AHL: Color Codes and Fiber

We honor Phil Klingensmith and then dive into why standards make low-voltage work reliable, fast to service and future friendly. We unpack color codes, 568A vs 568B, fiber cleaning myths, splicer maintenance, MHz vs Mb, and encoding schemes with clear, practical advice.

• roots of color codes in Bell system and why they still matter
• 568A vs 568B framed by pins, pairs and channels
• why pair splitting creates crosstalk and failures
• USOC, tip and ring, and mnemonic aids
• fiber cleaning methods and why canned air falls short
• fusion splicer troubleshooting and electrode care
• megahertz vs megabits using the highway analogy
• encoding basics: RZ, NRZ and Manchester timing
• RFIs, submittals, RFQs and RFPs clarified
• estimator vs project manager responsibilities and skills

Please consider donating: There’s a QR code on the screen or hit me up for the link. Help fuel the podcast for next year and support the Costa Rica masterclass. Not a 501c3. Make sure you do something to make this industry a little better, like Phil did

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Tribute To Phil Cleansmith
• 2:45 Acronym Challenge: RBOC Explained
• 3:50 Why Color Codes Exist And Matter
• 8:40 568A vs 568B And Pair Integrity
• 12:45 USOC, Tip And Ring, And Mnemonics
• 15:15 Fiber Cleaning: Skip The Canned Air
• 18:20 Fusion Splicer Fixes And Maintenance
• 22:30 Megahertz vs Megabits And Cable Categories
• 25:20 Encoding 101: RZ, NRZ, Manchester

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Wednesday night, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing. Live after hours with your favorite RCDD, and you know that's me. You know I'm your favorite RCDD. Here for a QA session got lots of great questions lined up for today's show. Let's get this thing rocking and rolling.

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Welcome to Let's Talk Tabling, your gateway to the world of I D. Get ready to dive into I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, before we get started on tonight's show, the industry lost a great one this past weekend.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Phil Cleansmith. He was an RCDD, a Bixie Tech, certified trainer, OSP, RTPM. He helped write many of the standards, many of the best practices that are in industry. So if you don't mind, let's just do a quick moment of silence to honor Phil. He was also a great friend of mine, and we also helped him uh we did a lot of RCD study groups together. So great, great guy. So after hours live where you get to ask your favorite questions, the questions you've been been burning your burning your desires to ask me. So put them in, start typing them in now, and I'll try to get to him before the end of the show. But you know I start every live stream off with, What are you drinking? Tonight, Chuck is just drinking straight up water. Straight up water. Put in the chat box, what are you drinking? Remember, it's an after-hour show, so you can be drinking anything you want, but Chuck's drinking water. I'm trying to cut sugar out of my life again. Did really good for many, many, many years, and um back to doing it again. Acronym challenge! Acronym challenge. Here we go. I bet you very few people will get this one. And that, you know, my acronym challenges always have something to do with uh with um with this with the content of the show, right? So the acronym challenge for tonight is RBOC. RBOC, RBOC, put in the chat box. What does RBOC stand for? Let's see who the smart ones in tonight's class are because it's one that you don't hear very often, but it's still one that you might have to deal with from time to time. RBOC is the acronym challenge. Let's see if anybody can type it in real quick. Okay, let me see. Nobody's catching it in TikTok yet. A lot of people coming in, but nobody's guessed it. There it is. Uh close, Daryl. Close. Daryl says, rural bell operating company. It's regional bell operating company. Regional Bell Operating Company. That's what that stands for. RBOC. So let's get straight into the questions, okay? Straight into the questions. Make sure you go ahead and type them in the uh in the chat box. First one comes from Christy. She sent me to this via email, and this is what generated the RBOC acronym challenge. So Christy sent me an email and says, Chuck, why do we have a color code in our industry? What's the history of it? Why can't we just make up our own our own color code and be done with it? You know, the funny thing is one of the one of the one of the areas that this really manifests is the whole 560 T568A versus T568B wiring schemes. You know, people will argue about that all day long. A is better than B, B is better than A. And then every once in a while somebody's gonna jump in there and say, Well, the colors don't matter. The electrons don't care what color the conductor is, you can wire them straight across if you want to. No, you can't. No, no, no, you can't. I did a TikTok video on that recently this week and explained why. So let's talk about why do we have the color code? The color code is so everybody does the cabling the exact same way. See, again, it has its roots back in Ma Bell. Think about Mob Bell. They had they had technicians in Connecticut, technicians in Texas, Connecticut's in in uh Oregon. So if they had a major event that where they had to bring a bunch of people in, if they had a standardized color code, then everybody was doing the work the exact same way, right? And that's why we have that color code. The the color code, it's just it's again, it's just a technically, yeah, you could do otherwise, but you can cause yourself lots of problems. I'll talk about that here in a second, right? So when you follow that standard, you know that when you walk into any job site, when you pull off any face plate off of the wall, right? When you go look at any 66 block or 110 block or patch panel, you know what conductor is supposed to be where, right? You're not you're not playing what I like to call mystery pair roulette, mystery pair roulette, because those kinds of surprises make you really rethink your your career choices when you come across those, right? I've had times before where people have wired up jacks with some weird wiring scheme that they thought up of, and and it takes a while to figure it out. So, like I said, again, it has its history in Mobile, and you know, it just again to make sure that everybody's doing the exact same thing on both sides of the cable so that way everything goes nice and neat. Now, yeah, technically you can just make up your own wiring cone, but if you do, it's gonna bite you later on. It truly is, or if somebody made up their own color code, imagine that if you were a service tech and everybody made up their own color code when you had three service calls on one day, you'd have different color codes all three days. How much longer would it take you to figure out if things were done right if the if they didn't follow a color code, right? So, you know, I always tell people always think about the next technician when you're doing your work. Because you never know, the next technician might be you. But so if you think about the next technician, you do it correctly, you know, it guns. But people I hear somebody say, but Chuck, yeah, you have project documentation, there's asbuilt and and all kinds of stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The Asbuilds. The Asbuilds, uh-huh. The the documents that that get lost, that nobody knows where it is, right? Those documents? Yeah, right, exactly. And the one of the goals of having that code code system is it makes sure everything stays interoperable, meaning it works with everything, you know, analog phone lines to four-pair phone lines to single-pair Ethernet to to 10 gigabit base T Ethernet, so make sure everything's interoperable, make sure everything's reliable so that way when they pick up the phone, they get that dial tone, they can break that dial tone and they can make that phone call. It makes it easy to maintain because if every technician operates by the same color code, then it doesn't matter who installed it. It's all done the exact same way. And the the backside of the color code issue, and this is what bites people with the whole 568A, 568B conversation. You know, they always say, Well, you can do straight across. But okay, remember there's pin numbers and there's pair numbers, and then there's transmission channels. So, for example, an analog phone line. The transmission channel for an analog phone line is pins four and five. Pins four and five, which is the blue pair. Okay. For for 10 base T, it's gonna be pins one, two, three, and six, which is the orange and the green, or the green and the orange, depending on which wiring scheme you use, right? So we we're keeping those conductors within the pairs, and if you start changing things or splitting pairs like you will if you threw them straight across, well, what's gonna happen is you're gonna start having crosstalk issues, and that's gonna cause you lots and lots of problems. Okay, so again, just make sure that you follow the code code. Oh, here, so there's tip colors and there's ring colors, right? Tip colors and and ring colors USOC Universal Service Order Code. There's another acronym for you. Um that that that's that's another wiring scheme, too, right? And and the the USOC wiring scheme is why the 568A wiring scheme is the recommended wiring scheme for residential applications because it helped it has backwards compatibility with some of your older two-line phone sets. The 568B doesn't. So again, the color code, you know, you have tip ring tip colors and ring colors. The tip colors are gonna be, you know, white uh are gonna be blue, orange, green, brown, slate. The ring colors are gonna be white, red, black, yellow, and violet. And our industry has come up with mnemonic sayings to help people remember those color codes, right? So, for example, I was taught because I took I learned my color code in the DC area. I was taught the Washington Redskins bring you victory. Uh, first off, you can't call them the Redskins anymore. And second off, no, they didn't bring you victory. There are other ones out there too, like Winchester Rifles bring you venison while running backwards. You vomit. There's lots of them. There's even some inappropriate ones out there as well. Oh, here, put in the chat box. Put in the chat box. What did you learn? What mnemonic saying did you use to learn your color code? Right? That's gonna be a fun one. Next question. This comes from Ryan on Instagram. And uh Ryan asks, um, bell operators give bad service, or sometimes give better service, too. I've heard that one too. Uh Ryan asks, Chuck, my fiber guy says that we should not use canned air for cleaning fiber. Is he wrong? So to make sure I understand this. Your fiber tech says not to use canned air. He's right. You really shouldn't be using canned air. It's in fact, it's not a recommended process. I mean, can you use it? Okay, you know, there's this is not one of those shall things in the code book or shall things in the standards. It's a rec, it's a rec a process that's not recommended, and there's lots of reasons why it's not. Let's give just a few of them off the top of my head, right? Number one, using canned air is not good at removing fingerprints and other types of oil. You know, when you touch, if you take your finger and you touch the end of a in face of a fiber optic connector, then you look it under a scope, there's oils on your finger, you'll leave them on that end face. Canned air is not good at removing that. Okay. It's also using canned air is not good at removing hazing caused by condensation. We live in Florida. Sometimes you might be in an extremely high humid area where you might have some problems. But but if you do, if you do decide to use canned air, I'm I'm recommending you don't. But if you do use canned air, number one, make sure that your work area is clean of dust and debris. Because if you're using canned air, it's like when you walk into a you know uh we go out in my living room in the middle of the summer, the windows, the the curtains are open, and the sun's shining in, you can literally see the dust particles floating around. What do you think is gonna happen when you hit take a can of air and you shh shh in that dirty construction site? There's gonna be dust and dirt all over the place, all over the place, right? Uh Daryl, the RCD says canned air uses a propellant that can come out of the can if not perfectly vertical. That's true. So you're putting contamination on there as well. Um, again, also you so if you do decide that make sure you clean up that dust and debris. Also, make sure you wear PPE, make sure you wear your safety glasses, and make sure there's no fiber sharps laying around. Okay, so because you will blow the fiber sharps. Wire for excellence is in the house. What's happening to wire for excellence? So make sure you clean that all up. This question, next question comes from Jared from YouTube. He says, When I when I use my fusion splicer, it never seems to work consistently. Instead of joining the two fiber strands together, it looks like two matchsticks with a space in the middle. Is my splicer broke or is it me? Now there's there's a lot of things that can cause this. A lot of things. Um if you're not comfortable with doing any of the things I'm going to describe, send it to the manufacturer, let them work on. So the first thing I'm going to think of, and Chris, you already guessed it, right? Your electrodes are dirty. Your electrodes are dirty, or the arc is not burned, the arc is burning irregularly. So clean the clean those electrodes. Go to the get out the uh the manufacturer's instructions and and read the instructions on on how to do that, right? Do that arc test. Yeah, I'm doing an episode in the beginning of January about maintaining fusion splicers. But there are other things. It might not just be the it might not just be the the dirty electrode. You could have your fusion current could be too high, right? Now, the the way you do that is you try reducing reducing that current by half or one milliamp and then to test it and then reduce it again, reduce it again until you fixes. Another thing it could be the the the perfusion time could be set too low. Now, again, check with the manufacturer's instructions, but it's usually gonna be set to about 0.2 seconds. If it's set above that, if it was working before, I'm I'm betting that those those act those settings are probably correct. Um, also make your the feed time might be too small, so maybe you might have to increase the feeds in the feed steps. You can you can you can increase them or decrease them, you can do them by one micron until that fixes the system, and uh and or you can also reduce the separation might be too large. That could be another one, right? So you do that saying you reduce that separations and steps of one micron each. So there's lots of things that we go on, but the the probably it's probably the most simplest thing is probably dirt. It's probably again do your R test and and or clean everything out, and then you should be fine. Tom from Instagram. I recently had to change careers and got into low voltage. I don't understand what is megahertz and the numbers for each category of cable, like cat 5e being 100 megahertz. So a lot this does cause a lot of confusion, right? Yeah, megahertz and megabits. Okay, mega megabits is the actual data, that's the ones and the zeros. Think of megahertz as lanes on a highway, right? Uh, and that also is going to determine how fast that traffic can go through those lines. So megahertz, it it tells you how many lanes you have in that highway. More lanes means more traffic, less lanes means less highway. So, for example, cat 5e, it's good to 100 megahertz. Okay, now think of it as a 100-lane highway, right? So you can you can put a good bit of traffic across that one lane highway. Cat 6 is 250 megahertz, that's got 250 lanes. That can do two and a half times as many bits and bytes or megabytes. Cat 6a is 500 megahertz again. 500 lanes versus 100. Why do you why do you think cat 6a performs better? It has more lanes. Think of think of uh think of cat 6a as uh like the interstate at 3 a.m. There's no traffic, it's just smooth cruising. Hey, if you really want to go crazy, cat 8 has 2000 megahertz, 2 gigahertz, so lots and lots of stuff there for you. So just remember this. The key remember here is megahertz is not the data, megabits is the data. So megahertz is the lanes, megabits is the zero ones and zeros going down that. Alrighty. Uh let me see. Next one, this comes from Saeed on LinkedIn. He says, Chuck, I'm studying for my RCD credential exam, and I'm having a hard time understanding coding schemes like Manchester, return to zero, non-return to zero. Can you please help? Well, first off, Saeed, congratulations for being the making the smart choice of getting your RCDD because it's a credential that will change everybody's life if they decide to go for it. We need more of them. We got a lot of people retiring out of this industry, so congratulations on that, right? So let's start off with this way. So encoding schemes are just different ways of turning ones and zeros into electrical pulses. Remember, there's an electron going down that the that conductor, right? And the the pulses tell or done in a way so that those devices know what we're trying to say. Think of them as think of them as accents or maybe even dialects. The US is great for this, right? It's funny because I can tell if somebody's from Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, or New Jersey. Even though they're all in the same geographical area, they all have different accents. So let's let's first talk about the the return to zero, right? So the return to zero, that signal always returns to zero between each bit, even if the next bit is going to be the same bit. Alright, so it's always going right back to zero. So imagine if you were flipping a light switch to send that message. Every number that you send, you must flip that switch on, right, and then back off again. There's no shortcuts. It doesn't even matter if the next bit's the exact same. Again, you still have to go back to zero. Now, the why it matters is because it gives you very clear and easy to understand for the receiving device, so it's less chances for it to have some issues, but it's not a very efficient way because you're wasting that time going back to zero every time, right? And um excuse me, my wife just sent me a text message. Uh and it's gonna be you see the the uh the return to zero on your your simpler computer systems and maybe even some of your older systems. Okay, the good thing about return to zero is it's clean, it's predictable, but again, it's slow because it's got to keep resetting it. Non-return to zero. Now, this signal it stays where it is, even if the next bit is the same, right? It only changes when the data changes. Now, the great thing here is it's more efficient than return to zero because it uses less bandwidth and it doesn't have to reset every single time, but yet it's still simple for even the beginners to grasp, right? So now return to zero. Again, it's like think about talk, think about talking without pausing between every word. How much smoother and faster would that be? And then you have Manchester encoding. Manchester encoding. This one's been around for a long time, right? Each built has a built-in transition in the middle, and the change in the signal is what tells it whether it's a one or a zero. Now, the analogy here is when you're looking at it, is whether the lights are on, you listen for the click for between each of those swings. That click tells you what that bit is. And the reason Manchester matters is because it's a very reliable, because it's in the mid-bit of the transition, which helps with the timing. Also, it's going to be easier for the design, those two devices, the transmitter and the receiver, to stay synchronized. Okay, this is using some of your older Ethernet systems, um, and it's still great for teaching. I can't think of any new systems nowadays that's that's using Manchester coding, but you know, it's think of it this way Manchester coding is like tapping your foot while you talk. So the listener hears the beat of you tapping, but they can but it helps with the timing between you and them, right? So just kind of recap, right? Return to zero resets after every bit, but it's clear and it's slow. Non-return to zero, it stays steady until the data changes, it's gonna be more efficient. And the Manchester coding, that's the old guy. That's that's the boomer. That's the boomer, the boomer one, right? All right, those are the questions I have for tonight. Well, we got through those pretty quickly, right? Let me see if we have any questions in the in the chat box. Uh drinking water chuck, that didn't age well. Winchester Rifles bringing venison is another one. Absolutely. Do we get any questions in here? This just might be a quick, easy show tonight because I ran out of questions, unless you guys give me some questions real quick. Right. Alrighty. Let's see here. I don't see any questions there. So I'm all out of questions. I'm all out of questions. Ten minutes early. Ten minutes early. Holy cow. I might just get off early tonight. That would make the wife happy. Give you guys a few seconds to see if anybody types any questions. If they don't have any questions, we'll just go ahead and close it out. Uh, something about giving willingly. Yes. Alright, you guys, well that we'll do is we'll go ahead and close out then. So we'll I will do a live stream next week, but I am not going to be doing one Christmas week. Okay, Christmas week. So so make sure that uh that you mark your calendars and make sure you have some time off. And then make sure, make sure you do something to make this industry a little better, like Phil did, right? Christopher says, Manchester is using RFID and some other industrial protocols. I did not know that. I did not know that. There's Christopher teaching me again. You gotta stop that, Christopher. Uh, somebody asks, Am I gonna be at Bixie Winter? Yes, I will be at uh Bixie Winter. I will be there. I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna be there for the entire conference, or I'm just gonna be there for the um for the um the the the exhibit hall or not. I'm not quite sure yet, but I will be there some some fashion. So I will be there. Some dark dude asks, the difference between submittals and RFIs. That's a great question. So some difference between submittals and RFIs. RFI is a request for information, right? So request for information means um that's usually done during the bidding stage. You're reading through the documents and something doesn't seem to be adding up, right? So uh so for example, they might say uh they might be calling out an old part number for an old jack, or they may be missing something, or they might have something in their design that doesn't work right. You would send a request for information to the customer. The request for information is a formal contract document, so they're gonna respond to it. And when they respond to the beautiful thing is when they respond to that request for information, it gives you the correct information to bid on, but it also gives that same correct information to all the other bidders. So now everybody's bidding apples to apples. Okay, now submittals are a little bit different. Submittals are just um documents on the on the project. They may ask for submittals for you know the the cable, the connectors, the the um the face plates, the the fiber optic cable, you know, all that stuff. And you're sending them you're sending them cut sheets. That's all part of those submittal documentation, so they can look at that and say, verify that you are indeed putting the right stuff in the in the bid. Because there's been a lot of times where people said, oh, we want cat 5 biggie. Well, what's cat 5 biggie? Technically, there is no cat 5 biggie. There's a cat 5e, right? A cat 5e, but there's not a cat 5 biggie. Cat5 biggie was a marketing thing used by one of the cable manufacturers because their cable would go beyond 100 megahertz, which we talked earlier about what 100 megahertz was. It's a marketing thing, right? So, what is the difference between request for quote and request for proposal? So a request for quote, the uh request what request for quote request for proposal. Request for proposal is that the design is already done. Okay, you are I'm sorry, request for quote is the design is already done. You're just you're just bidding the design. Request for proposal, you're doing the design. That makes sense, right? Alrighty. Did not see any other questions come in. There we go. What are all the pros and cons of an estimating role versus project management role? That's a great question, Anthony. That's a great question. Um, so it kind of depends on what you like to do. I've done both project management and I've also done estimating. So really it depends on what you like to do. If you're really good with people, like you know, running crews and stuff, project manager is probably going to be a good role for you. Um, so project manager, what you're going to be doing. Let's start let's go back to the estimator. The estimator, what you're doing is you're meeting with the customer, you're reading um RFPs, RFQs, you're you're looking at prints, you're walking job sites, you're creating uh a scope of work, you're creating the bill materials, you're creating the schedule, you're putting that all together. Sometimes some um that's funny. Christopher says one requires migraine medication, the other requires antacid. And that's there's a lot of truth in that statement. Um, so as the estimator, you're putting together the entire bid, right? So then when you win the project, the project manager is going to be doing that. Now, good companies will have a kickoff meeting between the estimator and the project manager. Not every company does this, but the good companies do it. So the project manager, yeah, think of it this way: the project manager, you're given the playbook by the estimator, okay? And your performance is based on those documents that the estimator created. So, you know, you can be given material budgets, labor budgets, the schedule, you know, and all that other stuff. Uh, and then so you gotta take that and you gotta make sure that the project gets done on time, under budget, within schedule, with a happy customer. That sounds like a like a uh a thing that you need for anti acid for it, right? It just does. Um, so if you're really good with uh with people and running crews, project management might be yours. Um, I I was a project manager, but I like being an estimator better because for me it really stroked my my creative process. If you haven't figured out by now, Chuck's a creative person. I'm making videos, I'm making audio podcasts, you know, I'm a photographer, I'm I like building I'm a creator, I like to build and create things. So estimating was perfect for me because I could literally I could literally take something, meet with a customer. I didn't even need I didn't even need blueprints, I could meet with the customer, and based on our conversation, I could design a flawless structured cable system form, and then I got to watch that getting installed, right? So so for me, I like being an estimator better, but there are some people who like being uh um like being a project manager best, right? Struggling with stresses management as a as a PE. Oh, there's so yeah, no, so the estimating rule, you're you're you're still kind of pre-sales, right? Most of the time you're pre-sales. Sometimes estimators will do estimates for change orders and stuff, but most of the time you're doing estimating, you're doing pre-sales. So the customer still likes you. The customer still likes you. Project management. If something goes wrong and you get paint on your name, you get dust on your name, you're gonna have a hard time for a long, long time after that. So the both roles are challenging, both roles are fulfilling, and if you're deciding to go, you know, the whole um estimating route, you better learn estimating software, spreadsheets. You better be good at reading and turning documents. Project managers, you better be good at project management software. Uh, you might have to use uh spreadsheets to track the projects, not people are tracking projects to uh spreadsheets anymore. A lot of people are using special project management software packages for that because they're they're already made and they're easy to use. And the key is um just make sure that you follow you know there's diagnosis. You got you. I wouldn't suggest that you wait until the week before you take a new role. You need to think about your career in advance. Where do you want to be a year from today? Where do you want to be two years from today? Where do you want to be five years from today? If five years from today you want to be a project manager, maybe start thinking about taking courses at your local community college. Maybe about thinking about becoming you know the RTPM, studying for that certification, stuff like that. So start thinking about this process of mass. You will you will your career will accelerate faster if you plan it out as opposed to just letting it happen. The cable guy's in the house, Mr. Cable Guy. How you doing, my friend? Look at here, look, still got that sticker on my on my preamp. I got I got the cable guy stickers all over the studio, all over the studio. All right, let me see. Do we have any other questions come in? Hey, did you guys see I hit 19,000 subscribers? 19,000 subscribers this month. Yes, yes, I'm I'm so happy about that. Um I just wish uh by the way, I forgot to mention this. So December, I've got it open. Make sure I got what called Fuel the Future ICT. There's a QR code on the screen right there, or you can go to my LinkedIn page. There's ways you can donate to the podcast to to um to fund us for next year because I'm going to listen to this. I haven't really announced this yet. So you this you guys are the first place people hearing this, although Christopher may already know this. I got asked to speak at Bixie in Costa Rica. Yes, so I'm gonna be doing a masterclass and speaking at at in Costa Rica. That is so cool. I can I can't wait to do that. Well, guess what? That costs money, that costs money, and the podcast costs money. So if you're not a Patreon member, hit that QR code on the screen or hit me up, I'll send you to the link. Please consider donating. It's this is not a this is not a 501c3, so your money is not tax deductible. Okay, but think of it this way by you donating to this podcast, you are helping bringing that information and help spread it out to everybody else. Trying to be like Phil. Trying to be like Phil, right? Uh, any upcoming any upcoming events near Denver. Oh, I could so do Denver. I could so do Denver because my son lives in Denver. One of my sons lives in Denver. Um, if I can make enough money through the through the donation drive this month, I will start doing um meetups across the country, and Denver will definitely be one of them. Definitely will be one of them. All right, let me see. Any other questions? Uh let me see. I don't see any here on TikTok. Uh, don't see any over here. Alrighty, let's go ahead and cut this short. We're actually we're only one minute short now. So remember, until next time, everybody, knowledge is power.

unknown: 29:25

Let's talk. Let's talk.

SPEAKER_00: 29:27

Let's get it. Let's just get it. Thank you for joining us on Let's Cable. Thank you for the time.