Gas bottle mounting angles

Yeah, considering I was in the Switchroom till they completed a big push to get rid of the last Strowger Steppers with GTD-5 digital switches, then I was in Splicing till they completed a big push to get all the smaller aerial lead & paper cables changed to filled PIC - especially the unpressurized lead/paper property-line leads that were

50+ years old and always a Ton O Fun when it rained... Then I was not very ceremoniously shown the door.

There's still a lot of air-core cable out there, but it's all underground trunk cables where they can control it. "If it ain't broke don't fix it" still applies. Mostly Stalpeth jacket PIC cable now, but there'll probably be some lead sheath paper or pulp insulated out there for another 50 years or till it starts going bad.

And with single-wrap paper "firecracker cable" you want to disturb it as little as possible, and just write off the bad pairs. (Just like it sounds, they wind a strip of paper around the wire, then they twist two wires into a pair. No glue - the paper will readily unwind if disturbed...)

Not worth the hassle to go into a case to fix 2 or 3 shorts out of

3600 pairs, you might find and fix one but create 2 or 3 new ones from moving things around...

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5+ years ago, Bell replaced the local back yard feeder cable on the other side of my street because the old one had too many repairs. When they hooked it in to the transverse feeder which is in an easement along my side lot line they found four bad pairs and had a look in my yard where they found my topsoil pile at about the right distance back along the line. The supervisor apparently didn't believe me that this was only storage and not fresh digging and arranged all the locates etc. to investigate. At my suggestion, he brought in a backhoe to my yard, rather than a banjo crew since I had no problem with access. I also provided the crew with washroom facilities, drinking water and picnic table. After they cut off my phone and Internet access, TV cable to the subdivision, their own 400 pair cable, and were getting close to the main HV feeders, he did some more research an discovered that this fault was in an old splice and had been recorded some twenty years previously, and even though I suggested that they might just as well fix it while the splicing crew was already working on site, he declined. I guess it makes a big difference when there is no chance of recovering costs from the landowner. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

A lot of new fiber is still dark, waiting to replace that bad lead cable. They ran two different colors of conduit for the RR backbone. They told me one was for future use for long distance phone service.

When a line is put under the ground, they often put in blocks that contain 4 built in tubes. Into these they pull new cables and have extras.

Some planning and some Rats, we didn't see that one!

Martin

Mart> "Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:

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The Telcos (and the CableCos) are all pushing large count fiber- optic cables into the field, so every house can have it's own dedicated fiber for high-speed data and video and etc. - But You DO NOT Necessarily Want This!!!

It's a great idea for the Telco, will provide you with advanced services and will save them tons of money over the long run - but they want to serve you with that fiber only, and that is a VERY BAD IDEA. They will present you with an agreement to install the fiber, and buried in the fine print is that they get to remove all copper pairs and serve you over the fiber only.

You must insist on one Plain Old Telephone Service line coming in to your house on a metallic pair straight from the switchroom - write it into the agreement, and ask them to send it to Legal... If for no other reason than when the power fails that POTS line will still work, with the 99.999% up-time reliability you've come to expect.

This is the line you put your burglar & fire alarm dialer on. This is the line your boss can call you or you can call them at 2 AM, with a reasonable chance that it will work.

The fiber field adapter box may well have a rechargeable backup battery in it to keep minimal services running (one line dial-tone for an hour or two) - but in 5 years when that battery goes bad, how long do you think it'll take to get someone out to replace it? And how many homeowners would even think to ask?

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They aren't giving that option around here. It might be a mile of copper, but everything is going fiber because of all the lightning damage problems in Florida. You have two choices, old copper wth lots of noise and outages, or new fiber. When enough people complain in an area, everyone is switched over. The other option is no landline.

The no land line option is becoming very viable not that some cell carriers are offering flat rate US plans, i.e. no minutes, no long distance and no extra charges to and US number, land, cell or other.

As for the backup power for a fiber home terminal unit, any internal battery it may have should only be a secondary backup. You need to have your own "real" UPS covering that unit as well as your computer(s), routers, aquarium, etc. all backed by a generator with an adequate fuel supply.

My dad and step mom had a propane powered backup system installed last year. They spent $20,000 by the time the work was done, and the tank was filled. SO, my lights go out, and I hear their generator running, while I'm busy shutting things down to conserve the UPS batteries.

Not knowing the details I can't comment on why it cost $20k, but it can certainly be done in most cases for a lot less, like around $5 max. That won't get you a unit big enough to run every single thing in the house typically, but if you select your emergency circuits well it will be close enough for any normal outage.

That was whole house. They are in their late '70s, and both have health problems so they need the central air or heat. They had a smaller setup but it was too much work to keep it up and running, like going outside during a hurricane to refill the gas tank.

Wow, thanks Bruce. I had no idea there was so much going on with those cables.

Shawn

Or until the price of copper and fiber diverge to the point of making it worthwhile to mine the copper...