atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Nice pic of a trunk line.

Eh, I don't know Bill. 710 modules when nested properly in a splice are mighty tidy. A dual-bank splice can be even tighter. 3M Ms2 modules on the other hand are enormous and take up more room than using Scotchloks from my experience with them. Those things are huge!

I've never touched or even seen a Picabond connector (they were never used in this area by Bell as far as I've seen). In our former Contel territories (taken over by GTE in 1991), they always used Scotchloks but GTE switched to Ms2 later.

Now that everything Bell Atlantic and GTE are Verizon, 710 is the standard splicing method in these parts.

Wow, what a side-track!

Speaking of Picabonds, I have a swimming pool that was "made possible by a generous grant" from that company.

There was a class-action against that product that resulted in large cash pay-outs to anyone who could document use over a certain number of years. The tool causes carpal tunnel injuries when used over a long period.

Modules are faster and smaller, make a picture-perfect splice, and are easier to trouble-shoot. Just because some Luddites want to sit and do one wire at a time, when people a lot smarter than all of us have come up with a much neater and efficient system, doesn't mean it's the better way.

I've never used the 710 machine; almost all my splicing was done either with B-Connectors or with the MS2 machine. A couple of times I used picabonds and at the end of my career I used the Scotch UG/UR/UY connectors.

And then there was one time when I used those plastic sleeves that replaced the cotton sleeving dipped in wax.

The 3M MS2 required ordering a garbage pail to fit around the splice. I never liked them. I liked B-connectors, picabonds and the Scotch connectors. They made a nice small splice.


Sam

<3 OSP materials, workmanship, and info.

I'm with you Sam. Never saw a mod splice I thought looked worth a darn. Also seem to have more failures in them. The really look like crap in a ped. B connectors for the most part and twist and solder. I did use the mods but didn't like them.

I talked with an old Bell Telephone splicer that I used to work with in 1970. He is a year away from retirement with Verizon. After trying to remember all the "dead" guys we used to work with, he told me he was one of a very few splicers that still did lead. He spliced a 3,000 pair cable in downtown Pittsburgh last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's right. 4 days. He had a splicer's helper and went through 3 different switchmen in the CO. It was one of the last lead cables in the city streets and it was being half tapped to a new PIC cable. Paper to plastic. Interesting what he was required to use. It turns out the "new" guys don't want to try and deal with the individual splices so there is a "transition" splice (he called it a blade) that paper goes in one side and PIC in the other. 25 pairs at a time. The splice case is enormous and the splices look terrible, but this is how it is today. Next year, when he retires, there will only be 4 guys left that know how to splice lead in the Pittsburgh area.

Rcaman

No, I don't think that the "blade" is entirely unique. It sounds more like a 710TC1 module that plugs onto the side of a typical 710 SC1 or SD1 straight-splice module. These are frequently used for half-tapping cables (hence the 'T' in the nomenclature). Once the cut-over is complete, the tap modules are either removed or the old cable pairs are just pulled from them.

Typical scenario: The feed cable is brought in and terminated on the bottom of the 710 module. The new replacement cable is terminated on the top of it. The tap module is installed by plugging it into the side of this 710 module.

The old cable's pairs are terminated on the tap module to carry the circuits through during the transition, but not cut yet.

Once the same thing is repeated at the far end, the tap module is removed. This is a remarkably simple means to make such a transition with zero circuit disruption in my book.

Nay sayers! 710 is an amazingly flexible cable splicing system.

That looks reasonable and is probably what he was talking about. I learned, early on, splicers have their own jargon and, sometimes, it is only intelligible to other splicers and it varies by region.

Of course, if one breathes in enough lead fumes, language and reasoning become an art instead of a necessity.

Rcaman

We had a cable cut at one of our offices last year. I got to watch the guy splice 100 pairs together with the MS2 system. He was sitting on a seat, in a large puddle of water, smoking cigarettes, splicing away!