Re: Thousands cut off from phone service -- vandals

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joe Pistritto <jcp () jcphome com>
Date: April 10, 2009 3:16:16 PM EDT
To: Mark Harrison <mh () pixar com>
Cc: dave () farber net, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Thousands cut off from phone service  -- vandals


I was told at the time that scrappers were paying > $1/pound for  
copper. (the spot price was much higher than that then.)
i found a historical price chart here:
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html

Note that 00 cable (I'm pretty sure thats what was stolen, i know  
thats what we replaced it with, after we, uh, implemented some  
security measures to make it a bit harder to walk off with next time),  
is only about 2.5 feet per pound of wire.  Thats a pretty common  
industrial gauge.  (its probably what comes into your house.)

So steal a few hundred feet one morning, make a couple hundred bucks  
for a couple hours work?  Not a bad trade.

The funny thing is these guys are dumb.  So they also stole the *hard  
line* that connects the antennas on the tower to the radios (in the  
blockhouse)at the base of the tower.  That stuff is heavy, but mostly  
these days, its copper sheathed alumninum (although we had a run of  
the old style copper solid core hardline stolen too).

Cutting that is of course, an enormous pain the butt, because we then  
have to go find a new 100' run of 7/8ths or 1/2 inch Heliax(TM) to run  
up the tower, terminate it, mount it on the tower, blah blah.

I spent several weekend days with a group from our radio club  
restoring the power lines (both of them) into the facility we use, as  
well as helping our tower climber member replace antenna runs that had  
been cut off 20' from the ground (which was the highest the theives  
could reach).

We were very much not amused at the time.

 -jcp-



On Fri, 10 Apr 2009, Mark Harrison wrote:

> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:25:20 -0700
> From: Mark Harrison <mh () pixar com>
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, jcp () jcphome com
> Subject: Re: [IP] Thousands cut off from phone service  -- vandals
> David Farber wrote:
> > Begin forwarded message:
> > From: Joe Pistritto <jcp () jcphome com>
> > Date: April 9, 2009 9:35:15 PM EDT
> > To: dave () farber net
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Thousands cut off from phone service  -- vandals
> > You know this might have been copper thieves (maybe dumb ones).
>
> Please pardon my ignorance of all things metallurgically criminal,
> but how much does that pay?  What's the weight of a foot of power
> cable, etc?  I know that people are also stealing copper piping
> out of abandoned houses as well.
>
> Disclaimer: no commercial interest in your answer!




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