Buried phone lines and pole building construction

[tlj87]

Over the summer, we had unfortunate lightning strike at our camp which destroyed the phone/public address system we had installed amongst our buildings. Buried wire came apart, line surge protection blew and the main phone switch was fried.

We were also in the process of constructing a 24x24x10 pole barn which we ran new wire and installed a phone in while replacing other damaged telephony equipment.

In all, we buried about 2600' of 6-pair DB cable. The insurance co. allowed me to rent a ride-on trencher which made this process more bearable, although, the week we did most of the burying/splicing/equipment install, it was 90 + deg and 100% humid. YUCK!

I thought I'd share this video highlighting some of the aspects of installation of the new phone system and also the construction of the pole barn.

Phone System Installation and Pole Barn Construction - YouTube

 

[SPIKER]

Wonder why you didnt just use a cable trencher and plow it into place?

Mark

 

[k0ua]

Let me say, nice video. With that beautiful dirt you have I would have used a vibratory plow instead of the trencher, A lot less manpower needed, but you "got er done". And Transtector is the best brand of Lightning protection, but from what I saw on that 66 block and the One-AC protector, I don't think anything would have saved your NEC switch.. Did you bond the shields of the 6 pair?

Here is a link to polyphasor/transtector if your interested.

http://www.protectiongroup.com/Transtector

Sometimes Lightning just sucks..and buried copper is the worst. Consider fiber between buildings and POE switches in each building and IP phones. with good AC line protection for the data equipment. Paging can be IP also. Valcom makes a full line of that. Glass fiber just laughs at lightning. These are all just alternatives of course, and you already have the copper in the ground now. Good Luck

James K0UA

 

[tlj87]

I agree, in hindsight, plowing the cable may have been the way to go had I had access to such a machine. Using the JD 425 with blade made filling in the trench pretty easy. After settling for a year or so, we will top off with topsoil later this spring.

We decided on copper, 1, because of cost, and 2, because of existing infrastructure.
There were some areas where existing cable tested OK so we were able to salvage it.

All of the new cable is bonded and grounded. Each building has primary and secondary protection.