Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Sometimes a Rude Surprise for Telephone Line "Rustlers" Message-ID: Date: 9 Oct 89 04:21:52 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 29 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 437, message 7 of 7 In article ee5391aa%hydra.unm.edu@ ariel.unm.edu (Duke McMullan n5gax) writes: > There is a town called Las Vegas, located in northeastern New Mexico. > A few years back, when the price of copper was rising exponentially, > one of the phone people was driving out to do some routine > maintainence on some lines south of town. From up on a hill, he saw > four turkeys (human variety) in a pickup truck taking down the copper > lines on part of the local distribution net for that rural area. > He "phoned home" on the radio, and the Sheriff was dispatched. > ... > I never heard what happened to those guys, but maybe I don't need to know. Besides being arrested, some telephone "rustlers" who steal open wire lines (still common in the west) are in for another rude surprise: some wire which they laboriously remove that *looks* like copper, is really copper-clad steel - and is worth essentially nothing. I know of one instance where this happened. Copper, even of the "hardened" variety, is simply no where near as strong as steel. Most open wire lines which have been erected or replaced in the past 30 years use copper-clad steel, also known as "copper-weld". Copper-clad steel is used in other outdoor applications, such as 1-pr through 6-pr aerial drop wire, "bridle wire" used to make connection to open-wire lines, etc. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"