Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdahl!dgcad!gary
From: gary@dgcad.SV.DG.COM (Gary Bridgewater)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: high speed networking between buildings
Message-ID: <1130@svx.SV.DG.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 89 07:14:20 GMT
References: <4574@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> <337@ai.etl.army.mil> <4609@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>
Reply-To: gary@svx.SV.DG.COM ()
Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 24

In article <4609@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> eli@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>In article <337@ai.etl.army.mil> hoey@ai.etl.army.mil (Dan Hoey) writes:
>> eli@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>>>	consider using broadband coax as well....
>>But of course, in the words of Charles Hedrick, ``We do not recommend running
>>copper of any kind between buildings.  You can sometimes get away with it, but
>>it's asking for trouble.''
>	i'm not sure if 4 out of 5 networking cats would agree with

Yes, but that fifth story is liable to put the fear of god into anyone who
hears it.
When I was an SE in Denver - a well known place to find lightning - I saw
the innards of two different systems which had long wires between buildings
or floors that had been hit by lightning. The boards were all charred, most
of the chips had melted, some had popped off the board. The power supplies
were fused and all the plastic was coated with ash. The bigger system was
down for 10 days while the FEs rebuilt it from the ground up. That systems
was well inside a building as was the wire - so naturally they dropped their
lightning insurance. It seems the lightning followed a crack in the concrete
or possibly vent pipes - there was too much damage to be sure.
If you do run wires in a lightning prone area consider trenching.
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corp., Sunnyvale Ca.
gary@sv4.ceo.sv.dg.com or 
{amdahl,aeras,amdcad,mas1,matra3}!dgcad.SV.DG.COM!gary
No good deed goes unpunished.