On 2021-10-11 20:12,
comp.dcom.telecom@googlegroups.com wrote:
Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com>: Oct 11 06:09PM
On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 06:01:04AM -0000, David Lesher wrote:
There are VoIP adapters which are able to connect POTS instruments to
a VoIP access. They're almost certain to cost less than a cellular
adapter.
No broadband there. Hence the cellular request.
Every time I read about cellular devices repacing copper pairs, I
remember the job my brother had in South America: he was building solar-powered cell sites for a subsidiary of GE.
He told me that every site was located on a mountaintop, accessible
only by helicopter.
Bill
Your memory is a little off on that. Many of the sights were on
mountaintops were the only rapid way to access them is helicopter. Many
of those had very rough, hard traveling for days at a time, road access
but about a 1/3 did not. We also had to install them at every telephone exchange in the southern part of the country because the system needed
access to the individual local telephone exchanges to put the calls onto
their POTS network. The existing connections between rural exchanges was microwave and they said that they only had trouble with that very
rarely. I asked the Telefónica Argentina project manager why they were insisting on steel equipment shelters for installations on ridges and mountaintops, that were being built using helicopters which were real
beasts [S-64 Aircrane class birds], when they were allowing us to use
walk in refrigerator kits to make the shelters at the exchanges. He
chuckled and said, through pantomime, that the bored gauchos on the
pampas below were likely to shoot at the shelters with their 30/30 lever
action saddle carbines. The steel skinned shelters would stop the 30/30
bullets where aluminum shelters or the metal skinned Styrofoam panels of
the walk in refrigerator kits, which we had used so successfully in so
many other places, would not.
A side note on that project was that I carried an extra suitcase
everywhere that the crew went and I filled 2 20-Liter size water
carriers with fresh water at the start of each days driving between
the work sites. The suitcase was one of the monstrous roll along hard
shelled type that is almost always charged as overweight when flying.
Finally the crews curiosity got the better of them and they asked what
was in the suitcase after noticing that it's weight never changed and
they had never seen me open it. I just opened it for them because my
Spanish is so bad that the only phrase I knew was "Where is the
bathroom." They gawked at my large supply of freeze dried food,
international multi fuel stove, pots, & eating equipment for 8
people. They asked me what it was for and I pantomimed driving the
truck, the engine sputtering, and our coming to an unwanted stop. I
looked all around and shrugged my shoulders, talked on the satellite
phone without actually using it, indicated 2 days to them and began
the set up to cook. They asked "So Much?" I gestured 16 days for me or
2 days for all of us. I then repeated 2 days for all of us and showed
yes by the customary shake of the head recognized everywhere I've been
in the world. After that they went obviously out of their way to do
anything which I indicated needed to be done. I had obviously risen
very much higher in their esteem. I put a large duct tape stripe
across the suitcase and wrote out word by word, from my English <>
Spanish dictionary, My life long crew leading mantra. "Take care of
the people and they will take care of the work!" After that they
showed that suitcase to every one of the managers and overhead types
who came to the work sights like a show and tell. Many of them saw how appreciative their construction people were of my looking out for them
and got the idea. I cannot believe that so many people in management
are total strangers to that concept.
It sometimes took days to drive from one town to the next and we stayed
at rural guest houses at ranches along the way. When Teleffónica
Argentina realized how much Westinghouse (not GE) was charging them for
my time they had another crew that would leap frog to every other
install and had me driven to an airport to fly to the next install. I
left the suitcase with the crew I started with and told them to just
leave it at the Buenos Aires office when they got back. A week later the
other crew had a much older but fully functional satellite phone, a
couple of crates of food, bottled water and a little gas stove on which
to cook. That crew looked at their boss like a Martian had landed. He
pointed at me and indicated that I was crazy and they only did it to
humor me. When he was gone each one of them shook my hand like I was a
long lost son. It really isn't rocket science. I taped the same mantra
onto those containers as well. "Take care of the people and they will
take care of the work!" We got a lot more shelters built and fitted out
in one month than anyone at Westinghouse thought we could. Gee I wonder
why?
--
Tom
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