I recently did a job that involved splicing some 25 pair inside cables in a big plant. Conduits were in place and cables were run. Most splice boxes only had one cable in and one going out. A couple had a third smaller cable.

It's been quite a long time since I worked outside, but I remembered my training and used colored tie wraps to mark the direction the cables were going.

Anyone else remember this? Do you ever see it used anywhere?

Jim

We always used tags. I believe splicers used the colored ty-raps to separate the binders, etc in large pair count cables.

-Hal

That's what they did up here anyway.

That's all I've ever used them for was separating the binders, never direction and I was a Bell System splicer for several years.

We used tags. If they were in a metal box (conduit) we used to write on the inside of the box with sharpies listing what came from where and was going to what.

Sam

The colored ties were actually used in outdoor pedestals in a buried plant. Since you could only see the few feet of cable in the ped before it went underground, we put colored ties to indicate which way they came from. Perhaps not quite the same as conduits inside a building, but sometimes the conduits go into the ceiling and you can't see which way they're going. At the least, you should mark the cable that feeds the splice box.

Here's the colors and directions, as I learned it with GTE:

Blue Towards the CO. Dial tone feeds in from this cable.
Orange North
Green East
Brown South
Slate West

You're also correct that we used colored ties to separate binder groups in cables, too.

Jim

In inside work, such as for 1A2 systems, we used tags. If you wanted to ensure job security, you wrote the following on the tags:

"This cable goes to the other end."

Generally, for inside work, you number or letter the cables, and make a diagram that is left, with all good intentions, somewhere safe, where subsequently, some jack-hole will lose it or throw it away. If you plan to keep working there, keep a copy for yourself.

In splicing, you wrote the cable number and pair count on the tags, and tied them to the cable choke just inside the splice case. Sometimes in a complex splice, where it wasn't obvious what cable went where, you put a tag that said "IN" or "FROM CO" and tags that said "OUT (to destination)"

I never used colored cable ties for anything other than binder identification, as the other old guys have said. In fact, we seldom used colored ties, using pigtails of wire of the proper colors instead, because plastic ties disintegrate over the years from exposure to the elements.

using pigtails of wire of the proper colors instead...

Yup, done that many times too.

-Hal

Love it Arthur. Got to do it up here, especially for the uni-lingual French Bell techs.

I have found many hilarious tags over the years left by previous installers/repairmen.

Two of my favorites were

"I know where the other end of this cable is.....Do You?" :confused:

We have also used colored ties to mark cable direction. It's what we were always taught.

Blue -- towards CO (or feeder)
Orange -- North
Green -- East
Brown -- South
Slate -- West
Red -- Subscriber/Drop wire

As Jim said, we place them on the cable as they enter the pedestal or enclosure. On a fiber splice case, I will place them on the cable just before they enter the case. We have used tags in the past as well, but not as extensively.

On pair binders, I have used both scrap wire of the appropriate color, or colored ties.

Very interesting...I never heard of tagging the cables by direction but that makes sense. A few months ago we had a cable cut at our branch office and when the splicer repaired it, he did use pieces of wire wrapped around each binder (100 pair).

Jeff, that may have been more to just keep the binders together and not a directional thing.

I don't think it was for direction, just to ID the binders...it was a straight splice anyway.

If its not a filled cable, the binder markings that are manufactured in the cable are very light weight and easily lost. You can take these (white and blue strands, for example) and wrap them around the cable group, wrapping white one way and blue the other way, then tie them off toegether. Hard to explain in text, but easy to do.

The colorer ties or scraps of conductor make a better marker.

ffej010 - I forgot about Red for drops. I didn't use them much. It was usually pretty obvious which one was the drop!

I will also place the same directional colored ties on the bonding strap of each cable in the ped as well. That way when you need to get out your locator to mark a cable, makes it much easier to determine which lead to connect the locator up to.