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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2711)	1/12/1999 1:34:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Slightly OT. You be the judge. Some Last Mile Educational Stuff From the SCTE list. Enjoy, Frank C. =================================================================== << The power companies (and military), in their pole climbing classes, teach that to comply with OSHA (and military) regulations you are to walk around a pole and strike it several times with a hammer weighing at least 3 lbs. This is done to check for loose hardware prior to climbing the pole. >> Not a good idea: 1) I may be wrong, but I doubt that OSHA regulations specify clobbering a pole with a sledgehammer. 2) If the power company (and military) wants to do this, fine. They own the power poles and have been properly trained to maintain and operate high voltage transmission equipment. 3) Anyone else smacking a pole with a sledgehammer risks causing damage to facilities owned by someone else. In the "old" days, it was a common trick to search for problem poles--that is, those where something was causing arcing, corona discharges, etc. that resulted in sparking interference--by using a portable radio and small sledgehammer. An individual could walk along a suspect pole line listening to a quiet spot on the radio in between stations, and "gently" smack the base of each pole. The pole with the problem would generally make a ton of noise in the radio when it was hit with the hammer. Since then, this trick has been discouraged because of liability issues. One is the possibility of damaging equipment on the pole, and the other is causing the proverbial avalanche. In other words, if a problem pole has a cracked or broken insulator that is causing the sparking problem, its condition could be right on the edge of being able to safely hold up a high voltage line or other piece of hardware. That last smack with the sledgehammer might be enough to bring things tumbling to the ground. There are other very effective and safe methods to detect and locate power line interference without risking problems that might occur with the old sledgehammer trick.