[TowerTalk] Locating Buried Cables - Followup

Barkey, Patrick M. pbarkey at bsu.edu
Mon Apr 10 09:10:16 EDT 2006


About six weeks ago I posted a question about how one might go about
finding buried cables.  Since I was trenching in a line for a new tower,
I
wanted to mark the cables I already had buried, especially right
next to where they all come together.
 
Most of the replies told me to (in fact, most insisted that I must) call
the utility underground cable location service and have them do it.
 
I just wanted to report back that this was very unsatisfactory.  Despite
emphasizing many times on the telephone that I wanted the locators to
call me before they came out (so I could ask them to sweep for my
ham cables), none of them did.  In fact, they never even went out to 
where I was actually going to trench (again, despite giving them
explicit instructions on the phone).
 
All they did was pull in my driveway, consult their maps and make
a paint marking on my front yard (about 300 feet away from the
beginning of my trench).
 
I ended up locating the cables the old-fashioned way - digging very
carefully by hand.  Lesson learned - counting on others to do your
work (when you're not paying them) is foolish.
 
  - Pat
    N9RV
 
 


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