AHL: Boost Your Low-Voltage Career: Advancing Certifications, Project Management Skills, and Cable Testing Essentials

The episode emphasizes essential knowledge for success in the low-voltage cabling industry, highlighting the importance of certifications, effective safety practices, and project management skills. Listeners gain insights into troubleshooting, cable installation, and job search strategies, ensuring they have the tools needed for success in ICT. 

• Emphasis on professional certifications and their value 
• Discussion on safety practices for fiber optic installations 
• Overview of project management skills and tools 
• Tips for installing and dressing patch panels effectively 
• Common insertion loss issues and troubleshooting methods 
• Essential testing tools for fiber optic professionals 
• Job search strategies and the importance of networking

Chapters

• 0:00 Let's Talk Cabling After Hours Live
• 6:51 Project Management Certifications and Skills
• 21:05 Avoiding Crosstalk and Cable Testing Essentials

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to Wednesday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. Welcome to After Hours Live with Chuck Bowser, rcdd. You know your favorite RCDD. Okay, so we already covered what he's drinking Dr Pepper for Shotzi Kaylin's drinking water. I'm drinking Earl Grey tea because it is cold in Florida, cold in Florida. So there you go. Mixie's next Coming up real soon, april 2nd to the 6th.

Speaker 2: 1:09

I just got in the new shirts, the new shirts, yes, for the Bixie Conference. They're probably saying, well, check, that looks like your regular shirt, but wait, there's more. When you look at the backside of this shirt, this is cool, that is cool. That's the backside of this shirt. This is cool, that is cool. That's the backside of the shirt. I have a limited supply that I will be giving away at the Bixie Conference, a very, very limited supply. Okay, very limited supply. I only ordered, I think, 10 shirts, okay. So if you see me early in the conference, make sure that you say hi to me and and, uh, you come up and ask for the shirt.

Speaker 2: 1:48

I am also doing poker chips, poker chips. I'm doing a scavenge hunt. Let me pull up the media screen on my, my browser here, and then click live, I'm doing poker chips. I've got, I've selected 10 manufacturers and I'm going to put poker chips in their booths. Hide them, and you got to find them. Once you find one, make a video or picture, put it on social media hashtag CBRCDD and the person has the most creative one will get a prize from me. I haven't decided what that prize is going to be yet. So there you go right Now.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Now let's get to the first question. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. So the first question came from Big Rude and he says with my Big C1 certification and over a year's worth of experience, why is it that companies act as if it's nothing? A couple reasons here. Number one a lot of companies are cheap. They want to go the cheapest way they can and the Installer 1 certification is the old apprentice certification. So a lot of companies, unless they're looking for an apprentice, they're going to want to hire somebody who has experience. So there you go. Then the next question comes from I want to go for my Bixie 2 certification, but don't know if it's worth it. It is worth it. It is worth it. Also, if I go for my Bixie 2 certification, what field other than data centers should I go? That might be why you're finding people who don't care about that. Staller 1 certification if you're going with data centers, any installation company copper fiber, you know structured cable company they're going to care. They are going to care because they have bids that say they have to have a certain number of Bixie certified people on staff. So there you go, right, there you go.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Hopefully next time I can make it in person. Oh yes, only able to do the virtual this year. The cool thing is the cool thing about doing the virtual. The thing Bixie, my eyes bother me if you can tell the thing about going. The thing Bixie, my eyes bother me if you can tell the thing about going to the actual Bixie conferences. They have these sessions going at the same time and a lot of times I want to attend both of them. You can't do that in person. The virtual one you can. You can cause. You can go back and watch a couple of times. So you can go back and make sure you catch all. That's the benefit of watching the virtual shots. You can actually go back and forth. So there we go, all righty.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Flip over to my question list. Question list First question, and this comes from Instagram. So, chuck, what are some key safety practices that I need to know as a new installer working with optical fiber. It's funny this question just came up because Monday's episode I talked to. I interviewed a fiber optic instructor for the FOA. Her name was Jane Bailey. Real good episode. We actually talked about fiber safety there, but I'll review it again.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Okay, number one make sure you dispose of your fiber sharps correctly. Okay, use an approved scraps container. I think I even did this last live stream right. Use an approved scraps container. There you go Now. Don't use electrical tape or whatever backwards. Don't use soda bottles, soda cans, beer bottles, beer cans, parmesan cheese cans. Dispose of them correctly. Tape that thing up, put it in a bag, seal the bag Because, as Jane said in that show, if you're lifting a trash can up over your head to put in a dumpster, you don't want glass shards coming down. Another safety tip is make sure that you check your tools, make sure that they're clean, make sure they're functioning correctly and, like Jane said, she's actually allergic to some of the two-part epoxies, so she's got to make sure that there's none on her tools.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Next question this comes from Instagram says what steps should I take to become a project manager in the ICT industry? So assuming you're coming from the field. If you're coming from the field, you probably don't have very many project management skills. Immerse yourself, go watch project management videos on YouTube. Go to you know a lot of people don't realize LinkedIn has training. You got to pay for it, but it does have training. So go to that, you know. Go through those classes. Maybe even get the project management method manual from Big C and read through that. Then there's nothing. If you're in the field now and you want to become a project manager, there's nothing stopping you from acting like a project manager. Start tracking the hours used on the job, start looking at the schedule, start tracking the material and compare that to the bill of materials. That's just going to make you better when you do that, right.

Speaker 2: 6:51

And then also maybe consider about getting certified Again the PMP certification or the RTPM. I did several episodes on the podcast comparing, contrasting the project management professional certification, the PMP versus the RTPM. Just make sure that you go back and watch those, because they're both great certifications. I'm always probably going to recommend, if you're going to stay in low voltage, go to the RTPM. That's my recommendation. And then also make sure that you network with people in the industry. Right, you know again, get on LinkedIn, go to Bixie conferences and stuff like that. That'll help you, that will certainly help you.

Speaker 2: 7:29

What certifications can I get just for splicing fiber that's recognized in the industry? Okay, so you're not going to find a certification just for splicing fiber. You're going to find the two big fiber certifications is the Installer F with Bixie or the CFOT Certified Fiber Optic Technician through the FOA. Both of those are going to give you experience with fiber, some Fiber 101 and some termination and some splicing background, but there is no specific certification. That just does certification just for supplies. You might find a manufacturer that might give you that, but not an industry certification. Great question, big Root.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Next question what tools should I focus on learning to become an ICT project manager? Okay, I'm actually mentoring a guy and we're getting ready to do an estimate. I'm actually mentoring a guy and we're getting ready to do an estimate. So I sent him the spreadsheet and I sent him a fake RFP and he's going to generate a, an estimate off of that fake RFP. And I told him how is your Microsoft Excel skills? How is your your, your word document skills? He goes I'm okay, you need to practice those up. Okay, you need to practice those up because most companies we're definitely going to be using Word for scope of works, replying back to bids and stuff like that A lot of companies use Excel spreadsheets for their estimating. Okay, but there is project management software. That's the first step, that's the foundation. Then you might want to start looking at other project management-specific software like Microsoft Project or Smartsheet. Last time I looked at Microsoft Project they did have some free trials, so you can kind of get to that and kind of play with it and figure out how to work it, learn how to do cost estimation skills.

Speaker 2: 9:24

I mentioned I did a. When did I say that? Did I say it in a short video? I don't remember I said it. I do have a, a practice estimating sheet that I will send to anybody. Okay, anybody. All you got to do is sign up for my newsletter and I will send you. Now, keep in mind it is a practice spreadsheet not to be used for real world estimating, but it runs you through the whole entire thing creating a work breakdown structure, putting in your labor factors, you know, thinking about the other direct costs, putting in your crew size, your crew pay rates kind of get you through that process. So if you're interested in that, again message me. I will send you the link. But you got to sign up for the newsletter to get a copy of that.

Speaker 2: 10:08

Ok, also, make sure that you are really good at communications. If you're trying to become a project manager, all right, that means you got to communicate with people in the field your customers distribution. That means emails. Can you write a good email? Do you know how to send an attachment on an email? Do you know how to organize and save emails? Do you know how to create a folder in an email package so that way you can put all the emails from the XYZ project in that folder? Those are skills you're going to need to learn and a lot of companies have shifted over to either Microsoft Teams or with Slack and some project managers not a lot, but some project managers also have AutoCAD as part of the job description.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Autocad and Revit, autocad and Revit. Your best there is go take a class at a community college, because AutoCAD is not easy. Autocad is like Microsoft, adobe. It truly is right. So do I continue education with Bixby? Okay, so my answer to that is based on because big root because of your previous questions, is, if you're going to stay with cable installation, whether it's in a data center or working with a company, then yes, I would say, stay with the Bixie certifications and work your way up through the ranks. If you're going into data centers to become a sysadmin or an IT person, maybe you might want to look at other certifications. But if you're going to stick with the cable side, absolutely, absolutely, stick with the Bixby certifications for copper and fiber or the CFOT for fiber. Actually, I think the Fiber Optic Association even has a certification for copper installers too, if I remember right.

Speaker 2: 11:55

Question number four what is the correct way to install a batch panel, okay, okay, there's lots of tips here, lots of tips. Let me take a sip of my tea. Number one make sure you mount the badge panel correctly. A lot of times people are not paying attention and when they put the badge panel in it'll kind of be. They won't line up the holes, it'll be kind of leaning a little bit. Make sure it's straight. Make sure it's all within a rack mount unit. Make sure the if most patch panels have at least four screws. Put in all four screws, okay, and make sure they're all the way down.

Speaker 2: 12:34

A shielded patch panel you may have to follow the manufacturer's recommendations to connect that to the ground. All right, you may have to follow the manufacturer's recommendations to connect that to the ground and then make sure that you label those patch panels correctly, make sure you follow the industry standards. I need to do a show. I need to do a show on labeling per the standards, because it would literally take 30 minutes to go through that. Actually, I take it back to go through that. Actually, I take it back. Brother Solutions has a two-hour a free two-hour class with CECs on how to do labeling.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Okay, now you start talking about the patch panel. You can't talk about patch panels, obviously, without talking about cable dressing. Cable dressing, okay. And that's the next question from the same person how do you ensure proper cable dressing during the install? I have done two shows on this. The first one I interviewed Sean Rep back in 2024, february 2024. Right and uh. And then I did another one where I had a panel with Sean Repp, all Green Lights and Lou Varvey. If you're on TikTok, instagram and you like looking at this, I guarantee you've looked at their work. I guarantee you've looked at their work right. So the key is preparation, preparation, preparation.

Speaker 2: 14:04

You need to think about how the cables are going to land before you bring the cables into the telecom room. So, when it comes to patch panels, there's a couple of different trains of thought. There's one train of thought, because nothing in this data tells you how to terminate on a patch panel. But there are some train of thought because nothing in this standard tells you how to terminate on a patch panel. But there are some trains of thoughts. One train of thought is when you look at the back side of the patch panel, anything that's going to land on the right hand side should come down the right side of the rack. Anything that's going to land on the left hand side of the patch panel should come down the left side of the rack. That way there's nothing. No cable crosses the center. If you're doing that kind of a scenario, when you're addressing your bundles by the way, your bundle sizes should not be larger than 24 cables. You need to think about those numbers. You need to think about those numbers because the bundle that's going to be on the right-hand side will be cables 1 through 6, 13 through 18. See, it's not 1 through 24, like you would think, because the other ones are going to be coming down the other side of the rack, so you've got to think about that ahead of time. Another train of thought on how to terminate patch panels is to, if you've got multiple patch panels, bring the top one in. There's cables in from the right the cables are going to the second patch panel. Bring them down and go to the left.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Now the key with patch panels is don't exceed your band radius right and exceed your bend radius right, and again, that's four times outside the arm of the bend of the cable. Real easy to figure that out Just grab a piece of the cable like this, do it in a loop, slowly pull it apart. It kicks out by itself. Don't exceed that bend radius. Okay, that's how you do that. You don't want to kink that cable going to the back of the patch panel.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Make sure when you strip the jacket you only strip enough. After you get done terminating that, as little of the pairs are shown, the general rule of thumb is for Cat 5E, cat 6, a half inch or less of stripped untwist and then for Cat 6A the standards say same thing, half of an inch. But some manufacturers require even less. When you strip the jacket off the cable, I got a sneeze coming. When you strip the jacket off the cable, you could have as much of the pairs showing out as you want, but when you get done with the termination, then you want to make sure that there's no more than a half inch from the edge of that jacket to the end of the pairs, and that's going to guarantee you performance.

Speaker 2: 16:21

And when you're terminating a lot of people don't realize this when you're terminating on the backside of a patch panel, instead of landing them, you know, instead of terminating the blue first and then the orange and then the green and then the brown. Well, the problem is now the blue is short and the brown is long. That could give you some delay, skew errors. Land the orange and the green first, then do the blue and the brown. That way, when the pairs come out of the jacket, they're all about the same length, right, all about the same link. So make sure you watch the other two videos I'm on with Sean Rep and the one with Sean Rep and all green lights and low volt Warby.

Speaker 2: 16:55

Ok, there you go. So he says I just had to do over 100 patch panels in a day. My fingers still hurt from the screwdriver. Oh, you mean installing them? Why didn't you use a battery operated drill? I would have, I would have. Somebody says here I take pride in dressing cable. It's my favorite part of pulling copper fiber. That's actually a huge, huge, controversial thing in our industry. There are some people like Big Root and Sean Repp and Lovart Warby and All Green Lights that they love dressing cable and they well, I don't know if they love dressing cable, but they take pride in it. And then there's other thoughts too where people will say, well, why spend that extra time? There's advantages and disadvantages to both of those actually to both of them, right?

Speaker 2: 17:41

Question number six what's the best way to pull cables through conduit? Number one inspect the conduit. Make sure it's not filled with water, make sure it's not obstructed, make sure it doesn't have too many 90-degree bends, find out how long it is, find out where the pull boxes are. If you go by the standards, you're supposed to have a pull box every 100 feet. You're not supposed to have more than two 90-degree bends between those pull boxes.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Code is a little different. If an electrician installed the conduit, you might have a different thing going on. So what happens is you might need to use cable-pulling lubricant to reduce the friction to pull the cable through. Make sure that you use cable-pulling lubricant that's designed for high-performance data cabling polywater, clear glide. Do not use soap in the bathroom, bury it Okay.

Speaker 2: 18:39

You also may need or have to use a pull string or a fish tape. If you're paying the electrician to put in the conduit for you, put it in their scope of work to leave a pull string. If you put cable in a conduit, make sure you leave pull string Okay. And also make sure you know how to operate a fish tape. There's metal fish tapes. They're available typically in an eighth inch, a quarter of an inch. There's fiberglass fish tapes. There's different ends. You can put on them to get around bends. If you've got a really long bend, you can actually put a loop on a fish tape and send it in one way and a hook on the other side and then when they come together you can spin the fish tape. It'll grab that hook and then you can pull through. There's lots of things you can do. Just the key is pull gently and pull consistently. Avoid jerking and forcing that cable. Avoid that because that will damage the cable.

Speaker 2: 19:26

I told my company not about filling conduit over 50%. They looked at me like I'm crazy. Well, here's the problem, big Root, it's not even 50%, it's 40%. And that's code, not standards. So the code says if you have three, 9.1 in the code book, if you have three or more cables, the maximum fill ratio is 40%, not 50%. 40% when you look in the TDMM they've got several charts but they really recommend 40% is the maximum. You always want to leave room to grow, right? So 40% is in new buildings, right? Well, yeah, because anytime you put cable in a conduit, well, if you have an existing conduit in a building that's not being used, you don't want to exceed 40% in that conduit, even though the conduit was installed before. So the 40% is a code number. It doesn't matter. Just for see a lot of people get this confused. They think the code only applies during new construction. Code applies 100% of the time. 100% of the time An electrical inspector can go any building they want, inspect anything they want, and if it doesn't follow the code they can cause problems for the owners. So the code is the code, not just during new construction but for the entire life of the building. So 40%. So next time they say that route life of the billing. So 40%. So the next time they say that root, tell them hey, code says 9.1. With three or more cables, maximum fill ratio is 40%. Tell them that they can go look it up themselves and that's been in the code for a long time, long time. Okay, hope that helped you, mr Big Root.

Speaker 2: 21:05

Next question how do you avoid crosstalk in twisted pair cables? This came from Instagram. Okay, so crosstalk. Number one choosing the right kind of cable, a good quality cable. See what reduces crosstalk is the pair twists and how the pairs lay within that cable. Choose a good quality cable. Don't buy cable from Amazon, I'm sorry, unless it's one of the big manufacturers, there's a lot of people putting cable on there that just is not making good cable.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Another thing you can do to help avoid crosstalk is avoid having your cables near power lines. Okay, stay away from electrical cabling. Stay at least six inches away from conduit. Stay at least five to six inches away from fluorescent light fixtures and mercury vapor lights and stuff like that. That all causes EMI and those are all found in the TI standard, by the way. Another thing watch out, terminate your cables correctly and make sure that you again don't exceed those, untwisting those cables, and make sure that you again don't exceed those, untwisting those cables and don't use even though you can use tie wraps. Well, specifically, the standard doesn't say you can use tie wraps, but it says cinching products or something like that. You can use tie wraps, just don't cinch them so hard that it deforms the jacket. You want to be able to spin the tie wrap on the bundle so that way it doesn't deform the jacket. Okay, question from TikTok, from Mike.

Speaker 2: 22:37

Code exists when the inspector wants to inspect. So if you're over or out of code specs, true, I mean. Well, number one, let me one thing here. Mike the electrical inspector is not the only AHJ, there's more than one AHJ. The other AHJ is the fire investigator, fire investigator Fire stops have to be installed per the UL drawing. If they're not, that's considered a code violation.

Speaker 2: 23:06

If a building catches on fire after the fire department puts out the fire, the next thing that's going to happen is the fire investigator is going to go in the building. They're going to determine what caused the fire, where did the fire start, and if people got hurt, they're going to figure out why did they get hurt. And if you didn't install the fire stop system correctly, the fire investigator, who is an AHJ can hold you responsible. So electrical inspectors are not the only AHJs and an electrical inspector can go in any building they want, anytime they want, but the vast majority of them are lazy and they're not going to. So that begs the question. That begs the question If you know that an electrical inspector is not going to come in because the building is already occupied, even though it's not legal to do things a certain way, I'm not going to come in because the building is already occupied, even though it's not legal to do things certain way. I'm not going to get caught. Does that make it morally right? Morally right? That's the showstopper, right there, right, the showstopper. Let me see, I got to run Fire one lab. If I used to run Fire, marshal carries guns. Yes, they do carry guns and they can arrest you, absolutely they can. If I used to run Fire, marshal carries guns. Yes, they do carry guns and they can arrest you, absolutely they can. I used to be in the fire department. You've seen them. I've seen them many times.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Good, next question the most common issue found during cable testing and how do you solve it? Probably the biggest, probably the most common insertion loss. Insertion loss is a measurement of how much the signal dissipates when it goes from one end of the cable to the other end of the cable. That's attenuation. We used to call it well, it's called attenuation, but now we call it insertion loss. So what do you look at? There's a couple things you want to look at. First, go into the tester. See where the cable length is. Okay If the cable length is not over the 90 meters or 295 feet. That's the first one, clear. The next thing is look at the connectors. Look at the connectors. Now, if it's fiber optic connectors, make sure they're clean. That causes insertion loss For copper cabling.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Make sure it's terminated correctly. The best thing I would say is cut the terminations off if it's not too long. If you've already verified it's terminated correctly, the best thing I would say is cut the terminations off If it's not too long. You already verified it's not too long. Copper, just cut both ends off, re-terminate it and then re-test it and that'll solve most of your problems.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Question number nine from YouTube what tools are essential for fiber optic testing? A, a VFL, a visual fault locator I need to get me a VFL. Hey, if anybody's watching this show who works for a tool company and wants to donate a VFL to the podcast, I would be more than happy to use it and put it on camera. Just saying VFL, visual fault locator it's a laser pointer that shoots light down the fiber in the spectrum the human eye can see. Vfls not that expensive. They run from like $25 to $200. Just be careful which one you buy, because you're buying them off of Amazon. There are some on Amazon that are way overpowered. They can damage your eye.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Then you might want to look at your company, might want to look at an optical loss test set. An optical loss test set does three things it verifies polarity, measures the length and measures the attenuation. Optical loss test sets range $1,000 to about $4,000. They're really good for certification. They're not so good at troubleshooting. And then also an OTDR optical time domain reflectometer Pretty expensive piece of equipment. It's going to run $4,000 to $30,000, $50,000, depending on who you get, what bells and whistles you get to that. They're really good for figuring out where the problems are. See, an optical loss test set is just going to tell you you have too much loss. It's not going to tell you where that loss is. And OTDR will, otdr will. And hey, I'm taking a class this year with the FOA and I'm taking their fiber optic class.

Speaker 2: 27:13

Question number 10. Question number 10. How can I find the perfect job in the ICT industry? Great question Number one. Some people will try to tell you resumes are dead. No, they're not, they're not dead. Some people will try to tell you resumes are dead. No, they're not, they're not dead. But they have changed the way they looked over the last five years, 10 years, 20 years. So make sure that pay the money, pay the $100, the $200 to have somebody create a resume for you. Okay, and some people will tell you one-page resume, two-page resumes. It just kind of depends on your experience and your certifications. But get somebody who does resumes all the time to help you make your resume, because you want to show up when that HR person is going through that stack of resumes that thick, you want to make sure that yours sticks out. That doesn't mean use orange font color or other things like that, right.

Speaker 2: 28:10

Also, make sure that build your network, network, network, network. Go to the conferences, go to the. You know the local meetups, gray bar, annexure, they have, they do events all the time. They do counter days. Go to the counter days, meet the people talk to, the get to know people. You never know what contact is going to be a benefit to you down the road. And then make sure that you research the company, the companies that you're going to be looking to apply for, and get on LinkedIn and then ask the people, find the people who work for them and say, hey, I'm thinking about applying for a job at that company. Is it a good company to work for? It doesn't hurt to ask, it doesn't hurt to ask, it doesn't hurt to ask. And then also make sure that you keep learning. Keep learning. That's critical, critical.

Speaker 2: 28:58

All right, she moves at the speed of light and if you don't, if you're not a constant learner, you will get left behind. Okay, you will get left behind. Why is it asking me to do this? So move that. I don't know why it's doing that. Oh, there we go. Bink, there we go. I don't know why it asked me to do that. That's weird. Let me see what questions do we have in here that I might have missed? So, dr pepper, I fixed the muting issue. Uh, there it is. You can me now. I was only able to do it virtual this year.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Oh there it goes.

Speaker 2: 29:32

Somebody said I'm their favorite RCD. I love that. I love that. All right, everybody. I apologize for the mess up with the audio at the beginning of this live stream. Just goes to show you it's live. Things happen and mama's making dinner and boy does it smell good. Boy does it smell good. So with that I'm going to sign off and remember knowledge is power.

Speaker 1: 30:03

Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's Talk Cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.