atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Abandoned/Obsolete Armored Copper Drop.

Looks like removing obsolete copper drops isn't high up on Verizon's "To Do" list...even if the drop hangs low enough that I can jump up and pull down hard on it.

Pics

There is very little copper in drop wire. It's mostly iron, for strength, with a little copper, for transmission. There is a newer version that has two 22G pairs, but it was invented recently, say in the last 25 years, and there is very little of it out there. The real money, if you were to salvage anything, is the billions of cable feet of lead cable with copper conductors, that is buried all over the country. It would probably take as much in labor, equipment, and insurance, to salvage it as there is value in the product. (Until copper goes for $10 a pound...then it would be worth it.) Believe me, I've thought about it a lot, and I know where a lot of it is buried.

This particular cable is high pair count with an armor. Across the street, there are two long pieces dangling from above. One piece is the outside jacket while the other is the metal armor...which had separated from the jacket.

If anything, I'd love to cut the intact piece in front of the first anchor point and use it to whack people upside the head when they need it.

I have a couple of pieces of the Rural Drop Wire/Cable mentioned.

If you don't own one you can rent a Sawzall and grab a ladder from your church.

They did remove it, the part that went across the street. Now it's up to the building owner to remove "his" part.

-Hal

I snapped a few more pictures. I'll upload them later this evening.

The metal is called termplate, spelled that way for some reason. There is actually armored cable that is much thicker and usually just for trying to slow down rodents.

For the third time, ternplate. Thank you samsung

A few more pictures.

Can't tell from the pictures the pair count but there is probably a 200 pair terminal in the utility room of that building.

-Hal

From below, 150 to 200 pairs seems spot on.

That's actually super dangerous almost everytime I've seen a street lamp like that they have a hot chassis
Would be interesting to wave a non contact voltage detector around that.

Missed that last picture of the other end hanging off the street light. Even if that light was "hot", that cable has a poly outside jacket so there is no danger of it becoming hot. Still, that picture makes the situation look even worse. Really no excuse for leaving it like that.

-Hal

Here ya go:

https://www.britannica.com/technology/terneplate

And if you score it with your splicer's knife, along the axis of the cable, and then try to bend it back, the razor-sharp edge will trim your finger nail, right up to your first knuckle. I would show you a typical scar, but there may be children reading and they would be traumatized. (my favorite nephews Jeff "-51" Green, and the other one near the Arctic Circle.)

Used for casket linings.

I think that I've come across it before. And the results weren't good for my fingers.

Interesting. I never investigated, sort of just thought it was a spelling error that turned into a trademark.

Yeah its pretty vicious, some brands and qualities are worse than others. Modern cable tends to have the jacket welded to it very tightly so you need to skin the whole thing in one go, while older cables you can peel the jacket off, then work on the ternplate by itself. It's very satisfying to start a cut and push it through the metal.

I have almost abandoned my splicer knife. It's either too sharp and cut a pair while I ring the cable, or too dull and I cant effectively skin it. A hook blade razor almost never fails

Could a pipe cutter be used to skin that type of cable?

There was one in the old BSP and I found it in the tool pile. It either never worked great or is worn out. I tried it a couple time and it looks like it should do everything. It cuts with a tiny razor blade, and you can set the depth of that blade. Then you can set a roller to the cable diameter. You squish the razor into the cable then and it's supposed to be easy to ring cut or skin the cable.

It always seemed like more trouble than it's worth. The utility knife with a razor hook blade is great.

Sawzall

I thought ternplate was only used as the outer shield of Stalpeth cable. The picture isn’t that clear but that cable appears to be Alpeth.

The shield has several specific identifiers for different materials. I think I read ternplate as the generic term in a splicing course or a splice case manual