Re: INQUIRY

[Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net>]

On Saturday 28 December 2019 16:50:53 John Hasler wrote:

> > Place was built in 74, before the NEC became the law in most
> > municipalities.
>
> Where do you live?  I doubt that the NEC had not been incorporated
> into law in most municipalities in the USA in 1974.

Weston WV. County seat of Lewis County. Current pop about 5500.
I bought a pocket copy in 1996, about a foot away as I type this. When I 
had already been the CE at WDTV-5 since 1984. Everything I touched was 
wrong and grandfathered in. A car dealership, remodeled for the tv 
station in 'early 84. Took me nearly 15 years to just get the 60 hz hum 
out of the video in the output of the studio cameras.

I took us off the air for 3 hours or so as I took a service box down and 
corrected it to get a little closer to code. The perp was a carpenter, 
and played mix and match with the neutrals and statics all over an 80 by 
175 foot building. Because all the coax was BBLD West Penn, I replaced 
several miles of it as the shielding wasn't.  By the time I hung it up 
in mid-2002 I finally had good video and audio being delivered to the 
STL.

We won't discuss in fine detail the tx building on Fisher Hill which was 
so old the buildings entrance fuses were in the 7200 up on the 
substation pole. And they had been blown so many times the inside of the 
ceramic tubing they were in was almost as good a conductor as the fuse 
was. Had to stomp out a grass fire under the pole several times.

No 3 pin duplexes in the place except the Weber's in the racks, and the 
third pin wasn't wired to anything. That building is still live today 
but has not been used since June 30th 2008, but the tower is tall enough 
to need lights so its still powered. I got an estimate once to bring it 
up to code and darned near gave the GM a heart attack.  Because it had 
no place to shut it off, I once replaced a smokeing kearney bolt joining 
4, 750 mcm cables while it was hot and on the air.

Needless to say, the pair of 24" crescent wrenches I used to put the 
finishing touches on tightening that up had about 2 rolls of scotch 88 
each on the handles. I did get one short buzz while re-wrapping it in 
Cambric, then a couple layers of scotch 88.

Lets just say its been an interesting ride and I have to remind folks I 
didn't get to be old by accident. ;-)

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>