atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Where's the X-pr?

Ed admitted it and look what happened, he immediately lost his hair.

OK to expanded on this, if all colors of pulp or paper were the same (except the spares) how, on a straight through splice, did you get the right group to the right group?? Now, not the ends just a straight splice on dead cable.

I thought I heard that if you looked at the end of a binder, the pairs were waxed together in a definite spiral pattern. If you were careful, starting with the tracer pair, you could "peel" the pairs out of the binder one at a time and get them in the proper order. If you didn't, then you had to tone each pair as you went.

Close Ed, pairs really didn't matter, the 100pr groups are what mattered.

Actually I did see an old terminal like that. It is in the basement of the industrial supply place that my hardware store has. This is a real old building. Hopefully I will be back there some day and get pictures of it. Funny thing is, one of the guys from my dad's work was there to look at cleaning up the wiring. He got a pic of the old terminal, unfortunately I do not have the pics anymore.
Maybe he still has them.
Jeff

Ed, excellent observation, and jb is correct. I was generically using one binder --- binders did change colors --- one would be green and white, the next red and white, or even purple (not violet) and white. Again, every manufacturer had their own ideas.

We random spliced the pairs, and, yes, follow the natural twist if possible. Makes a neater splice but the next reel may be twisted the other way.

No matter what you did, you had to tone and tag (with tag boards) the pairs from both ends to finish the job.

Thanks for you guys keeping this old man's grey cells moving.


KLD

OK you did have to tone and tag the ends, but in a straight through splice you didn't care which pair you spliced as long as the groups were right. If you looked at the cable end on it was in circular layer, each layer had an identifiable group you'd start with that group and go around the layer, than to the 1st group of the next layer. Toward the CO you counted the layers counter clockwise away from the CO you counted clockwise..hence the customer is always right, as far as cable count goes.

Ah HAH! I knew I was on the right track there Ken. Thanks, Bill for verifying my "guess" at how it worked. PIC was the norm by the time I entered this business, and since I never worked for a Telco, I never worked with pulp. I just have seen it when opening abandoned splices in old buildings. Most else I know is just from research and just asking questions, like Jeff. Maybe he will be the next Ed!

Hey, Jeff, if you want to see one of the old lead-sheath stubbed cable terminals, I still have about ten of them (new in box) and I will give you one if you want to pay for shipping. Unfortunately, it's a newer one that has PIC cable pairs, not pulp. If you want one, just let me know and I will send you one.

See, between the several of us we are a mobile museum.

jb knows a lot about this stuff.

Jeff another Ed? Is this a good thing? :shhh:

KLD

Well since you brought it up Ed. Actually the air pumped into the cable at the CO end and also in huts to re-supply the air was plain old compressed air ran through dryers filled with desiccant. When you had a leak or a dryer went bad you put on tanks of nitrogen, one of the reasons you always vented a manhole before going in, nitrogen won't support life. The pressure contactors rang into a board and would place a short on the cable pair, you'd read the resistance on the short with a wheatstone bridge to determine which contactor was in alarm, of course you could only read the closest one in alarm. Also from my old splicing days, can you guess how much (percentage) of cable (air core) is used for air flow? You won't believe the answer. This might make a good question for the trivia.