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connecting the same lines to all the ports in a patch panel

connecting the same lines to all the ports in a patch panel

The technique is useful if you have lots of phone jacks, and want to make it easy to connect and disconnect them to make changes or diagnose malfunctions (or if you just like patch panels).

(1) Get a piece of wire with enough pairs (one per line) and connect it to your source of dial tone.

(2) Use a 110-type punchdown tool with the blade turned for looping, rather than cutting, and connect the wire to the clips on the back of the first port of the patch panel. Then connect to the remaining ports, one at a time.

(3) When you get to the last jack, reverse the blade to cut off the excess wire.

The photo shows an 8-port patch panel with one wire pair connected (for one phone line), but the principle is the same for bigger panels and more pairs. You can also vary the method to put different lines on different ports, or change the line sequence in certain ports.