Trying to keep a customer happy was a top priority and most of the time if you kept them informed they were happy. But for some of them you were the Company and they didn't like The Company so they didn't like you either. This was always a problem, of course every customer was different, some were very understanding some, not so much. One of the biggest problems was the distance from the Central Office, where the Dial Tone originated from, to the house. Many times over 10 miles. Now this means that you have 10 miles of copper wire between the CO and the house where the service was working. So you have a lot of ground to cover and at times that can cause many problems.
For the most part the trouble would usually be at a point that could be reached by you and other technicians. This helped in some instances because you may know of a location where there had been trouble before. These places were always good places to check first. Many were places that needed rebuilding due to weather or ants or other insects. But many times you just did not have the time to do the rebuild because of the trouble reports that your area had. So these areas were left for repair at a future date, you would just worry about getting your Telephone # good to your customer and move on to the next repair ticket. Other times you would be unable to get to the trouble location, such as if the trouble was in a buried section of cable. You would prove this by isolating this section between two ready access pedestals where you could cut the pair in half and do a test to prove the trouble. Then you had to move the # to a spare pair in the cable if possible, place a temporary wire to get around the defective section of cable, or get a contractor to dig up and then fix the cable or replace the cable.
Back when I first started we did a lot of digging up the cable and fixing it. Of course we had to try to figure out where to dig? This could be accomplished by the test equipment we carried, we would measure the trouble with this equipment then dig at that measured point to be able to fix the problem. This of course was the most time consuming and expensive process to repair the trouble.
The Company wanted you to fix the trouble in less than 2 Hours which was always a challenge. I really enjoyed my job for the most part, I was basically on my own in a Company Truck driving from one job to another all day long. So I didn't have a supervisor hanging over my shoulder trying to tell me what to do and when to do it. I was on my own and that was really nice.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Telephoney From the Begining!
Telephone repair can be a daunting task, when you are not sure how it all works. It takes 1 pair of wires to get the signal to your phone. Basically one wire to transmit, one to receive. So the signal comes in on one wire and then leaves on the other. It really is a simple system for the most part. The new carrier of lasers and fiber optics is a simple system too, but it really expands the size and scope of the telephone. I had some exposure to fiber optics but not enough to try to relate to you in my blogs. So my expertize will be with the old standby of a pair of copper wires from the Central Office to your home.
I started with AT&T in 1977 hiring on with Southwestern Bell Telephone as a Cable Repairman. They sent me to a company school to learn the basics of telephone operations. How to carry your ladder safely, how to climb poles with your hooks safely, and many other safety related operations. It was a crash course in company policy, safety and procedures to prepare you for your job with the company. At the time I hired on there was a huge amount of hiring going on and they were trying to get everyone through a quick program and out to the field as quickly as possible. Being a Cable Repairman at that time was one of the toughest jobs to learn when you hired on from the street. I spent 4 or 5 months working with experienced people who were training me as they were doing their job. That was the quickest way to learn. For many weeks at the beginning I was lost but one day my mind clicked and it became very easy. I just had to get my mind wrapped around the process and there were a lot of processes to get. The company would also send us back to school to learn new processes and learn the use of new equipment and proper use of the equipment we had.
Of course being a Cable Repairman we worked on cable problems. The cable being anywhere from a 11 pair (22 wires) to a 3600 pair (7,200 wires) or more. A daunting task when you think about trying to find one(1) pair (2 wires) with the telephone # you are working on. In order to do that you must learn the color code to be able to find your particular cable pair so you can try to fix that cable pair. Many times it takes a very long time to repair a phone line and most customers don't get it so you take a lot of heat from them. That was always an issue every time you went to fix a phone line.
I started with AT&T in 1977 hiring on with Southwestern Bell Telephone as a Cable Repairman. They sent me to a company school to learn the basics of telephone operations. How to carry your ladder safely, how to climb poles with your hooks safely, and many other safety related operations. It was a crash course in company policy, safety and procedures to prepare you for your job with the company. At the time I hired on there was a huge amount of hiring going on and they were trying to get everyone through a quick program and out to the field as quickly as possible. Being a Cable Repairman at that time was one of the toughest jobs to learn when you hired on from the street. I spent 4 or 5 months working with experienced people who were training me as they were doing their job. That was the quickest way to learn. For many weeks at the beginning I was lost but one day my mind clicked and it became very easy. I just had to get my mind wrapped around the process and there were a lot of processes to get. The company would also send us back to school to learn new processes and learn the use of new equipment and proper use of the equipment we had.
Of course being a Cable Repairman we worked on cable problems. The cable being anywhere from a 11 pair (22 wires) to a 3600 pair (7,200 wires) or more. A daunting task when you think about trying to find one(1) pair (2 wires) with the telephone # you are working on. In order to do that you must learn the color code to be able to find your particular cable pair so you can try to fix that cable pair. Many times it takes a very long time to repair a phone line and most customers don't get it so you take a lot of heat from them. That was always an issue every time you went to fix a phone line.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Telephone Repair Made Simple #1
Hello, I thought that I would start by covering the simplest way for you to try to repair your telephone service if possible. For most of you there is a box on the outside of your home or business where the customer has access to the phone line as it comes into your home or business. This is where you can isolate your part of the line to prove whether the trouble is in your home or business. You will need a screw driver to gain access to this box and a hard wired telephone to plug into the test plug in the box. A portable phone will not work. If you find you have Dial Tone at the box, this means your trouble is inside.
In this scenerio you will need to put the test plug back together and go inside and remove each piece of equipment you have plugged into your phone line. Do this one piece at a time and then waiting a few seconds (30 to 45) check for Dial Tone. The purpose of this is to elimante the piece of equipment causing the problem. You must understand that your problem can be a phone, an answering machine, caller ID box and any alarm system attached to the phone line for monitoring purposes. As well as any cord that attaches your equipment to the jacks in your home or business. Of course the wiring and the jacks can also cause your problem.
Jacks are fairly easy to replace, but proving they are defective requires much more time. If after testing all your equipment inside your home, the phone still will not work, the trouble is probably the wiring or a jack and you may need some professional help to fix the problem.
These days many people do not have the insurance that a phone company offers for "Inside Repair". If you do not have this insurance, having the phone company come out can cost you a "Pretty Penny". If they prove the trouble inside your home there will be a "Trip Charge" at the minium and if you want them to fix the problem inside your home or business you can be looking at "Hundreds" of dollars to fix that problem. So be sure that the problem is "NOT" inside your home or business.
In this scenerio you will need to put the test plug back together and go inside and remove each piece of equipment you have plugged into your phone line. Do this one piece at a time and then waiting a few seconds (30 to 45) check for Dial Tone. The purpose of this is to elimante the piece of equipment causing the problem. You must understand that your problem can be a phone, an answering machine, caller ID box and any alarm system attached to the phone line for monitoring purposes. As well as any cord that attaches your equipment to the jacks in your home or business. Of course the wiring and the jacks can also cause your problem.
Jacks are fairly easy to replace, but proving they are defective requires much more time. If after testing all your equipment inside your home, the phone still will not work, the trouble is probably the wiring or a jack and you may need some professional help to fix the problem.
These days many people do not have the insurance that a phone company offers for "Inside Repair". If you do not have this insurance, having the phone company come out can cost you a "Pretty Penny". If they prove the trouble inside your home there will be a "Trip Charge" at the minium and if you want them to fix the problem inside your home or business you can be looking at "Hundreds" of dollars to fix that problem. So be sure that the problem is "NOT" inside your home or business.
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