US Cable Support > Charter Internet/TV > [Telephone] Battery enclosures on utility poles

reply to secantline

Re: [Telephone] Battery enclosures on utility poles

What your looking at is a 60V standby power supply. That one looks to be a 3 battery.

All HFC systems use them to power the amplifiers on the network.

When the red light starts flashing that means the power supply module failed it self check and needs to be looked at.

BTW, they are monitored remotely.

The amplifiers are used to boost the signal, is that right? Otherwise I guess the signal degrades over distance?

Can they all be monitored remotely? Because they seem to have signal lights on them to indicate their status. Seems like remote monitoring would give you more information that signal lights.

reply to secantline
Let's count the NESC violations....
Those ugly bastards are a pain to climb around. One day someone is going to cut out trying to move around one of those. His widow will get a nice check from the cableco.

They really should put those in ground cabinets. They are an eyesore as well.
--
Looks like Reverend Wright got his wish - God Damn America.
Nancy Pelosi - House Minority Leader 2010
Harry Reid - Senate Minority Leader 2010

They are a terrible eyesore but you can't cover them at all mounted up on a pole like that. At least if they are on the ground you could plant a low growing evergreen shrub in front of them.

I hope they're reinforcing those utility poles! We have a neighbor with 2 utility poles in front of his house because the electric co and the catv are using 2 different poles - some silly dispute or other.

reply to nunya
Tell that to the millions of people who staple and nail into poles with tag sale signs.

The power supply is a legal attachment that is paid for. besides, poles themselves are an eye sore, not the power supply

Some day all our utilities will be underground, I may even live to see that. In the meantime I can live with the poles and enclosures. But I think that green light is excessive. I live in a rural area, at night all you used to see are the stars. Now we have this green light which is the brightest light in my field of vision. If they can monitor this from the office, the green light is redundant. The red light I can understand - there's a problem here. But the green one? Do they need to locate these boxes after dark?

reply to nunya
So what's the complaint? adequate working space, ie: climbing? the power supply is mounted on the back side of the pole. The only thing out of spec would be the hardline and what appears to be RG-6 for the monitoring not being brought in tight to the supply housing. Besides, the picture is not good enough to determine a violation of the nesC.

The reference to legal, was to the pole owner and paying attachment fee's.

I'm not trying to start a fight here, but complaining about hooking poles in these days is old. With the wide use of buckets these day's, gaffing the pole is a lost art that very few still do with power co's being the exception and that's still not common.

Well, you can't drive up to every pole. And not every lineman has a bucket truck.
I rarely ever had a bucket truck when I needed it. They were too busy doing underground work.
Yes, the coax looks to be outside the safe cone. It would be pretty darn hard to install one of these and make it compliant. That's why they should drop 'em to the ground.

Hooking poles is still very popular around here (still a lot of OH plant int his area). Even the cable guys know how to climb proficiently.
--
Looks like Reverend Wright got his wish - God Damn America.
Nancy Pelosi - House Minority Leader 2010
Harry Reid - Senate Minority Leader 2010

reply to secantline
No planting shrubs in front of a power supply can cause a dangerous situation. These need to be maintained, and giving access without climbing shrubs while trying to swap 80 pound batteries makes it much better. Also some areas do not have an allowable area for the supply to be ground mounted. Also it could be a 75 or 90 volt supply, they are not always 60v.

Interesting riser.
Is there a power Co. meter at the bottom?

Yep, but I've not noticed any green light
on the outside @ night.

reply to TMTBoomer

reply to compuguybna
Does it have any lights at all? I can't tell from the pic - Or is the green light just off all the time?

If there are no LEDs on the enclosure, that's good news, you can be sure they are monitoring the battery status over the 'net. I used to monitor remote batteries on computer systems using APC powerchute software. Getting alerts on your desktop or in your email is a lot easier than relying on visual monitoring. How are you supposed to know if a battery can't hold a charge when the alert light is blinking 3 miles away from the office?

On the other hand, if there are LEDs on the outside - they might be using ONLY lights to indicate an error condition, maybe Charter didn't want to spend the extra $ for a network interface.

reply to Sysmaint
AT&T plants evergreens in front of its VRAD cabinets. I suppose there are no batteries in those. (You almost can't see them behind all that greenery)