Sky Telephone Line Wiring Connections

Question

What pins does a Sky telephone cable use? I have bought a lead, but it doesn’t work.

Asked by Steve Lane

Our Answer

It seems that the question relates to the wiring of the lead that connects a Sky box to a phone line.

The lead in question has a BT phone plug at one end, and a smaller RJ11 plug on the other end. Some leads have two of the wires “crossed over”, a common configuration for a fax or modem.

As with a basic phone, a Sky box only needs to use two wires to make an outgoing connection. These are known as pins 2 and 5 on a standard BT phone plug. The lead needed to connect a Sky box to a phone line needs to connect to pins 2 and 5 at the wall end, and the two center pins (3 and 4) on the RJ11 plug (the Sky box end)

To test this, we used a multimeter and buzzed out the connections, and found the following:

• BT Plug Pin 2 to RJ11 Pin 3
• BT Plug Pin 5 to RJ 11 Pin 4

For the avoidance of doubt, here’s a photo of our findings:

This is what’s known as a “crossed” lead, and you can buy one from Amazon: RJ11 to BT Crossed

Related questions

• Moving a Sky box to another room
• Sky Telephone Line Connections
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