Did you ever hear from the first landowner? I am surprised he didn’t demand you remove the foundation out of spite.
From: Sean Heskett Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2015 10:44 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 Haha that sounds like a project we did last summer. Property line dispute forced us to covertly move a Rohn45 tower 20 feet to the east to get off the disputed property (he wanted to charge a rate that was completely ridiculous) Wish I coulda seen his face after he went to check out the site when our attorney told him we no longer required a new lease because we had removed our tower and equipment. Pics of before (Tower is to the right of the truck) and after (tower is to the left of the truck) attached. We Only had to adjust the backhauls by an inch or two because we were able to line the tower up on the same compass headings. Complete waste of time yet so satisfying haha 😜 -Sean On Monday, April 13, 2015, Chuck McCown <ch...@wbmfg.com> wrote: Once upon a time, Beehive had a central office switch in a semi trailer. (All of them were in semi trailers at one time). One of these trailers was parked on reservation land. There was a change in tribal leadership. They wanted rent for the land the trailer was sitting on. Nope, that was not the deal. The deal was something like $2 for a 100 year easement. Well, with tribes, there is no such thing as “deals” or contracts. Doesn’t matter if there is paper or not. The tribe will change its mind if it wants to. OK, so no rent money, tribe does not pay phone bills. No payments, no service. OK, no service – good luck in ever taking possession of your trailer and switch again. The tribe dumped dirt all around it so you could not even back up and connect to it to drag it away. Public Service Commission was called, meetings were held (the switch provided service to more than just the tribe). Art Brothers was instructed to simply let it be and let the lawyers and judges work it out. But anyone that knows Art knows he can never let something be. So, a few of his trusted employees (actually all 4 of his employees) all had the exact same idea at the exact same time: Go rescue the switch. (I was in college at the time, I called my wife and told her my next call might be from a tribal jail. So “without Art’s knowledge... wink, wink). I got dropped off on BLM land about midnight with a shove in hand. I spent the next 5 house shoveling dirt so that a tractor could be backed under the semi trailer. I climbed the power pole and cut the power drop to the semi. It shook all the lines in the neighborhood causing a dog to bark. One of the tribal members came outside and saw me hanging off the pole, fully illuminated by a big ass street light and yelled “Hey! what in the hell is going on over there”? I yelled back: “Power company, working on this pole”. He told the dog to shut up and he went back inside and went to sleep. I have the signal over the VHF radio and a semi tractor appeared on the scene, backed under the trailer and hitched. It pulled the trailer forward to a hard right, through the fence onto BLM ground and backed in parallel to the fence about 10 feet from its former resting place. But now on US government owned land. Tractor unhitched and took off. All was quiet. A few hours later, I was under the trailer splicing in a new central office entrance cable when the tribal cop showed up. He stopped his car and rolled down the window. He said :”Howz it goin” I replied:”Fine”. And that was the end of that story. From: Rex-List Account Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 9:46 AM To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com'); Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 I did business with Brian Province at Falcon communications. Very nice guy may he rest in peace. He told stories of having a DMS-10M in a semi-trailer at the Indian reservation and they would shoot holes in it. I cut my teeth on a Stromberg Carlson Cross Bar and yeah you could tell a lot by the sounds it would make. Old times. Rex From: Af [mailto:javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af-boun...@afmug.com');] On Behalf Of Robert Haas Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 10:18 AM To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com'); Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 Finally made it into a CO.. Our C15’s cages are isolated and bonded separately back to an EGB. It amazes me how accurate guys could troubleshoot those switches just by the sound it was making. He tells stories of watching the switch during lightning storms and being able to watch the arcs across the frame. There is a story of a farmer hooking the ‘drop wire’ into his electric fence, the eskimo’s that shot holes into the switch they delivered to Deadhorse Alaska.. I mentioned going to Animal Farm and Beehive Teleco and two of them recalled the one time president? of Beehive writing a comments section for a trade magazine that they all read. Unfortunately two of the three OG’s “Old Guys” that started BPS, Falcon Communications, and Diversified Communications have passed recently, a lot of early telecom history is disappearing with them. From: Af [javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af-boun...@afmug.com');] On Behalf Of javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ch...@wbmfg.com'); Sent: Friday, April 10, 2015 10:49 AM To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com'); Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 Our C15 might be in an isolated rack inside the cage. That is a funny story. I started on AE Step switches. In time not only could I hear problems, but I could tell when someone was calling the office and answer the phone before it would ring. That would freak folks out. From: Robert Haas Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2015 8:42 PM To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com'); Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 I'll have to take a look at our C15 installs and see what they did. To be honest I haven't paid too much attention to them. Our offices were converted to DMS10's in 97 or 98 from step switches when the company bought the exchanges from GTE :p *Funny story, when our owner (who cut his teeth as an X-Y switch installer for Stromberg Carlson) when inspecting one of the CO's prior to purchase he heard something wrong in the switch room (A stepper motor?) mentioned it to one of the OSP guys as he was leaving - something along the lines of 'Sounds like you have a bad motor back there'. Said OSP guy filed a union grievance against him for troubleshooting the problem. Surprisingly the same OSP guy retired from the company just a few years ago after 40+ years of being in the same CO under Contel, GTE and then BPS. On 2015-04-09 20:59, Chuck McCown wrote: The original digital switches were so touchy that they started doing the isolated ground zones for static sensitive equipment. But now-a-days we bolt them to the concrete floor and bond them all together. Same with cable racks now. Back to the old days of non isolation in all the new installations I have been involved with. And this is with RUS financing. I haven’t seen a new isolated rack for some time. From: Robert Haas Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 7:33 PM To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com'); Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PRM-24 All the superstructure within the buildings are isolated & bonded. A lineup of racks may be bonded together and then bonded back to the I/MGB, the racks themselves are isolated from the floor, walls and the cable rack. Same for cable rack - it is all bonded together and then bonded to the I/MGB but isolated from the walls, celling and racks etc. We've gone through RUS inspections in the past and have not failed any of our grounding/bonding portions. Since the chassis is obviously metal there is a risk that the surge could energize the rack, which given our past experiences gives me the heebie-jeebies. By isolating the chassis from the rack the only path would be to the EGB and avoid the rack (and potentially other equipment) absorbing the surge. At least that is my thinking anyway. I guess that is where my question lies - am I worried about nothing? On 2015-04-09 19:14, Lewis Bergman wrote: If you look at the relevant docs on the subject like the Telco standard or R56 you'll see the rack itself is part of the ground bus. This really is forced by equipment designers. I can't think of many pieces of equipment that chassis ground isn't equivalent to ground reference in the circuit. You should ground the rack as if it is an integral part of the IGB. On Apr 9, 2015 4:56 PM, "Robert Haas" <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rob-li...@bpsnetworks.com');> wrote: We’ve been deploying the WB suppressors using the prm24 chassis for over a year now and have ~30 or so in the field. I’ve had an uneasy feeling since day one about mounting the PRM’s in the rack with other equipment – to the extent of when I have the option I buy a 1u wall mount bracket and mount the chassis on the wall next to the cable entrance (bonding to the EGB). I’ve even isolated the chassis off the rack using poly washers and poly screws (again bonding to the EGB or MGB in a cabinet). My line of thinking is that I do not want to risk shedding the surge into the rack and potentially into another piece of equipment. I do not trust that the surge will follow the bond/ground wire to the EGB or MGB and not go into the rack/superstructure. We’ve had this happen in the past where a redline AN50-E was struck and the surge was brought inside into the superstructure and took out $20k+ of cards in one of our DMS10s. In that case there was a polyphaser IF SS at the cable entrance that was bonded to the ring – the polyphaser popped but not before damage was done. The case of the IDU showed arc marks around the ovals where the screws to the rack pass through, the screws in the rack welded themselves along with the bond screw in the chassis (it was bonded to the EGB using the screw in the back of the chassis). Anyone else have the same feeling that bringing the surge into the rack is bad juju or is thatoneguysteve sitting there looking at me shaking his head saying that guy is f*ing nuts?
