Telecom Copper Splicing Video

[@2147B]

Thank you for this piece of history. Unless you know where to look this isn't out there. Times have changed but knowing how we got here is key. Splicing wont change

[@TestTubeBabySpy]

I worked at the Rod and Wire mill at the former Western Electric Hawthorne Works. Before we closed down in 2008, i found a custom aluminum case at the top of the shaft furnace that read "Western Electric 710 connector cutter presser modular splicing kit" Tools weren't inside but I used it as a tool box in the back of my car for years. Now I finally know. Awesome, nice to know. Still have the case and still use it.

[@YAORG]

In Germany we use the 3M MS2 system every day. Due to the fact, that fibre is used, but most connections into the houses are still copper, that will last quite a while. We don’t use 25 pair but 20 pair combs. Also we have another 3M toolbox with a 10 pair comb for „small“ cables. (I prefer to use the 10-pair-box for 10-50pairs cables. Since the used connectors aren‘t useless after pressing them together, I use „scrap-cable“ to refine my splicing-technique in every free minute. Afterwards I undo them, put the parts back into their box and waste the cable. The cables can have from 10 pairs to 1000 pairs and the color-coding is completely different. We use red, green, grey, yellow and white. Every color has 4 wires, individually marked (1a=blank, 1b= 1 stripe, 2a= 2 stripes (long space between), 2b= 2 stripes (short space between), and this repeats for every color 3/4 is green, 5/6 is grey, 7/8 is yellow and 9/10 is white. That‘s a group of 10. The group is red, normally unmarked. On a 20-pair-cable, the group is marked with a red cable-tie or a plastic ring. The next one would be green, and so on. That‘s how you would mark a 50-pair-cable, for a 100-pair-cable you would repeat that, then switch to rings cut in half, or use 2 cable-ties to mark pairs 51-60, 61-70, and so on.

[@dejantatarin9897]

I need your help m8. How i can get in conntact with you?

[@josemoreno3334]

I did that in the US Air Force from 1979 to 1994. The one thing I liked about the job, We worked at other bases around the western US , Including Alaska and West-Germany ( Cold War ). E&I, AFCC.

[@danawood3923]

I'm EI currently! Stationed at 205th OKC

[@deepbludude4697]

I worked at Ascension Island a AAF tracking station, did submarine cable work (Diving) and OSP we still had lead sheath paper covered wires always taging those damn wires.

[@josemoreno3334]

We used the MA-6 and VS-3 in the old day's. When i went to tech school back in 1979 at Sheppard AFB, Texas. They showed us how to splice telephone cable's doing the pig tail method and sliding a cotton sleeve over the spliced wire. I got to use the MA-6 and VS-3 at my first duty station at Norton AFB, California. I was with the 1835th Elect. Inst. Sq. ( AFCC) From 1980 to 1988. I went on a lot of TDYs in those day's.

[@ryandaniels6367]

We are still using the MA-6 and VS-3 here at Sheppard for tech school. Great stuff.

[@theoriginalmediaboy]

That was awesome & very informative. In the west, CA, NV, AT&T isn't really hiring copper splicers anymore. All new hires for copper cable maintenance are temporary three year positions. Fiber is the way of the future as far as the company is concerned.

[@ndelliott138]

Wow! Thank you for the video. I have been wondering for a LONG time how telecom lines were repaired after being damaged or severed. When I repair a body or engine harness on a car I can have a few hundred wires to be soldered and on Hall effect sensor wires I cannot alter impedance otherwise things get all screwy in the PCM. So I couldn't imagine repairing a telecom line that service a few thousand homes.

[@joelmortensen8655]

Been splicing for 24yrs with AT&T we use 3M 710 modules. Nearly all new installations are fiber but we still do a lot of copper splicing. Ca. High speed rail is a like for like project so we have entire central office terminations 100 thousand pairs of new cables to splice in the Central Valley.

[@jayday091201]

Good job John!!! From 1 solider to the other.

[@christinahickey1034]

What is the name of the tool that you are using. I have a used one that I am trying to find the value for.

[@Patrick-sz5dk]

This is exactly what I'm doing here in Germany for 7 years now :D But our colours are different and the cables are way older sometimes :D

[@whiskeyify]

This was adapted in 1976 in the Bell System, you can splice 25 pairs at once. In the old days each pair of wires were twisted together and then soldered by hand. Then each splice was wrapped with paper tape and the whole splice was filled with wax.

[@celtman58]

Is that when the wires went from paper wrapping of wires to colored plastic coating or was this change from paper to plastic something else?

[@gregs3032]

splices weren't filled with wax, but the paper insulated cable pairs were covered in wax before they were sliced together. process was called boiling out

[@wes11b10]

@@celtman58 - PIC (plastic insulation, "Polyethylene Insulated Cable") started getting deployed as smaller sized (100 pair and below) distribution or F2 cables in the late 1950s. They continued to install large (300-1800 pair) feeder cables (primarily in the underground) with pulp/paper insulated conductors and lead or plastic sheathing until the early 1980s.

[@mnkrause]

@@gregs3032 I have opened lead sleeve splices both in underground vaults and aerial where the splices had been thoroughly saturated with paraffin after the splicing had been completed. They had to be heated to melt the paraffin to get any pairs free. So it's partially correct.

[@oozmarklab3884]

Sir how many pair is that

[@michaelsullivan9985]

This is a 25 pair bundle 50 conductors ,25 tip 25 rings,bell system standard.

[@seanslo7473]

Normally its not that clean, you are often working inside of a manhole with messy flooded cable that you have to seal inside of a encapsulation case.

[@turnbullac6315]

yes indeed, this is a classroom splice

[@floopy312]

Is that whats inside the black rectangular splicing cases I see hanging on the street poles?

[@johndonovan4309]

This type of splice would normally be placed in a splice case that is a black cylinder located horizontally on a cable just left or right of a utility pole. Rectangular boxes hanging on poles are usually terminals than have screw down terminations for individual wires that allow one or two pair thin drop wires to run from the pole to the side of a house.

[@MrSloika]

Interesting to see how things were done back in the day. Can't imagine there is much call for this kind of work now.

[@joshuaphillips9810]

I do it everyday.

[@MrSloika]

@@joshuaphillips9810 Copper cables are still used by the phone companies? Around where I live...NYC area...Verizon will allow a residential customer to keep their copper POTS line, but will not install a new connection, and will not repair a copper line that's damaged.

[@joshuaphillips9810]

I know. I live in western north Carolina. I worked for Verizon for 15 years. In 2010 they spun off 13 states to Frontier communications. That was the beginning of verizon getting away from copper facilities. There are a few areas with FTTP but most are on copper DSL. Some that live in very rural areas can't get DSL or cell service and still use POTS. The terrain is rough and the customers are spread out.

[@RadioReprised]

Don't forget to explain Tip and Ring in the head.......I still have my '81 issued Square with 4 heads and accessories from when I was an 18 year old kid at GTE HaHa......We did it sitting in a sand filled ditch in 120 degrees though!

[@RadioReprised]

Anyone remember banging out pairs with an Amp gun?!

[@deepbludude4697]

@@RadioReprised Hell yea we did alot of that about the only time we used the 710 was on new installations.

[@blueblk556]

I would like to learn this process

[@josemoreno3334]

US Air Force. They have a cable splicing school. They will Train you to be a telephone linesmen.

[@tightcamper]

Why learn this now. With telephony all but gone VOIP you will only be dealing with ever shrinking legacy circuits.

[@yasinrahman6211]

WHAT IS THE PRICE OF THIS MACHINE?

[@johnjarosz9699]

New is about 6,000 US. But you can find used ones for about 2,500 US. But you get what you pay for

[@mosesmotloung6031]

We used the double heads 3M splicing machine sometimes 4 heads back to back to splice big cables from 1000 pairs to 2400 pairs in Telekom South Africa 🇿🇦

[@litespan466]

Back I the 40&50’s it would take 3 guys 3 days for spin and dip and sleeve paper cable/with the 3 m system 2 guys 8 hours with a case . I could do a 144 pair fiber in air conditioning 1/2 day.

[@kevinczerwinski1644]

John, can I email you some questions?

[@johndonovan4309]

My email address is [e-mail]

[@johnjones4825]

You didn't leave equal lengths of slack on all the pairs, mistake when wiring an MDF or SDC....

[@johndonovan4309]

This demonstration was designed to show a straight splice, so the blue/white pair entering the splice from the right is the shortest length and the slate/violet pair is the longest. If the wire work is designed to be at right angles, then the cable entering the splice could be rotating to 90-degrees, but the majority of splices in the field are straight or fold-back splices.

[@linjuprathap2152]

You have job vacancy sir

[@turnbullac6315]

im cable maintenance, this splice is indeed a dead technology, never seen hydraulic cutter before. do a video on wet lead cable splice

[@toOowEaK]

so. maybe we known you aren't big pair wire maintenance

[@wes11b10]

Even in an area with FTTP, there are still miles of lead/paper and STALPETH cable out there. It's mostly in the underground but we also have a fair amount in the air.

[@josemoreno3334]

Don't mix up red -orange and red-brown. The MA-6 was a lot faster. Less bulk.

[@sevewone]

Cool. Are you a retired field worker?

[@johndonovan4309]

I started in the New York Telephone Company doing field work as a cable splicing/cable repair technician, and moved through the ranks of management over the course of 24 years, including being in charge of publishing methods & procedures on corporate staff for this type of work. I retired as a General Manager and for the past 20 years have been a telecommunications consultant and expert witness in more than a hundred cases in litigation throughout the United States.

[@johnjones4825]

3M in line splicing...

[@peteradams7457]

3m is the worst. Why not use 710 modules? Much faster.

[@johndonovan4309]

I have past experience using 3M MS2 modules, Lucent 710 Modules, and AMP Corporation modules, and frankly I have seen little difference in speed. Basically a well trained and skilled technician should have no trouble splicing 300 pairs per hour using modular splicing technology. Once you get going, that's 5 minutes per 25-pair module.

[@wes11b10]

710 modules are all we ever use for bulk splicing. The 3M MS2 dry modules we have on aerial runs around here were used in splices done in the late 1970s. Definitely a good place to check if you have a dirty open on your pair!

[@khankhan-nh4ed]

very helpful indeed

[@gregs3032]

what a mess!! looks like management did it again

[@characterK]

All of that work to get 1.5 Mbps. :(

[@johndonovan4309]

Actually, the copper pair network was really designed for 64 kbps Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) and did not expand to PANS ("Pretty Amazing New Stuff" - joke) known as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) until 1999. Copper cable splices occur approximately every 600 feet, so you can imagine the hundreds of millions of copper cable pair splices still existing in the world's largest machine - the telecommunications network.

[@wes11b10]

Correct, if you're talking HDSL T1 service. There are newer ADSL types that provide enough bandwidth to provide IPTV, etc., provided (and this is the critical point) the copper OSP is properly maintained and conditioned.

[@khankhan-nh4ed]

nyc video

[@johndonovan4309]

Actually this video was filmed at my home in Lake Monticello, Virginia after I moved from Long Island, New York.

[@mattyh3000]

Awesome video but a dead technology

[@makstapg]

Tell that to the I&R techs that are bringing home $3-5K a week. Old but far from dead.

[@dna6380]

Dead? Getting there. But it'll be around for a long time. These big companies arent going to spend billions of dollars to replace all the copper in every neighborhood in the country

[@wes11b10]

Copper is on its way out in many areas but far from dead. I work on maintaining it every day and will likely continue, to one degree or another, until I retire.

[@Mike-tg6bj]

@@makstapg wait, I'm an I&R tech... I wish I was making that much.

[@makstapg]

@@Mike-tg6bj Well here we are 4 years later and they passed the Infrastructure Bill last year. Copper still makes money but fiber is the future. Learn fiber splicing or fiber data installs and you'll be set. With the bill, we should see more smaller communities get fiber and access to faster internet. $$$