Telephone cable stolen again

[Dave Liquorice]

isa cable innit, copper like, nine grand a ton.

[Dave Liquorice]

Do they have coppered steel? They have coppered aluminium (and blooming awful stuff that is, too brittle)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Unfortunately copper telephone cable does have scrap value - that's the problem. Not the 2 pair pinned to your skirting board, but the

200 pair yanked out of the ground ducts by a 4x4 does. The scrap value is probably minescule compared with replacement cost, but that's not something the thieves consider.

[<me9]

Copper coated steel is certainly available. Used for aerial and feeder wire. Some PO drop wire was steel cored, not sure what it's coated with, just it is very stiff. I've got a sample somewhere in the loft.

[Calvin Sambrook]

When it happened to our village the third time they concreted over the manhole. Presumably it's easier to break up the concrete when access is needed than to keep replacing the cable.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And is minuscule compared to what the same time spent labouring on a building site would net them.

When my garden shed got broken into, at most there was 300 quids worth (retail) of stuff taken: That must have taken them at least three blokes several hours to plan, and execute, plus petrol (assuming that was in fact paid for) plus the hassle of finding a fence etc.

I mean compared with - say - dealing drugs, or defrauding investors at a hedge fund, petty thievery is completely bollocks in terms of cost benefit analysis.

I suspect its simply a way of life for some people.

[Dave Liquorice]

Dropwire No.10 has steel strainers (plain yellow insulation IIRC) but the pairs are just copper. The stiffness comes more from the jolly tough jacket than the cores.

[Andy Burns]

Yep at 01:40 according to my router monitoring

I went out early on Saturday morning and I did see the BT vans opposite Griffs, but couldn't really see anyone stealing cable from there

At the bottom of the hill, round the bed before Crow Mills I noticed the manhole had been pulled out of the ground, I saw them running a new cable in on Sunday night, but I wasn't reconnected until last night

My broadband speed has more than halved from 2.6Mb to 1.1Mb!

[Andy Burns]

They do seem to that, an old school friend works for BT and as they are hopeless at keeping us informed on progress, I phoned him both times the cable has been stolen and the system he logged into gave an exact distance to the fault.

He also says they are now using a loopback pair in each 1000 pair cable to give them an alarm as soon as the cable is hacksawed through ...

[<me9]

Just dug out my sample. cores about 18 or 20 swg. Steel core (sticks to magnet and exposed end was rusty). Stripped back fairly tough PVC insulation to reveal a copper coloured core. It's a figure 8 construction. As used by PO around 1970. I'm sure lots of it is now being abused by ADSL.

It may have been overhead for final drop from DP.

[A.Lee]

You are ringing bells now - You're in Countesthorpe. Yes, BT vans arrived around 10.30am on Sunday, and have been there all week. Has the cable been stolen then? It seems strange that they have done it there, it isnt a road that is quiet at many times. Also, there were 2 cars in the ditch on Sunday, just where the manhole is - maybe they had something to do with it? Alan.

[Andy Burns]

Yep

The two vans *in* the village were there at least on sat and sun morning, maybe an unrelated fault? I did speak to them to let them know of the manhole problem, but they weren't very interested.

Yes, there's a crime reference recorded for it on BT's internal system. I saw two BT lorries pulling the new cable in on Sunday evening, last time it happened they seemed to chuck lots of vans full of engineers at it 24x7 once the new cable was in, this time they seemed to only work on it during the day, but I haven't been around all the time, so just based on my observations "in passing"

Dunno, it happened early saturday morning, rather than sunday ... still bloody annoying.

[Dave Liquorice]

Ancient, there is a bit tacked around the facia boards here.

Abusing the ADSL being flat and fig 8 it isn't twisted which must do dreadful things to the common mode noise levels.

That is where it would have been used but apart from the unused bit on our facia boards I haven't seen it in service in any quantity for a long while. Being flat it has a very different look waving in the breeze than modern drop wires which are round.

[TMC]

Cable was solen from near crow mills then any idea from where to where?

Swmbo saw BT at a manhole just before and opposite the raised pavement yesterday with what looked like a water pump, big yellow hose attached

Odd when I drove by the work in the village on Saturday (a week ago) I saw the engineer handling what looked like 25mm diameter cables in the pit at the green box near to the church just along from Griffs. A friend asked the engineer who told him that the cables had been cut there

[Andy Burns]

From about 50 yards one side of the 'big' bend to about 50 yards the other side of it ...

Might explain why my broadband has been down to ISDN speeds since yesterday.

BT certainly were working there, I saw they had the joint 'tube' propped up on sticks, they weren't very talkative when I told them about the other manhole problem. If the bastards *did* have the cheek to cut the cable there, they'll try to cut it anywhere, surely some folks in the houses close by are still up and about at 12:40 on Friday night, or getting kicked out of the pubs?

[TMC]

I wonder if the thieving b*****ds were double teamed and hit 2 locations at the same time

My broadband is still at normalish speed showing as 2240 down and 480 up

Have just got my first phone number corrected was a crossed line second number is still crossed

Regards