AHL - Insights from the Front Lines of Telecommunications with Chuck Bowser

Ever found yourself chuckling over the unexpected? That's exactly what we did as Florida's chill surprised us, but it didn't dampen the spirits during our electrifying Thursday evening Q&A. I'm your host, Chuck Bowser, and with a beverage in hand, we tackled the ins and outs of the telecommunications industry. From the anticipation of the Bixie conference to the essentials of mentorship within the organization, our session was a blend of networking, learning, and, of course, a quick-fire acronym challenge (did someone say OSP?).

As the conversation flowed like the cables we so often discuss, we delved into the nitty-gritty of studying for the TDMM certification, complete with a treasure chest of resources to navigate the program. With tips on leveraging the BICSI ICT Terminology Handbook and the merits of joining study groups, we paved the pathway to certification success. But it didn't stop there; we also unraveled the complexities of cable pathways and innerduct sizing with practical advice that could only come from seasoned industry professionals. So, whether you're an RCDD in training or a lead technician looking for insights, this episode is jam-packed with knowledge that'll ensure you're not left untangling the messy cords of confusion.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Thursday night 6pm Eastern Standard Time. That could only mean one thing Live after hours with Chuck Balser or RCDD, your favorite RCDD. Don't even try to pretend like I'm not. ["drums and Rats"]. ["drums and Rats"]. We know I'm your favorite RCDD. So just say so right now. Go ahead, say, chuck, you're my favorite, you're my favorite. So welcome to 30 minutes of question and answers.

Speaker 1: 0:39

I got a bunch of questions for today's show, but you know I'll always start off each episode with what are you drinking? So put in the chat box we're drinking. This is an half hour show, so you can be drinking adult beverages. Me, I'm drinking Zevia Cola, although I should be drinking hot tea. It's like 35 degrees outside. It's Florida, hello. So those of you coming to Bixie, yeah, you might want to bring a coat Just saying 30 degrees in Florida. Oh, my gosh, who would ever know that? Right, 30 degrees, yeah. So you know, the next thing always is going to be my acronym challenge, acronym challenge.

Speaker 1: 1:20

So here's today's acronym for today's show. It is OSP, osp. Tell us in the chat box what does OSP stand for? Has something to do with the Bixie conference? I'll give you that much. So tell me in the chat box what does OSP stand for. Oh, by the way, I gotta say this, right, gotta say this Please help control the acronym population. Don't forget to spay or neuter your acronyms. We have enough, we don't need anymore. So somebody in the chat box, somebody in the TikTok feed, tell me what OSP stands for. And look at there, henry Yates, one of my mentees from like two years ago, outside plant. He's also a Bixie training delivery specialist. Kent, you got it right as well, my friend Outside plant. And so did Darryl Darryl. You all got that correct. Very good, very good. It stands for outside plant, outside plant.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Now, before I get too much further along, I gotta ask you guys tell me in the chat box, tell me in the comment section are you gonna be at the Bixie conference in a week and a half? Not next week, but the week after. Are you going to Bixie? Let me know, are you yes or no? Because I'm going. If you happen to see me, make sure that you say hi to me, because I will have let's talk cabling stickers there. So make sure you join us. I will have them. So I have let's talk cabling stickers. I'm also gonna have oops, got covered, wrong ones. I'm also gonna have wire monkey stickers. Wire monkey stickers. I'm gonna be giving them away for free while supplies last, because I generally end up giving away all of my stickers. But I've got 200, 300 stickers, so, yeah, I should have a few bunch of them.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Why is it still doing that? Dang it man. Let's turn that off. There we go, here we go, anthony, how you doing? My friend Love or Warby is in the house. Right, kent is in the house. Whoops, why is it doing that? Dang it man.

Speaker 1: 3:36

I feel like I talked my wife into doing this for me so she can handle all this background stuff. Hello, kent, yeah, so a lot of people seem to be going to the Bixie conference. Again, make sure you say hi to me, mark Terrence. That kind of reminds me. That kind of reminds me. No, sound, what? Testing one, two, three, hey, everybody else. Let me know if you hear sound, cause one person is saying they don't hear sound. My microphone's turned on. Let me know in the chat box. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Let me know in the chat box. Do, do, do, do. Actually, if you answer my question, you gotta hear me, right, so I know you guys hear me. So, yeah, so it must be just you, kent. Chris, I'll see you at seven o'clock tonight. Steven, you seven o'clock tonight? Oh, you know I got sidetracked. Can you tell that I've got ADHD? Yeah, adhd, yeah, exactly. Somebody says there's no video on LinkedIn, so I moved over to here. So it's on there now. It's on there now.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Those of you who know me know that I do a little, do some volunteer work for Bixie on some of their committees. One of the committees that I'm on is the mentorship committee the mentorship committee. So we had our meeting today where we were pairing up people who applied to the mentor program with their potential mentors. Okay, I learned that we have more mentors. Then we have mentees by almost by double.

Speaker 1: 5:14

So if you're looking for a mentor, all you got to do is Join the Bixie mentorship program, sign up, send in the form, tell them you know why you want to be a mentee, why you want to be a mentor, and the only thing it's going to cost you Is a Bixie membership. It's also going to cost you and think about it you know what's a Bixie membership? 100 bucks, right? Something like that, maybe. Imagine if you get somebody like me as a mentor, or Phil Kleingsmith, or there's plenty of other people, other mentors in the program that are far superior to me In their knowledge in this industry, all for the price of a Bixie membership. And then when you get the Bixie membership, you get discounts to things and stuff. So why wouldn't you do it?

Speaker 1: 5:57

So make sure you go to the Bixie webpage. If you go to the old google machine, you type in Bixie mentorship program. You will find. You will find that you will find that that that information actually I've got. I got a QR code right here. Let me put it up real quick. There it is, and you know what I think? I'll leave that up there. I'll leave that up there. Well, for a moment. But I also want to mention, let's talk cabling merchandise. Yes, yes, let's talk. You can give, you can buy your own list. Talk cabling shirt, wire monkey shirt and all just power shirt. All you got to do is just go to bitly slash capital L, capital T, capital C merch and you will find it. Or you can use that QR code right there. You can use that QR code, go by yourself and let's talk cabling shirt. You will help support the podcast so we can do fun stuff, do fun stuff. So I'll leave that up there. But I'm gonna switch it back. I'm gonna put up the Bixie mentorship icon, so make sure I'll leave that for the entire show. If you don't, if you don't want to mentor, find somebody to do it. Our industry is not good At mentoring people. That's why they came up with this thing. Right, came up with this thing.

Speaker 1: 7:13

So, the big winter conference coming up not next week but the week after, I'll be there sunday, monday, tuesday and wednesday. Okay, I'll be there On tuesday at 3 pm. Tuesday at 3 pm I'm gonna have a podcast meetup. Okay, podcast meetup at 3 pm. See, every year the big Bixie puts up this big, big Bixie. It's a blue Bixie letters on a white base. It's usually down by, like where this store is and the registration is. Meet me there at 3 pm, and I've got stickers for you. Okay, I've got stickers for you, all right, so let's go ahead and dive into the questions. Dive into the questions. The first one comes from electronic onsite 32 76. Oh, this is a good one for you, henry. Why is training so expensive? My dad always used to say if you think knowledge is expensive, try stupidity.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Yeah there's many reasons why a good Class is going to cost you some money, right. First one is rapid technologies advancements. Think about our industry. Our industry Changes at the speed of light, right. I mean, we've got cat eight, we got extended distance POE, we got das, we've got single-pair ethernet it's. It's just changing at the speed of light.

Speaker 1: 8:38

And those places that offer those, those benefits, have to come up with the training materials and the courses. So they got to stay up to date. And that costs money. It costs money to develop it, it costs money to print it, it costs money to put it into Um a program. Right, they're also gonna have to have specialized knowledge, like like Henry. He's in the room today. He's a training delivery specialist from big C. Right, they pay people like him to come out and teach. And you know what? Henry's a great guy, he's very knowledgeable. He ain't cheap. He ain't cheap. He's the big. She's paying him a good dollar to be there to be your instructor.

Speaker 1: 9:15

If you ever take a big C class and you get Henry as your instructor, dude, you just hit it out of the park. Hit it out of the park and see, because those instructors and those trainers, they possess expertise and that's kind of. There's a fee that goes along with that. Remember, I told you knowledge is power. The more knowledge you have, the more money you're gonna make. Then you have the equipment and the resources. Just looking at the big C stuff right, they've got their training lab down there in Tampa Florida. It costs money for that building. It costs money to build out those training labs. It costs money to put in those 4k high-res cameras, to build out those labs. All that resources cost money. They all All cost money, right? Another reason is certification programs like the, the RCDD, the OSP, the DCDC, the RTPM All those certification programs. There's somebody managing them. There's somebody keeping them up to date. Now, the Bixie does have committees, volunteers that help do that as well too. But there are paid people at Bixie.

Speaker 1: 10:22

I want to say I was on the Bixie website today and I want to say that I saw that it was. It listed itself as over 50 employees. So those employees aren't just sitting there, just sitting back, laughing, smoking cigars, drinking coffee. They're working hard. They are working hard to bring you good quality content, staying current with the industry. So that training provider and Bixie is only one. There are others. That's just the one that everybody seems to know. That all costs money.

Speaker 1: 10:51

And another reason why it costs money is because you're good classes. They try to limit the number of students in the class, and the reason they do that is because then you have a higher instructor to student ratio. Right, that's going to give the students individualized attention. It's going to, it's going to better their learning experience. What the problem, though, is when you have small classes like that, you can't spread the cost, the cost across a lot of people, so they got to make that up somehow. There's also licensing fees licensing fees. So, again, talking about the Bixie training there are other ones like the FOA and some other ones when you become a training delivery company that offers the Bixie classes, you have to send somebody to Bixie to get certified as an instructor, and then you got to buy the books and you got to pay the licensing fees. All that stuff costs money. All that stuff costs money. And another reason, especially your classes. They're going to be two days, three days, four days, five days sometimes. Right, the longer that class is, the more cost you have going into that. It's going to cost more money. Again, a good training is going to be, is going to be expensive, it just is. It just is.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Next question comes from Jonathan-CE1KU and he says what materials do you recommend for studying for the RCDD? Kind of funny, that question came this week because the RCDD study group starts in 45 minutes. So I have an RCDD study group. Registration is closed. It's full. Sorry everybody, but it's full. It starts at 7 pm the night.

Speaker 1: 12:38

23 week program we go through the TDMM 70 pages at a time. So what are some other resources you're going to need? First, you're going to need the 14th edition TDMM. You need that book. Somebody asked me, somebody just shot me a question today asking about the study program. They said well, I've got the 13th edition. Yeah, no, while some of the information is the same, probably the majority of the information is the same there is differences and, by the way, they're coming out with the 15th edition of the TDMM sometime next year.

Speaker 1: 13:12

When I go to the Bixie conference, I'm going to find Clark and I'm going to ask him when is this thing coming out? When is this thing coming out? Now you probably think well, chuck, I'll just wait for the 15th edition to come out to take my test. No, don't do that, because every edition that comes out there's more pages to know. Why not get it done now and not have to memorize? You know 50, 100.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Every time the TDMMs get published, they get thicker and thicker. They don't get thinner, right? Here's the good news. If you decide that you want to pursue your RCDD, fill out the application today and then you'll have 30 days. They'll notify you if it's gone. Then, once you get notified, if your application gets approved, you have up to one year to take that test. One year. So get locked in now. If you even thought about doing it, do it now, before they release the 15th edition. Okay, make sure you got that 15th edition.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Another good resource for you to have is going to be the Big C ICT Terminology Handbook. It's a free PDF. Go on the old Google machine type in Big C ICT Terminology Handbook. You will find it. Download that PDF, because we speak a whole other language. That's why I do the acronym challenge Right. So not only does it give you the definitions of all the acronyms, it gives you definition of common terms too. And it's free, and it's absolutely free.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Also, you might want to look at practice exams, right, practice exams. Now I have practice exams for my study group. That's only for the people in the study groups. But there are people like Corey and Steve and some other places that do practice exams. Just keep in mind that those places that offer practice exams, those are not the actual exam questions. They can't do that because those exam questions are copyrighted, they're protected. If you copy and put them in there you can find yourself some legal trouble. So all of the practice exams that I created for my RCD students, I've wrote them and since I haven't taken my RCD test since 1999, I can guarantee you I did not see the exam questions. So those practice exam questions, you know, find a place that offers them and if you can't find one that offers them, create your own. There's no better way to get familiar with text than to create a test from it. Look up Easy Test Maker. You can sign up for that for $75 a year and create your own tests.

Speaker 1: 15:47

The next one is to study groups. Study groups I highly believe I'm a big component of study groups because there's benefits to study groups. Number one you have accountability, because every week when you know, oh, I got to read this section of material, you know that there's other people going to ask you if you didn't. So there's accountability, and when you have multiple people in a study group, you're gonna find that there might be some text in the book that you may not understand, but as you work through it as a group, you as a group, the group think we'll figure it out and be able to find out what is going on. Right? Training courses Bixie offers several of them. They have a RCD study group. It's a. I think it's six hours. I think it's three classes, two hours each, virtually. I wanna say it's 499-ish, something like that. Go up and look in the Bixie website, see my class, my study group is 499, but it's also 23 weeks, 23 hours of instruction, 23 hours, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Did you forget to send my stickers? Who are you? I don't know. Did I forget to send you stickers? I might have. I'm notorious for forgetting. Somebody at TikTok asked me if I forgot to send those stickers. Message me your address. Okay, message me your address, then you're gonna have the costs. Make sure you get those costs, and I always suggest, when people take the test or apply, pick a date, pay for the exam. That way you got skin in the game. You have absolute skin in the game Now.

Speaker 1: 17:31

There's plenty of other resources in there too. There's online tutorials, there's resource blogs and there's a lot of great. There's a lot of good content on YouTube. So if you're trying to figure out like Ohm's Law, go to YouTube, type it in and you'll find a couple really good content on that.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Also, look at flashcards Flashcards now. Bixie sells flashcards. I've got a set. I purchased a set, but the thing with the Bixie flashcards is you only have access to them for one year. So when I pay mine, I only have access to them for a year. When I studied for my RCDD, I made my own flashcards. I bought a couple packs of three by five index cards and I wrote a question on the front, wrote the answer in the back and I gave that to my helper and I was driving to the job site and I said drill me, give me questions, and he would give me questions and I would answer them. So make sure that you answer that.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Next question comes from Jesus Caballero. He asks us during the last live stream I didn't catch it in time and he wants to know where in the TDMM or any other source, can I find information on sizing interduct for fiber in conduit? So I found two sections in the TDMM that I actually talk about interduct and conduit. The first one is on page 12-6, that's chapter 12. That's the OSP section and it's under the section of underground entrances.

Speaker 1: 18:58

Now, it wasn't really clear, but it does say that you have to have a minimum of four, a minimum four inch conduit, of three, four inch conduit. So I'm gonna mix them up and one spare and then also you really should be putting interrupt in it. So typically it's gonna say in the outside plant design reference manual it's gonna say that one four inch conduit will accept three, one and a quarter inch interducts. So but a better option there might be fabric mesh. I'm trying to get Max L to come on the show to do an interview, so hopefully I have them on there. The fabric interduct is fantastic stuff, because in that same four inch conduit you can put up to eight or nine fabric mesh conduits. Now the thing with the fabric mesh interduct, the thing you have to care with that, is you gotta make sure that it's laying flat, because if it twists it's gonna make it almost impossible, and so you can put a lot more cables in a conduit system with that. So keep that in mind, keep them on Now when you go to determine the appropriate size for the interduct, you may need to consider a couple of things.

Speaker 1: 20:06

One contact the manufacturer. Contact the manufacturer. They will tell you say, look, I'm buying your inch and a quarter interduct, I'm putting in a four inch pipe. How many of them can I put in there? They have engineers. They have engineers that can tell you that. They'll give you the guidelines. They'll give you some recommendation for installation tips to do it right. Why not follow them? They're the one.

Speaker 1: 20:27

The next thing that's gonna be determining is the conduit size. I talked about four inch pipe early, but we don't always put it four inch pipe right. And then you also need to understand is that pipe straight? How many bends does it have? And are you trying to stay compliant with codes or are you trying to stay compliant with standards? You might even have to consider how much an internet you put in there because of excessive friction to get that in there. You also wanna consider future expansion. Future expansion because the customer will always add cable, always add cable. So always try to talk them into extra because it's easier to put them in during the initial install than coming back later afterwards. Then, finally, always check with the AHA, the authority having jurisdiction right, they're the ones that have the final say, right.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Then I had another question from Leon L Thomas. He says Chuck, do you see a future? Do you see in the future RCDD training in Spanish? Rcdd training in Spanish? I hope so. That's a question I'm gonna ask Chris when I see him at the Bixie Conference I did reach out to a fellow RCDD in Latin America.

Speaker 1: 21:43

He does several Bixie committees and stuff like that. I met him at a Bixie Conference a while back and he was telling me and I didn't realize this but in Latin America, in the US, getting the RCDD means you're gonna make extra money and you might get an extra, a new job. In Latin America it's really not seen that way. It's really seen more of a luxury. So they're working on changing that perception of the real value of having that RCDD. And as long as there's not people asking for it, there's not gonna be a lot of it in Spanish, not gonna be a lot of it in Spanish. You know, I'm just thinking if you're really good with Spanish and you're an RCDD, get in touch with me and let's create a RCDD training program in Spanish. I will give you the platform. I'll help you promote it. I'll help you get students. I can't speak Spanish. So if you got those skills that you can speak Spanish, you're an RCDD and you want to run an RCDD study group, get in touch with me and let's put it out there, because I guarantee you we can fill that class. I guarantee it, guarantee it.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Another question that I got and I lost the email for this. I lost it. So here's the problem I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn and I have an email. That's six different ways people can get in touch with me. So somebody shot me a message and I can't find it. So this is all going to be paraphrased of what that person said.

Speaker 1: 23:14

The person basically said that they had a conflict at their work. The RCDDs at the work said that the lead texts should be establishing the cable paths in the field and the lead texts are saying, no, the RCDD should be doing that. So he wants me to kind of settle that argument. Well, the problem is that argument's not clear, cut right. See, getting your RCDD doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be a project manager or an estimate. Rcdds do everything from sales to operations management, to quality, to training, to consulting.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Right Now, if the estimator is an RCDD, if the estimator is worth their weight in salt, they will come up with the cable pathways because they got to create their estimate based on the hallways that they use. That means you're going to have to do a site visit, but not every time you can do a site visit, because sometimes the building's not built yet. So sometimes you got to do it off prints. Sometimes you got to do it off of what's called assumptions. Right, you put in your bid that you assume none of the runs are going to be more than 150 feet in length and then you track that and if they see that, that's a change order. So if the estimator was an RCDD, yes, yes, they should be establishing those pathways. If the RCDD is the person doing training or they're the area manager, no, that's not really their job description.

Speaker 1: 24:42

Now it is your job as the lead tech in the field. If you are not given the cable pathways to determine them, or if they give you the cable pathways and you get out on the field and the electricians now use that hallway, it is your job to come up with a new one. Come up with a, come up with an alternate plan, right? Don't just go back and say, well, my hallways fill, I can't use it. No, you look around, find the way to get around that problem. Don't just present them the problem. Present them the problem and the resolution that is going to make you a better technician. That's going to make you the type of technician that your company is going to want to promote. That's the type of technician that the company is going to want to invest in. Send them to classes. That's the kind of technician that's going to make more money. Be that kind of a technician. Be that kind of a technician.

Speaker 1: 25:37

Okay, the last submitted question I have. Now I'll flip back over to the chat box. Somebody wants to know how many category 5V cables can I fit into a 2 inch J-Hope? That's a death in. What kind of a J-Hope? Yeah, I understand it's a 2 inch J-Hope, but is it invent or one of the other manufacturers?

Speaker 1: 26:00

Because every one of those manufacturers is going to have a different number, because they're based on a few different things. Number one they're going to base it on the average cable size. Like I was looking at the invent book today on something or another and I saw that where they had this and they base all their fill ratios on 70% fill and the average cable category 5V size being 0.21 inches. I know many, many, many cat 5e cables that are below 0.21. Below 0.21. Paul, was you the one that asked me that question, cause I swear I could not find our email truck? That was you right. So 40%, so they're based on 70%. But if you go to one of the other manufacturers they actually allow a little bit higher right. So you gotta really kind of it depends on go by the manufacturers recommendations. That's the first thing.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Now somebody mentioned 40% fill ratio. The 40% fill ratio is really for conduit, not fire stopping, not J hook. I already mentioned that the invent basis there is on 70%. 70% because the reason you have fill ratios and conduits, because you're gonna have built up friction from going long distances. You're gonna have bends that you gotta pull cable through and that's all increases the amount of pressure you gotta pull on the cable to get it through the conduit. Well, you don't have that with J hooks, cause, get this, the correct way to pull cable with J hooks is to pull the cable first. Well, put the jokes in, pull the cable and then lay the cables in the J hooks. You're not supposed to pull cables through J hooks Because if you pull the cable through J hook when that head, when that head of that bundle I just have to have one right here for demonstration purposes when I teach classes and that head of that cable hits that J hook, it's gonna wanna pull that J hook with it and that could damage the ceiling grid. That's why you're supposed to pull it and put it in.

Speaker 1: 28:05

As I said, they base their numbers on some averages. The real answer is it really kind of depends. You're gonna have to look at the actual cable size. You're gonna have to look up the fill volume that the manufacturer wants if it's 70% or whatever look up the area and then do the actual calculation. But keep in mind because I saw several of them, like the Cat32s and some other ones that they were like 60 cables, 90 cables. Keep in mind that some cable manufacturers are gonna tell you that they don't want cable bundle sizes more than 50 cables per bundle, more than 50 cables per bundle. And that's for several reasons it's for power over ethernet and it's for crosstalk and some other issues. So if you put more than 50 cables in a bundle, even though the J-hook manufacturer says it's okay, you may not get a warranty from the cable manufacturer. So always check with your cable manufacturer. Keep that in mind.

Speaker 1: 29:02

Now, just kind of revert back to the tiny bit. Going back to the invent, like I said, I was in their catalog today looking for something totally else besides this A Category 5E cable. In their Cat16 HP you can put 20 cables. Okay, in the Cat21 HP you can put 40 Cat5E cables. Cat32, you can put in 60. Now, as you go up Cat6, cat6a, cat7, cat7a if you ever get the opportunity to do that Cat8, those cables are bigger, which means that number's going to drop. So make sure you look, find that chart. Okay, make sure that you find that chart.

Speaker 1: 29:41

So that was the last question. Let's see here. They can hear me loud and clear. Circuit issue. I don't know what that means. Jehu, jehu. But see, here's the problem. Jehu, yes, you speak Spanish, but you're not an RCDD. You're not an RCDD. I'm looking for a Spanish speaking RCDD to maybe do an all Spanish RCDD study. You know what I'm going to create a pose and put it out on LinkedIn. I want to do this. I want to do this because we really need to get more people involved in this. We really do. We really do.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Alrighty, we're at 6.31. We are past my 30 minute mark. I got 29 minutes to my RCDD study group, my first one class, one out of 23, happening tonight at 7 pm. Several of the people are actually in here tonight. V equals I times R. R equals V. I was like, yeah, you cracked me up. Yeah, you copied the pace of that out of Google. Buddy, I know you. Okay, teresa's in the house. Teresa, inside diameter divided by the outside diameter. It's a little more involved than that, but I get where you're going with that. I get where you're going with that, teresa. Do you know any RCDDs who speak Spanish? Let me know. Let me know, alrighty, everybody. We're at our 30 minute mark. I do have to prep for the study group tonight. So until next time, everybody, go buy some LISTHOLK cabling merch. Go buy some LISTHOLK cabling merch and remember Mark's in the house. Hey, mark, better late than never. My friend, we're just signing off. I only do 30 minutes, so until next time, everybody remember, knowledge is power. Take care.

Speaker 2: 31:31

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.