Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot Com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry's purchased the factory that makes their blades. Fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle, three blades, and shave cream. Go to Harry's dot com use the code brain stuff to save five dollars off your first purchase. Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com, where smart happens.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of spoken word entertainment. Get a free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today. Log on to audible podcast dot com slash brain stuff today for details. Hi, I'm Marshall brain with today's question. What do the yellow and black wires in a home telephone jack do? In your house? You have phone jacks, it only takes two wires to connect to phone,
but most house wiring contains four wires. The red and green wires are on the two center terminals of a normal phone jack, and the black and yellow wires are on the two outer terminals. This arrangement allows most normal houses to handle two phone lines very easily. Many, if not most, of the line chords that you receive when you purchase a phone to go between the wall jack and the phone only have the two center wires. To save money, The two outer wires are omitted when you
bring a second line into your house. This new line uses the yellow and black wires. If you have a two line phone, then the phone is normally ready to accept the second line automatically on those yellow and black wires. You plug one line cord into the phone and it splits the two lines inside the phone. Make sure that that line cord between the jack and the phone actually
contains all four wires for this to work. If you want to connect something like a fax machine to the second phone line, you can't just plug it into the wall. You normally need to buy a little plug and converter that takes the two outer terminals yellow and black of the phone jack and brings them to the two center terminals the red and green. You plug the converter into the wall and then the fax machine into the converter. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast?
If so, please send me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, go to how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry's purchased the factory that makes their blades. Fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle, three blades, and shave cream.
Go to Harry's dot com. Use the code brain stuff to say five dollars off your first purchase.