Telephone vs CATV

Holly cow!!!

what do you guys do politic on the square every day...... Are you sure the there is no CATV????? that is like saying there is a pond with no water. I just don't sound right.....LOL



Are you guys going to let this poll be a run away....... Come on Cable guys

olo131

Well we already know the DSL world will never surpass CATV internet, but the U-Verse thing might be ok. I've heard mixed complaints about it, but it's still new. Guess we'll let it play out and see what happens. I'll be CATV 'til I can't do it anymore, then i'll apply to work in the headend lol.

There's alot of rural areas around our province that don't have CATV, we are in the process of hooking power supplies up (dozen's of them) for repeator towers for a dish internet system.

That's the best price I have ever on the 10 Meg from a telco who had no competition. For 10 bucks more, why wouldn't anyone go for that?
The other price is more in line with companies I have seen, with a 3 Meg option going for about double that.

Way to go century!

Dak

Remember my post a few weeks ago about the towns who had the cable shut off? I have seen dozens of systems abandoned because the companies could not afford to run them anymore, and/or were unable to collapse the headends.
The telcos are poised in these towns to provide video, but are waiting for the technology to make it affordable. Coax is not an option, because RF is too complicated or foreign. They also have the fiber interconnects that the cable company could not afford, bu the telco built with "cheap" money, so they can provide and share video signals easily.

It's not always black and white.

Dak

You're right about the RF complication part Dak, lol. Speaking of interconnect.. We just closed a deal with Fort Campbell, KY Army base for a direct fiber feed to Fort Bragg, NC.. Actually splicing that in tonight.. Ft. Campbell is Comcast cable, with us right outside the gates. Comcast uses our fiber to get into Ft. Campbell, I guess they got the contract, but leased dark fiber from us to get in there. I wish we would just buy the Ft. Campbell system, I would love to run that. I don't know who all it connects through to get down to NC, but they are paying us for it. I'm sure we have to pay a few companies along the route ourselves. They said it's going to be used for some kind of secure phone system to bragg and some secured type internet stuff..

uverse might be some comp for the catv, again its in its infancy but its kinda sensitive and as long as the installers do a good job on the install its great. the hd could be better and i think it will w/ time. who knows we'll see what happens down the road

I heard the same thing about the HD portion. It must be common or true.

You do know that AT&T(Bell Labs) invented coaxial cable, right? Then went on to use it to build long distance trunk lines all over the U.S. before fiber came of age. Some of the older splicers when I first started told me stories about splicing coaxial cable acrossed Nevada(on loan so to speak) back in early 70's I think it was. I could be off, but that's what I remember them saying. The only coax I have experience with is the coax jumpers that carry a DS3(thats 45Meg for you CATV guys) from our Fujitsu FLM150 fiber multiplexer to a DSX panel, and then to our Calix C7 DSLAM. But I'm certain if they wanted us to hang, splice, and provide CATV service here, we could figure it out. Sure sounds a hell of a lot easier to troubleshoot. There is only 1 conductor for God's sake, it's just got a hell of a lot of "bridge taps" coming off it, lol.

You have a lot to learn then century.. CATV is an animal.. It's not something you just look at and try to figure out. Just when you think you've seen everything there is to see, that's when something rears its head and makes you scratch yours.

Actually, Oliver Heaviside invented Coaxial Cable in 1880 in England.

coax has 2 conductors!

You are right Christopher...

I cannot find a copy of Mr. Heaviside's patent (GB 1407), but from what I can find, his patent was only one of the theoretical concept of a conductor within a conductor to eliminate induction. Oliver Heaviside was no doubt a genius in the areas of mathematics, magnetism, and electricity but I believe he was more concerned with the theoreticals than actually creating an invention. If you can prove me wrong do so, I am very interested in learning more about Heaviside. He also theorized the concept of the load coil which George Cambell at AT&T subsequently developed and put into use. They offered Heaviside money for his work, which he refused. It seems what he really wanted was full credit for the device, even though he himself had never constructed a load coil.

As far as the invention, creation, and implementation of our modern day wideband coaxial cable. Here is the US patent from 1931 submitted by two Bell Labs scientists, Espenshied and Affel http://news.google.com/patents?id=hOBYAAAA...;q=&f=false

Very well, if you would like to count the shield as a conductor. In a telephone cable we do not count the shield(turn-plate) as a conductor as it does not carry a signal. But if you want to be technical it does conduct AC induction away to ground.

Found this at http://users.primushost.com/~mfoster/LCXR.htm

Once upon a time in the no so distant past, thousands of Bell System employees worked in underground facilities to insure whenever the "Balloon Went UP", the President and all the key government and defense officials would have instant access to each other as well as our nuclear forces and civilian defense agencies. Many of these key circuits had constant monitoring devices and should a circuit (many of which were thousands of miles long and ran through dozens of switching centers) fail, the technicians had 3 minutes to repair or reroute the circuits. These were the days before fiber and reliable, hardened satellites. thus the backbone of this system was the L Carrier Coaxial System. It was referred to as the L CXR system or publicly as the Transcontinental Cable.

The L Carrier system was developed prior to World War II as a high capacity telephone as well as television transmission system. The cable and repeaters were buried underground to take advantage of the constant temperature (approximately 50 degrees). Prior to the war planning had begun to triple the bandwidth of the L-1 system to 7 mhz and be able to put 1800 circuits on a single coaxial cable. This system would be the L-3 system. After the war L-3 routes began to link major metropolitan areas together across the country. Some L-1 and L-3 cable were installed for strictly military purposes at facilities like Cheyenne Mountain, but mainly L-1 and L-3 were used for civilian traffic. As the Cold War went into full swing, L-3 was chosen as the primary transmission medium for defense critical circuits. Main stations linking coaxial cable routes together were fully hardened to withstand a 20 megaton blast 2 1/2 miles away.

In general main stations were locating at least 20 miles away from major cities to lessen the chance of a direct hit. After the Cuban Missile Crisis the newly former National Communications System, co-developed the AUTOVON stand alone defense telephone system and co located the AUTOVON switching centers in the main stations. Main stations were also equipped with nuclear blast detectors that in addition to closing the main station's blast valves, relayed the blast signal to an underground civil defense center outside Washington, DC to indicate areas that had received nuclear blasts. Some main stations were even designated reception centers for key governmental during Armageddon.

In the 70's and 80's routes were upgraded from tubes to transistors. Coaxial cables were increased from 8 to 12 to 20 and finally 22 tubes per cable. Repeater were made more reliable and cable and repeater troubles could be automatically located from the equipment in the main station. To increase bandwidth repeater spacing was reduced from 8 mile to 4 miles to 2 miles and finally 1 mile. Eventually a single L-5 cable could carry 108,000 circuits.

With the end of the Cold War coming the Coaxial System faced additional difficulties. The breakup of the Bell System gave AT&T the Coaxial Routes, and no longer could the defense related cost be passed on to the consumer. MCI and other companies began laying fiber across the United States, and the fiber did not require the main stations and associated high maintenance that the Coaxial Systems did. AT&T lost the AUTOVON system to MCI and a successor system that was fiber optics based. By 1990 almost all of the Coaxial Systems had been shut down. Some of the Main Stations have an after life as fiber switching centers, and those that were lucky enough to have a tower have survived as cellular and/or other personal communications broadcast facilities. Many have been sold off to enterprising business men to be used as record storage facilities or factories. Some have been abandoned in place.

More:

The Transcontinental Cable System was developed by ATT Longlines to support defense related communications during the cold war period. The system was deployed in five sequential configurations, designated L-1 through L-5. The system provided hard wire communications paths for key command and control facilities in the continental United States. Beginning with the L-4 build, the network was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. The "L" system consisted of over 100 "Main Stations" and 1000 repeater vaults, each designed to withstand a nuclear environment. Main stations also were designed complete with generators, blast doors and housing to sustain the staff for a two-week post-attack period. Most of the system was dismantled in the late 1970's and early 1980's as ground based communications networks were replaced by satellite systems.

You can read about one of the facilities Lyons Hardened L-4 Facility by clicking that link. Warning, slow to load.

Here's a pic:

 L4_L5.jpg   18.32K   42 downloads

Dak

Edited by Dak, 10 March 2010 - 09:14 PM.

the deffinition of a conductor says nothing about it carrying signal or not.
there is technically 2 conductors in coax cable no matter how you look at it. cable will not work without both conductors.

lastcenturytel, on 03 March 2010 - 03:37 PM, said:

Well speak of the devil again, it seems there will be a second antique phone show at the Lyons AT&T facility at Lyons NE on May 1st, 2010. For those that live in the area this will be an opportunity to see one of the cold war's premiere UG facilities. It wasn't all just "duck and cover". There were serious people doing serious work to keep them Reds in line!

Go Here: Lyons Show


Have fun,
Dak

Cool site Dak

Way cool site!!! Nice find