorkMarket, but there are a lot of clients out there with whom you can go direct. They are Field Nation alternative clients.
They will call you and email you
before anybody else to give you an opportunity to do service calls. As always, let’s get you out in the field making money. I’ll see you in the next video.