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We teach a number of classes at the IBEW (Local 3) here in NYC. Some I teach, some I taught, some I just help out with. We have a floor of a large building downtown that we use just for V&D classes.

The basic class:

1- The color code - starting with 25 pair voice, then showing how the first 4 pair are for data, then the 12 strand fiber code. We follow that by showing large count telephone cable and how to "read" the binders.
2- Practical - Punch down 25 pair on 66 blocks and 110 blocks. Repeat.
3- The EIA/TIA Structured wiring standard (in brief) and how it applies to the electrician on a job.
4- Punch down 4 pair (8p8c) jacks. We give every 2 students a length of cable and a jack each. They each punch down 568A terminations and then test the cable for continuity. Then they do the same with 568B and test that. Then punch down a jack on one end of a piece of cable and then the other on a patch panel. Then test. We do this with a variety of jacks and panels (AT&T, Panduit, Siemon etc)
5- How a job goes together. On the voice side MDF & IDFs. On the Data side MC, ICs & HCs. How all of them should be assembled. What to do, what not to do. Horizontal runs of one or multiple cables to a single WAO.
6- How the Voice Network functions in America (Class 5 through Class 1 offices). How to xconnect an extension or circuit from the MDF to an IDF to a station.

We have advanced classes where we teach:
Soldering (a lost art) (mostly XLR cables but also others)
Coax Installation and testing. F-Connectors & BNCs
Fiber Optic terminations: Glueing, Crimping & Fusion
Testing cables with a Cat 6 tester. Punch down jacks like in the basic class but now they have to get it to pass more then just continuity. Explain NEXT, FEXT, PSELFXT and all those other hideous abbreviations and what they mean.
PA Systems: How they go together. How to install, test and troubleshoot them
DSL - How it works and how to install it.
Grounding & Bonding Data Centers
We've also taught Wire wrapping and Cable Lacing, but that's mostly on request.

Switching: Three classes.
Voice - starting with cord boards and going through strowger, Cross Bar, Electronic and into digital
Data - Hubs, Bridges, Switches & Routers
VOIP - Basics

Then we have a real VOIP school (we're a licensed CISCO academy)
We also teach the CCNA class.

There's more, but for the life of me I can't remember what now.

Ask away if you have any questions.


Sam


"Where are we going and why are we in this hand basket?"
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I agree with Bill on his explanation. When I was taught in college; yes I learned this industry at a technical college about 25 years ago, taught by Alexander Graham Bell himself I think, those were the exact ways we were taught. And, in those days, I was the ONLY girl in that school, so I have had my share of learning how to play in the same school lot with the boys for a LONG time now.

Bridging points were to be done between the system connections and the station cables. System connections always on the left and cross connects going out the right side to the station blocks. And the station cables were punched down using all the pairs, not just what ever amount of pairs you needed at that particular moment.

Also bridging points were to be done between the C.O.(dial tone) and the system connections, with the C.O. connections always on the left out to the system side cross connects on the right.

Somewhere along the way, it has become too easily accepted to just install cables and wires any way you want. Mainly because customers have opted to always go with the "Low Bidder". We all know that "Low Bidder" does not equal "Correct", don't we?!!?

I am called the B*#%@ when I make my techs correct even the smallest of things I find them doing wrong, but they say it with such LOVE I am sure.

I must say it is a breath of fresh air to hear from an electrical contractor "Wanting to Learn & Share" equally in this industry, as I get so tired of hearing the "Sparky's" out there saying things like; you're just a Low Voltage Contractor, you need to leave the wiring to the "Real Electricians". So welcome MrSparky2U, and I'll play nice in your playground, if you play nice in mine!!

Also there used to be a company that put out training books called ABC Teletraining and they had a great book going from the basics of wiring of a jack all the way to the MPOE, IDF's and the like. In fact there was an entire series of training books, of course most of them were 1A2 in my day of training, but I still saw some of those books out and around even as much as just a year or so back. Maybe you can look for one of them for a basic training lesson plan too.

This really is the greatest forum to come to, believe me, I have been hiding and watching here for 6 years and learning a lot. Glad I am now having a little more time to participate. YOU GUYS ARE GREAT!!...and a lot of fun too!!

Good luck on your training!! smile


Angie
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Angie is on the money.

Also - the training manuals were "Lee's ABCs of the Telephone" that became "ABC Teletraining". Just be careful of what version you get. The company has been around for a long time. I remember versions from the '60s that dealt with residential installation. They called for separating the twisted wires of the station cable (no jacket) and tacking it under the chair moldings with wire nails. Certainly an appropriate method for the time, but not very valid for current instruction.

Sam


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An addendum to my earlier post on training:

We also teach fiber optic testing. Power meters and OTDR.

Back during the dot-com boom we did a lot of training on T-Carrier - theory, installation and testing on T-1s and T-3s with some work on OC-X muxes. We still carry the class on the books but only give it if requested (usually by a contractor who's got a job they're bidding on that requires it).

The soldering class came about because of the Republican National Convention that was here in the city in 2004. A contractor won the bid for the Voice & Data portion of the job and expected to do just that, Voice & Data. Surprise! Most of the voice was brought in by Verizon and there wasn't a lot of data. The bulk of the work was miles and miles of microphone cabling for the TV people - and all of the connectors (mostly XLR) had to be soldered. There were some frantic phone calls to the Union Hall and they wound up replacing about half of the young'uns on the job with some cranky old guys who still remembered how to solder. The work went well and everyone was happy but we put soldering back in the syllabus on a permanent basis.

I think the lesson to be learned is that if you have a large organization you need to keep track of your talent. Keep a database on who knows what and be able to grab them when you need them. Even better - let them teach a class to some instructors who can then put it into your program.

To prove this I'd like to add a family anecdote.

I had a Great- Aunt Mollie, who passed away many years ago at the age of 99. She had worked in NYCs Garment Center all her life and had been retired for many years. I used to bring my kids (when they were little) to see her every week. One Sunday she proudly told me that she was going back to work tomorrow. I was shocked!

Turns out a Broadway Producer was putting on a play (I think it was Anything Goes, but I'm not 100%). The costumes called for a lot of feathers and they couldn't find anyone who could reproduce the costumes that went back to the '20s and '30s. The Producer went to the ILGWU, who dug into their records and found three surviving pensioneers who had done primarily feather work in their careers. Every morning for a few weeks a limousine picked up Mollie and two of her cronies and took them to a shop where these three little old ladies trained a bunch of young girls how to make feathered hats, cloaks, bags etc.

It may have been the best days of Mollie's retirement and was a win-win for all concerned. Moral of the story? Keep track of your talent, you never know when you might need it.

Sam


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Sam, I solder on almost a daily basis doing audio work. It really is an art form and it's sometimes hard to teach other people how to do it. Let me tell you, I have had to figure out some interesting ways to solder XLRs in the back of a sound rack...without burning my hands off smile


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My first job out of high school was in an electronics plant. I started as a prototype tech and of course everything was soldered. Most of the equipment I built used Amphenol connectors, the familiar 50 pin and smaller (yes they do make 36, 24 and 14 pin Amphenols). Everything was wired with 22GA stranded wire and those Amphenols were not the crimp type. They just wouldn't work in this application anyway. There were sometimes a dozen 50 pin connectors on the rear of a rack mount piece of equipment and each pin had to have the tinned wire inserted into it, soldered and a piece of sleeving slid down over it to prevent shorts. Then there was point-to-point wiring of chassis- your usual resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc. We also built printed circuit boards that had to have the components "stuffed". Not mil spec but we did a lot of work for the aerospace industry.

So after about nine years of that even though it was forty years ago I can still pick up a soldering iron and wire components like it was yesterday. Like riding a bike I guess. Just don't ask me about surface mount, I wouldn't know where to start. Fortunately (or unfortunately) all that stuff today is throwaway so repair of those boards isn't much of an issue.

-Hal


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Hal -

2 small comments. Besides 50 pin and smaller, they also make bigger amphenols. Just a few years ago I was installing a lot of carrier equipment. T-3 Muxes which output 28 T-1s usually came with wirewrap outputs. Then we got a batch that were amphenoled - 25 circuits on ones pair of amps and 3 on the other. Then we got the newer version with 28 pair amphenols. And a different "Butterfly" machine to make them up.

2nd - I worked with an old timer named Joe who had been a foreman for NY Tel for many years before coming into Local 3. He said that whenever he had to solder anything in the house his wife Julia would laugh at him and take the iron away and do it herself. During WWII she had been a "rosie the solderer" who built radios on an assembly line. Joe would never object because as he said, she was much better then he was,

She said it was a skill that you never forgot.


Sam


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Yep, I've got some 64 pin Amphenol cables too. Just like the CG's seeing a 25 pair connector and referring to it as "Centronics", I guess we also have the bad habit of referring to a 25 pr. connector as an "Amphenol". Kind of like the "RJ45" thing.


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Yup, 64 pin (32 pair) is the biggest in the Amphenol 57 series. Never saw one though. That 28 pair had to be a custom. I remember back then somebody heard about something like a 26 pair, just a bit bigger than the 25 but not enough that you would notice. Wonder if that was it?

-Hal


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Actually, it may have been 32 pair and we only used 28 pair for the T's. Damned if I remember. We used it on ABAM cable so it took 22 gauge cable. I think I only made up about 3 or 4 sets the whole time we were doing that work.


Sam


"Where are we going and why are we in this hand basket?"
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