The Pig is dead!

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:27:49 AM UTC-5, mpm wrote:

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:06:19 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
Rodent damage to CATV hardline more common than you would expect. Especially > in colder climates. It was a big problem for us, near Cincinnati, back in the '80s.

Woodpeckers can be a problem too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZkAP-CQlhA

Many power and phone poles have required replacement, since the little rattlebrains pound away at the tops of the poles, until they work their way down to the through pole hardware. It was worse on the old creosoted poles than the pressure treated poles that are in use, today. They destroyed a full foot of the pole at my previous home, until the anchor to the guy wire broke free.

 

On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 04:08:08 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 11:56:03 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.


Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

They chew it to sharpen their teeth.

Did you ask them?




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:09:09 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.


Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

And you are as happy with yourself as ever.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 2:12:16 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 04:08:08 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 11:56:03 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

<snip>

Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

They chew it to sharpen their teeth.

Did you ask them?

Rodents - as a group - have incisors that keep on growing all the time, and have to be ground back by chewing on stuff to prevent them getting inconveniently long.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2824962/

Rodents aren't famously communicative, but people who study them do report their results, albeit not in places that serve up enough extra flattery to interest John Larkin.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 10:12:16 AM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 04:08:08 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 11:56:03 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.


Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

They chew it to sharpen their teeth.

Did you ask them?

Our .750 and .500 hardline was unjacketed. Jacketed cable was generally used in high salt areas, like near the coastlines. Just an aluminum tube filled with plastic foam, and an aluminum center conductor. Tell me what that tastes like. If they don't chew enough hard objects, their teeth continue to grow until they can't eat.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:29:12 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:09:09 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.


Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

And you are as happy with yourself as ever.

No, I pity you for your arrogance and your ignorance.

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:29:42 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:29:12 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:09:09 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.


Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

And you are as happy with yourself as ever.


No, I pity you for your arrogance and your ignorance.

Indeed. If you felt better about yourself you wouldn't need to be obsessed with assigning fault to so many others.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 10:21:35 PM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:29:42 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:29:12 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:09:09 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.


Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

And you are as happy with yourself as ever.


No, I pity you for your arrogance and your ignorance.

Indeed. If you felt better about yourself you wouldn't need to be obsessed with assigning fault to so many others.

You need to look at yourself when saying that.

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 12:54:26 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 10:21:35 PM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:29:42 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:29:12 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:09:09 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.


Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

And you are as happy with yourself as ever.


No, I pity you for your arrogance and your ignorance.

Indeed. If you felt better about yourself you wouldn't need to be obsessed with assigning fault to so many others.


You need to look at yourself when saying that.

Mike, if you only read your posts as if they were someone else's you might realize the mental state you have. I'm not even sure how to describe it. It's all about negativity and intense criticism of anyone who doesn't agree 100% with what you believe. I don't mean you disagree with people. I mean you can't disagree with people without calling them names, i.e. ad hominem attacks and just being mean.

I guess I should just ignore what you post and let you rant away in your world. It's not like anything I say to you will ever have any positive impact.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[David Lesher]

dplatt@coop.radagast.org (Dave Platt) writes:

In the 20-some years we've owned our house, the local squirrels have
managed to chew through the power-line neutral wire from the pole-pig.

Twice.

Having high voltage in the house due to an open neutral is not fun.
Fortunately there was no damage either time.

"Open Neutral" are words that DO get a line crew dispatched, quickly.

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

 

[bitrex]

On 4/28/2020 12:31 AM, David Lesher wrote:

Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> writes:


Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

And not when a Tesla drives by. Teslas do not have AM band on
their radios. You can guess why....

There's nothing on AM radio but right-wing talk shows and mariachi music?

This one seems to work fine:

<https://youtu.be/UtB1fVDaFf4>

 

[David Lesher]

Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> writes:

Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

And not when a Tesla drives by. Teslas do not have AM band on
their radios. You can guess why....

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher wrote:

Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> writes:


Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

I bet you can't guess why...

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

Ricky C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:356dec28-f96a-42c2-9736-79c1fb86cd6f@googlegroups.com:

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher
wrote:
Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> writes:


Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM
was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty
insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

I bet you can't guess why...

No guess about it. It had a poor ground link connection. The rains
completed it a bit better.

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 2:35:26 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

Ricky C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:356dec28-f96a-42c2-9736-79c1fb86cd6f@googlegroups.com:

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher
wrote:
Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> writes:


Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM
was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty
insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

I bet you can't guess why...


No guess about it. It had a poor ground link connection. The rains
completed it a bit better.

Something happened to my post. I was actually replying to David Lesher, but I must have trimmed his remark.

Guess I shouldn't be posting drunk. Or maybe I shouldn't post sober. Not sure which applies in this case. Is my typing slurred???

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

Our local untility keeps a master line technician with decades of experience and a ham license on staff for these things. Most of the folks who do his job are post retirement or no longer able to climb, but have good troubleshooting skills.

His van has three things, a Korean War era tube shortwave receiver a beefy TDR for finding underground line breakes in MV cables, and a simple spectrum analyser with a premap optimized for Low Band VHF. Also a recever set for a VHF carrier in the local cable TV systems, so the problem can be solved by the correct entity.

He has a variety of antennas and pickup and coupling coils, but perfers the SW set and a long wire antenna tossed out the back of the van, claming that solves 95% of the problems.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 10:04:57 AM UTC-4, srober...@gmail.com wrote:

Our local untility keeps a master line technician with decades of experience and a ham license on staff for these things. Most of the folks who do his job are post retirement or no longer able to climb, but have good troubleshooting skills.

His van has three things, a Korean War era tube shortwave receiver a beefy TDR for finding underground line breaks in MV cables, and a simple spectrum analyser with a preamp optimized for Low Band VHF. Also a receiver set for a VHF carrier in the local cable TV systems, so the problem can be solved by the correct entity.

He has a variety of antennas and pickup and coupling coils, but prefers the SW set and a long wire antenna tossed out the back of the van, claiming that solves 95% of the problems.

Some of the LED lamps being retrofitted into old traffic lights radiate all kinds of crap. Some, in rural areas can be heard on a radio, further than you can see them.

We used a radio made by Sniffer back in the '80s in our CATV service vans to monitor out distribution system at all times. The idiot manager tried to save a few dollars and bought a used monitoring system. It was made for a 12 channel system, not our 36 channel design. It wiped out the channel assigned to MTV, so I didn't need the encoder. The visual carrier of that TV channel worked just as well.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher wrote:

Michael Terrell writes:

Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

And not when a Tesla drives by. Teslas do not have AM band on
their radios. You can guess why....

Poor design of the motor controls and little or no shielding? A decent AM radio design was more complex than all of the electronics in a Tesla?

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 1:03:34 PM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher wrote:
Michael Terrell writes:

Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

And not when a Tesla drives by. Teslas do not have AM band on
their radios. You can guess why....


Poor design of the motor controls and little or no shielding? A decent AM radio design was more complex than all of the electronics in a Tesla?

Demographics. Tesla really isn't targeting the market that includes many AM listeners. I can't remember the last time I listened to AM radio in any venue.

Cars have to meet part 15 emission standards like any other device. Unlike ICE, electric batteries and motors don't have wear parts in the electrical path that degrade and generate emissions.

I guess the FM radio LO might emit a bit.

I've never understood why people would hate an entire car company when they've never owned a product. Is it the idea of doing something that other companies said wasn't practical? Is it the idea of the cars themselves? Tesla hate just seems so totally irrational to me. That's why I understand Larkin hating them.

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 2:30:36 PM UTC-4, Ricky C wrote:

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 1:03:34 PM UTC-4, Michael Terrell wrote:
On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 12:31:38 AM UTC-4, David Lesher wrote:
Michael Terrell writes:

Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during=
power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it =
was the same before, during and after rain.

And not when a Tesla drives by. Teslas do not have AM band on
their radios. You can guess why....


Poor design of the motor controls and little or no shielding? A decent AM radio design was more complex than all of the electronics in a Tesla?

Demographics. Tesla really isn't targeting the market that includes many AM listeners. I can't remember the last time I listened to AM radio in any venue.

Cars have to meet part 15 emission standards like any other device. Unlike ICE, electric batteries and motors don't have wear parts in the electrical path that degrade and generate emissions.

I guess the FM radio LO might emit a bit.

I've never understood why people would hate an entire car company when they've never owned a product. Is it the idea of doing something that other companies said wasn't practical? Is it the idea of the cars themselves? Tesla hate just seems so totally irrational to me. That's why I understand Larkin hating them.

I've never had 100% third degree burns, either. Not that I want either. I do tire of all the fanboi BS about them, and your continuous spam about them.. That does more to make me not want something than anything else. Most advertising bores me to tears, especially the 'All of our customers are idiots' style that is so popular today.