atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Curious about lead/pulp cables

Thank you guys. You are right that the workmanship rivals that of plumbing trades. The main cable comes into the building, presumably from a manhole in the street, and is very neatly attached to the structure, and there are three splices I could see, where a smaller pair count cable drops to an MDF where screw terminal blocks distributed the pairs to the individual subscribers in the building. Sadly only one terminal block remains and the lead cables are cut at the top of the backboard. A new 25 pair drop from each backboard runs back to the main protector on the other side of the building where the new feed comes in. On an even sadder note, every pair I tried on the newer feeds was NDT as well. Most of the building is low rent apartments aside from the bottom floor which is three businesses. The business I am working for has phone service from the cable company, and I suspect the other two do as well. I doubt anyone in the apartments could afford a real land line. Most of the residents frequently bother the patrons of the bar (where I've been working) for cigarettes and spare change. But I digress. Back to my small piece of lead cable. There are: 16 red wires, 7 whites, 7 white/blk 1 white/grn and 1 kind of orange color. I assume the 16 reds are the 16 rings, but whats the deal with the others? I'll put up a pic soon of the piece, but I doubt you'll be able to see the colors with any detail.

I will try to remember to get some pics of whats left in the building next time I'm down there. Also I found some strange cabling that I'm guessing was for 1A or 1A1? It's got a brown jacket, again 16 pair, and a color code like nothing I've ever encountered before. It is a plastic cable, I hesitate to say PVC but it's definitely newer than the pulp cable. Several runs terminate on a backboard where the first lead drop is. Any equipment is long gone and a few have a pair or two punched on a 66 block cross connected to a pair off the newer 25 pair PVC feed, but nothing is in service anymore. After I get up to speed on the lead cable, I'd like to know what this oddball color code is all about.

The building I used to work at in Boston had lead jacketed cable in the basement. The cable was no longer in use as it had been cut and a good chunk of it left coiled hanging down from where it entered the building. I remember seeing conductors soldered and each of the joints covered with a woven sleeve.

Lead cable was also used for risers. There were two of them that went to our floor. Likewise they had been cut, but, I hacked off some pieces and brought them home.

I doubt Verizon has any plans to remove it. How would you dispose of something like that?

With the obvious health risks associated with lead, I can't see anyone in a hurry to intentionally expose themselves or their employees to it. I've seen Verizon contractors removing and recovering lead sheathed cable from aerial and duct installations, but not from within buildings. I would guess that the building's owner is responsible for it by now since it was obviously installed over 75 years ago.

My Union (Local 3 IBEW) gave a class in High Voltage Splicing that dealt primarily with Lead covered cable. Lead cable was still found in some of the higher voltage services (I seem to remember (100,000Volts and higher). It was a tough class to get into, with a long waiting time. HV splicers were compensated extremely well, though it wasn't something you did very often.

The class met down the hall from where I taught (in our old building) and I used to chat with the instructors. The students had to finish a number of projects to complete the program and one of them was splicing a Lead Sheathed Telephone Cable!

I asked the instructor about it and he said it had been part of the program forever but that they were in the process of dropping it, because they hadn't had a call on it for several years.

Sam

I would have to imagine, health risks aside, this stuff would fetch at least a halfway decent amount at a scrap yard. Both lead and copper are valuable metals. The prices for any scrap are down right now, but that changes almost daily. That being said, Jim was right. I did appreciate finding that cable, and the workmanship that went into it. I thought about removing it and scrapping it, but then no one else would be able to appreciate it. I certainly could have removed it and the owners would have been grateful to have one less hazard in their building. Then I thought how cool it was to find it so reasonably intact. I'm not going to be the one to deny that to someone else. Maybe I sound like an idiot waxing philosophical about a 75 year old phone cable, but I think as a society we made a stupid decision to run away from traditional wired phone service. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, it's my opinion we traded rock solid reliability for convenience, vanity, and as far as Voip, to save a few bucks.

When I started in the IBEW back in 1978 (coming from the CWA), my toolbox, like most Telephone Men in those days contained a soldering iron. I was sent to work at an electrical job for a few days, because the telephone job i was supposed to start was held up and I had that "special tool."

The job was the renovation of a floor in Rockefeller Center. Rock Center in those days had some unusual code requirements, unique to themselves. The "traveller" wire from a light fixture to a switch had to be purple (not violet, as I continued to call it) and....

No wire nuts were permitted.

All electrical splices had to be soldered, and then taped three times - first rubber, then friction, then plastic. It was a better system and more reliable. Do we still do that? We do not.

MDF's were all solder. Then they were converted to wire wrap. Then they went to much down. Now we're seeing patch panels.

A lot of things change. Sometimes for safety reasons, more often for productivity gains. It's just the way it is. We don't have to like it, but we have to understand it and adapt or die out.

Sam

Sam, I understand. From a business perspective you have to keep up, no doubt. Cell phones and voip certainly have their places. And any large institution such as enterprise class businesses or hospitals certainly have to consider the bottom line. IP based systems and SIP trunks can save a large operation a considerable amount of money and offer flexibility that pots lines and key systems just can't match. I just think about my family's cell phone bill, and how we just "have to have" the latest and greatest Iphones and whatnot. Our bill from VZ wireless is OUTRAGEOUS! Mostly in the name of convenience and vanity. A regular old house phone would be less than 1/4 of that, but it's quite a trade off. Reliability vs. safety and convenience. I just think for smaller applications we made a lousy trade. Maybe I'm a dinosaur before my time.

Are there any good videos on splicing the pulp cables & soldering the lead cables? OSP fascinates me.