hello people. got a customer with a modular home on a trailer park. no service to home. the office has the demark and i can trace the line to a cross connect point next door to the home and no further. it is about 3/4 of a mile and i need to use a progressive wire tracer. but they dont short out and they bleed. i cant determine which pair is theirs out of 25. if i use a regular toner it wont reach that far. anyone have an idea on how i can solve this problem other than having the resident jorder dialtone and try to fine it that way. thanks for any help with this. dave
If I'm reading this right...
You say that you can trace it as far as the x-connect point. I assume you can tell the incoming pair, so what is it x-connected to? Buried wire, 2, 4, 6 Pr?
A regular toner should be able to send tone that far. If yours can't, maybe change the battery in the toner +/or probe.
but they dont short out and they bleed.
Sounds like there is a problem with that cable if you ask me. No reason a decent buzzer (toner) like Aines won't work that far.
What do you mean "they don't short out"? Do you mean that if you put a short on the pair at the cross connect you can't see it at the other end? Definite problem with the cable.
-Hal
I don't understand why you cant follow the cable pairs ?
dial tone leaves the demark on a pair then it arrives at the cross connect and leaves there to the premise on pair
where are you losing it ?
like hal says a decent tone would go that distance no problem or use a continuity on your meter or tone
(one trick to get more distance on your tone is to ground one lead )
I'm a little confused as to what's going on as well. Any decent test tone set should work over that sort of distance with no trouble at all.
If the out cable, as in the cable going to the house from the X-conn has a defective pair, your toner won't work. Place the toner on another pair & try again. If it's still a no-go, try another pair again, then start splitting pairs. Time consuming, I know, but sometimes it'll save replacing the cable at least this time.
Dave
I'm assuming that the cable to the trailer from the cross connect is ok. The problem is in the 25 pair from there. Disconnect the subscriber cable from the pair it is connected to. Find another pair in the 25 pair that is not being used and is good. Connect the subscriber pair to that.
-Hal
Save the grief and go get a sidekick. find your dead end or short and repair it with the correct splice kit. (sidekick being the tool not the person)
(sidekick being the tool not the person) :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Tie a short on all vacant pairs outer end.
Take your meter (vom) at x connect and find you a good pair, reading for a dead short.
Make sure you read the pair for gnds,and unbalance after you have id the pair you are going to move your dial tone to. (temporary solutions)
But 1st, look for freshly turned dirt along the probable cable path(s). TWC carefully trenched over (read that as through) my septic tank laterals. The only reason they didn't get the telco cable is it goes the other way around the house, which was a BIG surprise to me when the dogs dug it up!
John C.
Trying to use an installer's tone set and a probe is inadequate in outside plant fault locating. I have $4000 worth of buried cable maintenance equipment in my truck, and sometimes that's inadequate. Is there a person you know who is trained in this aspect of the job? It's quite a bit different from working inside a building. It requires a whole other set of training, experience, and skills.
I also do not understand why you cannot identify both ends of the run. It is imperative that you do so first, before performing any further location procedures.
You know where the line is good, at a cross-connection? You know where the line is no good, at the subscriber's location? What is it you need us to tell you? Are you unable to find another intermediate connection point?
There are many different pieces of test equipment which a trained cable maintenance person can use to find a fault within a distance of one foot.
You have not described to us what the fault is.
It can be an open (one or both sides)
A short circuit.
A ground (one or both sides)
A cross with a working pair (one or both sides)
It can be a combination of these problems, and, in addition, you will often find that the fault reading at one end is not the same as the other end. These initial fault determinations are generally done with the KS meter ("brown" meter.)
Once you determine the type of fault, you must them select from your array of tools to begin the location procedure.
You will need to know the route that the cable takes. This requires a buried cable location device. It inserts a tone on the entire cable, and using the receiver part, you walk the suspected route, and mark the route with water-soluble paint.
Then take a physical measurement with a walking wheel. Record the result. This measurement is necessary to prove that your fault location math is correct. You also need to know the gauge of the wires, and the temperature of the ground. You will need to know whether you are working with filled cable or dry cable.
If you are looking for an open, use an open meter to determine how far away the open is. Then go to the other end, and take a reading. See if the two distances make sense.
To locate on a resistive fault, use a fault meter, such as the Dynatel model 965. If there is a dead short, use a hot-set and see if the SC will hold a tone. If not, try to weld it. Then take a resistance reading and divide by the feet per ohms factor for the gauge of cable.
Keep us posted, and we will talk you through this. We are here to help.
thank you for all the feedback and sorry for the confusion. in the office/demark the lines cross connect to the outgoing feed block to the spaces. there is only one designated pair for each space. on the other end at the home the phone demark was covered up. i put a tone for burial cable and could pick it up at a cross connect next door. trouble is this devise bleads and wont id which line it is. and unlike most tone senders if you short the pair it wont kill the tone. when i go to the space between this home and the one i am working on i dont pick up any tone between the two. i will check the batteries on my regular toner and make sure they are up. i hope i have provided enough enformation this time. thanks again. dave
the device for buried cable is designed to do just that , locate buried cable , not for isolating a pair out of the bundle .
if the dial tone is good at the cross connect and each space has only has one pair assigned to it (poor practice )and you have no dial tone at the unit what good is the tone doing you ?
or do you not know which pair is assigned to the space ?
very probably there is a break in the cable which is preventing your tone to make it to the cross connect ,
try grounding one lead of the tone and alternating the other lead between the conductors at the space
sounds like you may be looking at burying a new cable or finding and splicing a break
keep us advised as to what you find , this one is interesting
Read my post again. What is the fault? Is it a short, an open, a ground, etc?
You need to start at the beginning. Just trying to send tone is not the way to start. You need to meter the pair from both ends, and give us the results of the test.
If its only 25 pair, this should be relatively easy to determine even if the tone is bleeding on to other pairs. Get rid of the probe and use a butt set; check pair by pair, and you will definitely come across the right one.
Maybe it's bleeding because he hasn't isolated the pair yet?
The cable may have failed, and many or all of the pairs may be crossed.
Without an initial test of all pairs, from both ends, we are still in the dark.
You can lead a horse to water, you know the rest.
By the way Davetel you can do all the suggested things in Mr B's list with the side kick except measuring with a walking wheel
If this was an inside cable and cross connect point, would this issue be so complex? Just because it's underground cable doesn't make it that terribly different from a 25 pair riser cable and a station cable issue. Aside from water penetration or outright cuts, there's simply no difference. A cut cable is a cut cable, a bad pair is a bad pair in 90% of the cases.
Are there any distribution pedestals along the suspected cable route or do all drop wires from the lots converge at the cross-connect location individually? If there are pedestals, look for your tone at the one closest to the lot you are working with. If there are others, try them too. There's no logic in mobile home parks anymore.
If there are no distribution pedestals, it could be that you are dealing with buried splices for distribution, where the 25 pair cable is tapped with multiple buried splices along the route, though 3,500 feet with only a 25 pair cable seems to be a bit of a stretch. There must be hundreds of lots along such a route.
If this is a buried "A.K.A. 'out of sight'" distribution system, very popular in the 1970's, only one pair of the drop is spliced to any available pair in the cable. If that's the case, there might be a much bigger issue since locating and breaking open a buried splice can get you in trouble if you don't know how to do it.
A side kick is a tool normally carried by a telco employee or a seasoned outside plant technician. I seriously doubt that there are many interconnects that have their employees equipped with them, not to mention training on how to use them. This tool isn't a DVM by any stretch of the imagination.
I am not sure that I understand that 5:21 and harsh words stuff. I must be missing something there.
I had to look it up Ed. Like Waine said...
I thought Jeremiah was a bullfrog :shrug:
Ya know, you're right. :rofl:
I thought that this was a telecommunications support forum. I didn't realize that we now offer advice through other means.
Sounds good by me. We do try to go the extra mile. Rock on, brothers.
Two points then I am done.
1. This topic needs to be moved to cabling or outside wire construction.
2. This is a support forum and flaming someone is not allowed.
edited for spelling and altered point two.
Moving, it does fit OSP better I believe.
Yeah, but what's wrong with flamming? What is flamming? Now, flaming, on the other hand ............
John C. (Not Garand)
Originally posted by rustynails:
If its only 25 pair, this should be relatively easy to determine even if the tone is bleeding on to other pairs. Get rid of the probe and use a butt set; check pair by pair, and you will definitely come across the right one.
Amen
Please don't bring up very old posts unless you have something to say that actually ADDS to the topic at hand...your's doesn't.
Break on through
Topic was locked due to game playing after a mod gave instructions to stop. PM sent.