After Hours REWIND: Virtual QAs!

Ever wondered if there's more to cable pulling than meets the eye? Strap in as your host Chuck Bowser, RCDD, leads you through the maze of precision that makes or breaks your network's backbone. This episode isn't just about the quirks of Category 6A cable measurements; it's a treasure trove of insights and belly laughs for telecom pros and novices alike. We're unpacking everything from the secrets of After Hours Live to the magic behind meticulous installations. And hang tight for our Motivational Minute—it's a game changer that champions impeccable workmanship and the power of diverse perspectives.

Now, let's take the microscope to some real-world network setups submitted by you, our savvy listeners. Witness the showdown between Velcro and tie wraps, and discover why proximity to electrical panels can be the difference between a pat on the back and a facepalm moment. Tony's got his ladder rack weight distribution down pat, but does he know the secret handshake of cable securing techniques? Sit back with your beverage of choice, and join the camaraderie as we rate these setups and celebrate the craft that keeps our digital world spinning.

We round off our journey with a field trip to an industrial plant's cabling job, underlining the do's and don'ts that safeguard your work against the elements. From indoor cables taking a dip in manhole pools to the risky ballet of cables and sprinkler pipes, we're flagging the red cards to keep your installations in the clear. With the Bixie Conference on the horizon, get ready for exclusive updates and live surprises that could redefine your telecommunication playbook. Remember, subscribing to our show is like plugging into the mainframe of industry knowledge—don't miss out on powering up your expertise!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

don't hang up that phone. We've found what you're looking for. Welcome to the let's talk cabling podcast with chuck bowser rcdd. Well, seeing how we're pulling category 6a the most powerful twisted pair in the world you gotta ask yourself this one question did I pull 295 or 300 feet? Well, do you feel lucky? Do you punk? What exactly does RCDD stand for? Registered Communications Distribution Designer? Just the expert you need to ensure your cable plant performs exactly as designed the elite, professional, knowledgeable and experienced in leading-edge ICT design principles. Now send the new guy to the truck for a bucket of dial tone and the cable stretchers, while you listen to an informative program on telecommunications.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Thursday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing, one thing only it's time for After Hours Live with Chuck Bowser, rcdd, your RCDD Bixie Technician, to help you with your design, installation, certification, estimation, project management, certain, and also your guide for career path and certifications. Do this every thursday night at 7 pm. I will admit I was kind of like creating the link for this so you probably just saw I will be at the big city conference. I'll talk about that in a minute. Big for me. Um, so every thursday night and the last week of the month we do virtual qas, virtual qa. So I've got some pictures that were sent to me. Some of the pictures were sent to me by a project that they actually did and some of the pictures that were sent to me were um pictures, that stuff that they saw while they're working.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So we're going to address all that stuff today.

Speaker 2: 2:05

So if you've got a project and you want me to do a QA on it, send me the pictures. You can send it to chuckatletstalkcablingcom, you can send it to any of my social media links, right? So are we talking OSP cable networks? If you have a specific question, hit me with it. But let's get on with the show. We have some things, some housekeeping we got to get out of the way first. Now the next thing we always do is check out the QR code, which will be on the screen here in just a second man. I need to talk my wife into doing this stuff for me. There we go. There's the QR code right there. Right there. So you know, if you like this content, if you like what I do and you want to help support the program, buy me a cup of coffee. Click on that link or scan that QR code with your phone. Buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one Zoom call with me after hours, of course, course, because I do have a day job, so I always do that. That's after hours. It's just a way that you can support the show, because it costs money to put all this stuff up and, uh, honestly, the wife's getting mad at me because I'm not making enough to pay for the show. So, secret, secret, I don't want to get in trouble. So, yeah, try to support the show if you can. Um, if you go to patreon, you can support us there we got, we got things as little as five dollars a month. Every little bit helps to support this show, every little bit.

Speaker 2: 3:33

So today's acronym challenge because you know that's the next step that we go to is knock noc. Noc acronym challenge. What does noc mean? I'll give you a few minutes to figure that one out NOC, what does that acronym mean? And you know we're doing that live acronym challenge at Big C, this on Wednesday, right? So let me see, nobody has answered it in the TikTok feed.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Let's switch over to the thing. Oh, look at that, there it is, right there. Home Lab Tech Support Network Operations Center. They got it just a hair before you, big Daddy. Just a hair. I mean, it was so close, so close. So that's what knock means. Let's go ahead and clear that. Let's get to the rest of the show. Clear off this graphic. Remember how to do that? Oh, yeah, da-da-da-da. Clear off this graphic. I can't remember how to do that. Oh, yeah, there it is Bingo, Bingo. So we've done the thing.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Today's motivational minute and I don't know where I heard this, so I can't attribute who it was, but it kind of ties in with the theme for tonight If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when, if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when are you going to have time to go back and redo it? I'll say that again. Let it sink in If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when are you going to find time to go back to do it right? When you do poor quality work the cost of quality you know you got to pay somebody to go back out and do that again you lose customer confidence. You might impact your schedule at your competition or at your office with other projects. It could damage your reputation. You should always do your best. Always do your best.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Okay, a good technician is there was a. There was a post on Facebook this week and somebody it was. It was a long diatribe and somebody says I don't care about your opinions, blah, blah, blah, blah. A good technician will listen to everybody's opinion in the journey to make their stuff better. Okay, it doesn't mean you'll necessarily deploy what their opinion stuff is, but you got to listen because some people are smarter than you. There's people smarter than me out there and I listen to them. Right, and I listen to people. There are people in this industry I know this is going to shock you who have less experience than me and are smarter in some subjects than I am. I'll give you a point.

Speaker 2: 5:59

So last night I'm sitting in my house watching TV. After hours watching TV, my phone alerts me. Bing, instagram there's a live feed. Tech World was on. They were doing a live stream. They were talking about access control. I know nothing about access control. I'm a structured cable guy. So I hopped on and I listened. I learned a whole bunch of stuff. Did you know and I didn't know this the access control guys, they are as fanatic as dressing out the cables inside their cans as we are dressing our closets. Yeah, isn't that kind of cool. So, yeah, always make sure that you do the best you can. Okay, hey, did you catch last week's show? By the way, last week's show, anybody Catch it. Make sure you catch it. Make sure you. We talked to Grant Schmelzer from Chesapeake.

Speaker 2: 6:46

One of the things I get asked quite often is I get asked questions about apprenticeship training programs. Iec, which has offices all over the United States, has them. They have them. They also have electrical apprenticeship programs and I have always been a huge admirer of the electrical apprenticeship programs, the joint apprenticeship training stuff, because they do it right. They do it right Now, hey, oh, by the way.

Speaker 2: 7:15

By the way, since I've got a lot of people watching here today, I want to do a show on union versus non-union from a technician's perspective. Now, I've got a bunch of people who are willing to come on the show as non-union. I mean as union, I need some non-union people. So if you're a non-union and you want to get on a conversation and have a civil conversation with union technicians and talk about it, reach out to me. I need some non-union people for this, okay, because I really, really want to do that show, right? So who's that? Somebody says they are non-union. So if you're interested in coming on the show, shoot me a message on one of these social media platforms.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Okay, I can come on as a non-union. I use hired union guys for data center bullets. Excellent, ed. Yes, there's another one. As a non-union. I use hired union guys for data center bullets. Excellent, ed. Yes, there's another one, so there's two. I know Ed will follow through and the other guy, if you follow through as well, that will certainly help. Certainly help, okay, because I'm really looking for that.

Speaker 2: 8:17

All right, what was the next thing? I kind of lost track of where I was. Oh, the Bixie Conference. Bixie Conference is next week, next week, yay, I can't wait. I will be there on Monday and Wednesday and potentially Thursday morning. Monday I'm attending two classes and then I'm going to the exhibit hall. Monday night You'll see me walking around the exhibit hall. I won't be there Tuesday because my wife's having surgery and I'm going to be by her side on Tuesday If everything goes well. She gets released Tuesday. I'll be at Bixie on Wednesday. If something happens, then I will be at my wife's side, no matter what. So you got to do what you got to do when you're a family man, right? But if everything goes smoothly, I will be there at Big C on Wednesday and then, wednesday at 1230 pm, go to the exhibit hall, find the AM booth. I think it's booth 820, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 2: 9:12

I'm doing a live acronym challenge. You know I do the acronym challenge on LinkedIn. All the time I'm doing a live acronym challenge. You know, I do the acronym challenge on LinkedIn all the time. I'm doing a live one. Yes, and the winners? The winners can win their choice of a Wire Monkey shirt. Let's Talk Cabling Podcast shirt, vfl.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Where's my other stuff? I'll have my cable strippers with me. I'll have some UHN strip tools with me. I'll even have an Oregon threaded tool with me. So I'm going to be doing that live Q&A. So if you're at Big C Wednesday 1230, come check me out at the AEM booth, okay, so that way you might win something.

Speaker 2: 9:57

Oh, of course, I will also have podcast stickers, right? So I have the regular podcast stickers and the wire monkey stickers, yeah, and also the knowledge is power sticker. You don't have to do. If you just see me walking around at big C, stop me. Say, chuck, let me have a sticker and I will give them out as long as I have them. Okay, I have, I think two or 300 of them. I don't think I'll come across 300 people at the Big C Conference that'll absolutely just want stickers, but I'll have a bunch of them. So hope to see you there at the Big C Conference.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Okay, alrighty, now let's get into the live QA portion. All righty, now let's get into the live QA portion. Now these are QAs the pictures that were sent to me, sent to me by people. Let me take my TikTok phone down. So is there a way I can change the screen on the TikTok while I'm in midstream? Guess not, so I'll have to do it this way, okay, so here. What we're seeing here is this is a network on somebody's home. This was sent to me via trevor on facebook, so here's the things that I really really like about this.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Trevor did a really good job of dressing his cables above that cabinet. It's kind of hard to tell because I can't zoom in on it here. Right, did a really good dressing the cables. Now, the things he could have done better he used tie wraps. Now, tie wraps are okay, but I will tell you right out of the gate it's always better to use Velcro than it is to use tie wraps. If you use tie wraps, take care to not cinch the jacket and spaced them evenly. Also, when I looked closely in that cabinet, it looks like he mounted that cabinet to that plywood with drywall screws. I would have used lag bolts or something a little bit thicker with a fender washer.

Speaker 2: 11:49

And then another thing I don't like about this is that you see that that door is open Right behind the door. What is that? That is an electrical distribution panel. He's way too close to that. He should be at least about two feet away from the electrical distribution panel. So I just realized I didn't have the microphone in front of my face so you probably can hear me a lot better now, right? So yeah, you should be at least two feet away from that electrical distribution panel. Um, oh, like I said, uh, so he's got coax cables and he's got four pair cables going into that cabinet. I I would have liked to have seen the wraparound cable labels on the coax cable, because it's kind of hard to tell. There's a very little ledge there and that ledge is not big enough for a cable label there. So I would highly suggest that he put wraparound labels on that.

Speaker 2: 12:44

But other than that, I think Trevor did a really good job. Tell me in the chat box on a scale of one to ten. On a scale of one to ten, how well do you think Trevor did so? Put that in the chat box. Put that in the chat box.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Let's go to the next question. This one was posted in a low-voltage nation group. The guy posted was Tony Nugent. I hope I said that correctly, tony, I don't want to get anybody's name wrong. Let's talk about the good things Tony did here.

Speaker 2: 13:14

He did an excellent job dressing out that cable Excellent job. There's only one or two spots where the dressing kind of bows out a little bit. But he has no divers. He has no divers. A diver is where a cable goes into the bundles. And here's a true shine of a professional. All those Velcro strips are lined up right. He's got them equal distances and they go straight, horizontally and vertical. They're. They're even everywhere. The only spot where he has an extra row is down there towards the bottom right hand corner of the screen. That those velcros there, I think, are actually holding it to the ladder rack. So he put an extra row there.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Um, do you know how difficult it is to dress a cable like that? A bundle cables, a single, a single bundle of cables, not to mention eight to ten bundles of cables like tony has here. Right, tony, I think, did a fantastic job dressing out those cables. And another thing I really like about this install when you look at that back wall, you'll notice that there's those rectangle-shaped things where he didn't paint. For those who don't know, that's the fire stamp. You're not supposed to paint over the fire stamp because the inspector is going to want to see that. And that's exactly what Tony did here. I think he did a fabulous job. I think his cable dressing is almost on par with all green lights, maybe low-volt wire being, and even Sean Rupp, he's getting up there, he's getting up there. I would consider him a B or maybe even an A type of technician for installing that.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Here's my only concerns with this particular picture. So he's got those 10 bundles of cables. I'm assuming there's probably 24 in each of those bundles. He's got two rows. He's got a row of five on the bottom, a row of five on the top. My concern is and I wouldn't be able to confirm this unless I was actually there on the site my concern is the weight of all those cables on the on the bottom of the bottom bundle, on the rungs, because you don't want to crush the cable. That's my only concern, but I can't say that's the issue because I I don't have a picture of the bottom side of the cable track. And another issue that I have here and this is not an installation issue, this is a design issue, so it's probably not Tony's fault, it's probably whoever estimated it. I would highly recommend, highly recommend that somebody that they would have put the post on the side of that ladder rack to keep everything in nice and neat right, there we go.

Speaker 2: 15:56

So that's what I recommend for that one. So again, I get really good. We got another picture of him, so continue on. There's that same ladder rack, but now we're looking the other direction. So the thing I really want to focus on here is look where those cables turn to come out of the cable tray down into the racks. He used bend radiuses. Yes, that's a common mistake that most technicians oversee is that whole thing. Looking at the ladder rack, it goes into the wall, butts into the wall and it's anchored to the wall, and he used good lag bolts for that. So he did a really, really good job on that.

Speaker 2: 16:35

One Retaining post that's the word I was looking for that. So he did a really really good job on that. One Right Retaining pose that's what that's the word I was looking for earlier. And now, one of the things that I noticed here. Now, keep in mind this is a work in progress, a work in progress, and I know that just because watch I'll go into the next picture and you'll see why I call this a work in progress. He's not done terminating yet. So when you're doing QAs on projects that are a work in progress, they're not done yet. You don't have to wait to the end. Matter of fact, you don't want to wait to the end to do a QA inspection. You want to inspect it If it's a large project, like Tony's got here, at least once a week, if you're the project manager, if you're the operations manager, project manager, if you're the operations manager, because it's better to catch any problems early as opposed to the end of the project, right? So I think this is a work in progress because he hasn't terminated yet. One of the things I did notice is there's no bonding and grounding. So I'm assuming that's because it's a work in progress.

Speaker 2: 17:32

Here you can see a better picture of those bend radiuses, like I really like to see, and I would really also like to see, and you can't tell from this picture. So the cables come down out of the cable tray, they go down that vertical manager and then they turn and come back up and go to the panels. I would like to see how big that turn is to make sure you didn't exceed the bend radius there. Okay, this is looking at the backside of that same panel again, but now he's looking at the bottom two rows. Pro tip, when you're terminating patch panels, especially on large projects, especially on large projects, right, always start at the bottom and work your way up. Start at the bottom and work your way up. He's got cable labels and everything. He doesn't exceed the bend radiuses man. It looks good. I can't wait to see the finished picture of this thing when he gets done. The finished picture.

Speaker 2: 18:26

Hey, in the chat box, tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think Tony did here? Keep in mind it's a work in progress. On a scale of one to ten, what do you think is tony's score? All righty, now let's shift conversation a little bit. This was actually a picture of that somebody sent to me. Uh, they, actually they alerted me to was on the social media platforms.

Speaker 2: 18:53

What you see is a a wall mounted rack that was mounted to a gypsum board wall with plastic anchors plastic anchors and you know, I got in a conversation with somebody not too long ago about why you should not use this Because, number one, you know plastic anchors melt in the heat. Number two, while they might be rated for the weight for the rack and the patch metal that you installed in it, you don't know. You don't know what they're going to put in that rack in the next seven to 10 years. Right, that rack is going to get heavier and heavier. Now here's some things that I recommended that this person should have done right. I highly recommended that number one. He put in a plywood, right, put in plywood. That plywood should be mounted to the wall with either toggle bolts or galvanized screws going into the studs. That's the best way to do that. And then make sure you use AC grade three-quarter inch all that other fun stuff that the Bixie tells us to do. And then make sure you use AC grade three quarter inch all that other fun stuff that the Bixie tells us to do, and then you can mount that wall rack to the plywood. Again, don't use drywall screws, use something that's capable of holding that, because if you don't, this is what could actually happen. It may not happen right after the install, it might happen a year or two later. And now you have to go out and explain to the customer why your poor quality workmanship caused their network to go down Right, caused their network to go down Again. Do better, do better.

Speaker 2: 20:32

Here's another picture. This one again was sent to me online by somebody. I don't have the complete story behind this. It looks like it's some type of industrial plant, maybe because you typically don't find enclosed racks with waterproof connectors on them. So my biggest thing here is I would not have come in from the top as they did, because if you have any kind of leakage water, chemicals, whatever that water will follow those cables right straight into that thing. You should actually come down below that enclosed panel and then come up to it. Make like a drip loop. Make like a drip loop.

Speaker 2: 21:27

Now, this person did use tie wraps and I said earlier, tie wraps are okay, prefer Velcro. If you look at the blue tie wrap the tie wrap on the blue bundle just above that curve where the purple is, that appears to me like it's cinched, and that's the one thing you want to really really watch out for. Okay, hey, on a scale of one to 10, tell me in the chat box what do you rate this install? What do you rate this install? I would like to see the inside of it, though. I really, really would, alrighty. So now going to a.

Speaker 2: 22:03

This is a set of pictures that was emailed to me on one of the social media platforms. I don't remember which. It was either Ian or Besmark Industries one of those two, I can't remember which off the top of my head. Looking at picture one, let's see if I get my camera to kind of look at that without having any kind of issues. I'm sorry, tiktok peeps, you can really see this better on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 22:27

So, number one, you see where they spliced that cable. I'm just going to put this back up in the holder because I really don't think. Are you guys able to see that on TikTok? Let me know, yes or no. If me holding it like that helps you see it? Okay, if it is, I'll put it back and hold it again. So and hold it again. Um. So, number one, upper left hand corner, you see where they put a four pair cable and then they, uh, I didn't think so. Um, no, somebody says yes, so I'll hold it back up there again.

Speaker 2: 22:55

So they have a four pair cable and they spliced it to a patch cord. They use the. Those type of splices are called dolphins. It's used a lot in pots and pot stuff. You don't want to ever splice a cable. You really want to run a new cable. So that's not a good thing. That might work for pots, but it's not going to work for uh, not going to work for data. It could cause you a lot of problems.

Speaker 2: 23:21

Number two again another splice using dolphins, but this one's actually spliced outside to an outside camera. Ding, ding, ding, ding ding. Yeah, somebody needs to be corrected there. Number three when you look at that one, you're looking at a manhole, in case. It's kind of hard to tell. It's filled with water, filled with water. And the cable that's inside of it is not outside plant cable, it is indoor rated cable. That's another big no-no. Another big no-no.

Speaker 2: 23:52

Moving on to number four and number five. Number four, number five again, these were not pitches. That somebody actually did is something they came across cables laying on the ceiling tile. Big problem there. Big, big, big problem. That's a code violation. By the way, the cables have to be at least three inches above the ceiling tile. And it's also another code violation because it's not done in what's called a neat and workmanlike manner. Neat and workmanlike manner, right.

Speaker 2: 24:23

So when the fire department puts out the fire, the very next thing they're going to do is they're going to be checking for extension. They're going to be lifting the ceiling tiles to see if the fire spread into the cavity of the ceiling. They're not going to be able to open up those ceiling tiles and if they do, stuff might fall out and injure them. Code violation. Code violation On number four. I don't know if you noticed this violation. Code violation on number four. I don't know if you noticed this that white cable is draped across a sprinkler pipe. That's not only against any c code, that's against the sprinkler code.

Speaker 2: 24:53

So problem there in number five, in the back there, but towards that vent, you see a, uh, a bundle of cables that kind of go up and come back down. They're supported by ready for this a bridal ring, kind of go up and then come back down. They're supported by ready for this a bridal ring. Yeah, a bridal ring. Not supposed to use bridal rings for high-performance data cabling because the thin edge of that bridal ring crushes those cables. And now you've got all that weight. So I'm just going to take a guess. I'm going to guess that bridal ring is probably three feet above the ceiling tile. So now you've got six feet of cable times the number of cables all on those bottom cables in the bridle ring. Those cables I guarantee you are getting crushed. I guarantee you they're getting crushed. All right.

Speaker 2: 25:41

And then let's go to the last one. We've got some good ones here. This one was submitted to me a while back. Looking at number one, the upper left-hand corner, what you're looking at is a glass panel, like a modular furniture kind of thing, with a cable strapped to the outside, inside of a latching duct going up into the ceiling tile. Notice what they did? They tore the ceiling tile. You know, in that scenario I probably would have taken the latching duct up above the tile and then cut a notch in the tile, so that way it wouldn't have damaged the tile.

Speaker 2: 26:14

Looking at number two, they're that same glass panel. The cable comes down and then turn and goes across. They didn't use any outside corners. Right, they make inside corners, they make outside corners, they make couplers, they make right angles. They don't make left angles, though. Why don't they make? Trivia question why do they not make left angles? If you know the answer to that, put it in the chat box. Why do they not make left angles?

Speaker 2: 26:39

Yeah, going down to number three, you see some cables coming out of a ceiling somewhere that looks like it might even be a home. It's a solid ceiling Problem. Number one the electrical cable is running through it. You want to have at least 12 inches of separation, maybe even more, between your cables and the electrical and also they didn't patch up that hole. I would have either put a sleeve through that hole or I would have closed that hole off with either duct seal or probably some type of fire stop. It's probably not a fire rated barrier. If it is, I would have used fire stop. What that does is it keeps dust and odors and insects from crawling from the ceiling into the living part of the building. So always seal it, never leave a hole like that. Ever leave a hole like that. Okay, going to number four, you see a face plate.

Speaker 2: 27:36

I want you to pay attention to that cord plugged into the left. It's a patch cord that somebody crimped an end on, which, by the way, you're supposed to use. You're supposed to use manufactured patch cords. You're not supposed to fuel, construct patch cords. They didn't make it right. The cable jacket doesn't go into the back of that APHC. That's supposed to go inside the APHC. That way when you crimp it, it kind of pushes on the jack and helps lock it into place. As you can see, they obviously didn't do that and if you look below the faceplate, they stapled it to the wall. Ding, ding, ding. How many things can you get wrong in one install. How many things can you get wrong in one install? There you go.

Speaker 2: 28:23

Somebody wants to know where can I send my pictures to? You can either email them to me at chuck at letstalkcablingcom, or, if you're on one of the social media platforms you're on TikTok reach out to me. I think you can send pictures through TikTok. You can send it through Instagram. You can send it through a bunch of other places too. So there's a way to do that. I hope everybody enjoyed the show. I hope you learned from other people's mistakes what not to do.

Speaker 2: 28:56

And also, when you're doing QAs, if you're doing a QA with somebody, always start off with the positive stuff. Always start off with the positive stuff. Say, hey, you did this. You notice, I did that tonight. That's how I do QAs, man, I love the way you dressed the cable, the Velcro's right, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now let's talk about some things you can do to improve. That's the way to do a QA. We do QA once a month, the last week of the month, so the next QAs will be in three weeks three and a half, no four weeks. So if you have pictures you want to send them, make sure you send them to me and I hope to see everybody at the Bixie Conference. I might even be doing some live streams at the Bixie Conference, so make sure you watch, okay, I have my phone with me. I might even do some live streams at the Bixie conference. Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Till next time, everybody Remember, knowledge is power and this episode is out. Take care everybody.

Speaker 1: 29:57

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.