I know it is just an insurance claim commercial, but I love to point
out stuff that just doesn't happen when I see it on TV.

The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

"Terry" wrote in message
...
I know it is just an insurance claim commercial, but I love to point
out stuff that just doesn't happen when I see it on TV.

The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a
tree
to run cable?

Seeing how they string cable around and through houses, it sounds par
for the course.

Bob

--



BetsyB



"Bob F" wrote in message
. ..

"Terry" wrote in message
...
I know it is just an insurance claim commercial, but I love to point
out stuff that just doesn't happen when I see it on TV.

The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

Seeing how they string cable around and through houses, it sounds par for
the course.

Bob



They hang off ladders on the street side of their vehicles here in NJ.
Scares the hell out of me.

In article ,
says...
The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.

The neighbor on the other side doesn't have cable hung from a tree, but
the cable guy had to climb the tree to feed the line through the
branches.

Until fairly recently, one neighbor also had his home's electrical drop
hung off a tree.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Updated Infrared Photography Gallery:
http://www.phred.org/~josh/photo/ir.html

wrote in message
.net...
In article ,
says...
The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.


That sounds like an incredibly dumb thing for the cable company to do.
Among other things, Douglas Firs are famous for shedding branches during
wind storms, as well as upending

I mean if there's nothing else around to suspend the cable okay I guess you
have to do what you have to do, but dig a trench and bury it as soon as
possible or erect a tower. Better that than having the deal with a broken
line every time the wind blows moderately hard.


The neighbor on the other side doesn't have cable hung from a tree, but
the cable guy had to climb the tree to feed the line through the
branches.

Until fairly recently, one neighbor also had his home's electrical drop
hung off a tree.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Updated Infrared Photography Gallery:
http://www.phred.org/~josh/photo/ir.html

On Jun 21, 12:50 am, wrote:
In article ,
says...

The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.

Geez, do you have 365 days of permafrost? Nobody ever heard of a
shovel?

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:06:02 -0700, "Eigenvector"
wrote:


My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.


That sounds like an incredibly dumb thing for the cable company to do.
Among other things, Douglas Firs are famous for shedding branches during
wind storms,

Then the cable rests on the limb that's one branch lower.

as well as upending

Then you get channel 182 on channel 2, and channel 3 on 181. No
biggie.

But I have never seen cable hung from a tree. This thread is amazing.


--
is Joshua Putnam

"mm" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:06:02 -0700, "Eigenvector"
wrote:


My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.


That sounds like an incredibly dumb thing for the cable company to do.
Among other things, Douglas Firs are famous for shedding branches during
wind storms,

Then the cable rests on the limb that's one branch lower.

Or more likely taking the cable down with it.


as well as upending

Then you get channel 182 on channel 2, and channel 3 on 181. No
biggie.

Or more likely taking the cable down with it. Why would a falling tree
change the channel locations before it ripped the cable out as it passed on
by branches flying.


But I have never seen cable hung from a tree. This thread is amazing.

I would have thought that was categorically illegal since like the invention
of cable TV. Not only would it make your house a nice road for all the
insects and animals living in the tree, it would make the repairman's job
infinitely more difficult and dangerous.



--
is Joshua Putnam

That sounds like an incredibly dumb thing for the cable company to do.
Among other things, Douglas Firs are famous for shedding branches during
wind storms, as well as upending

I mean if there's nothing else around to suspend the cable okay I guess
you
have to do what you have to do, but dig a trench and bury it as soon as
possible or erect a tower. Better that than having the deal with a broken
line every time the wind blows moderately hard.

As others have pointed out, cable "drops" are often the minimum to get the
job done. We have a townhouse which is a rental. The "latest" cable was
run in some conduit. The conduit is one the surface in the middle of the
back lawn. Previous "installs" had the cable just lying on the ground at
the fence. Of a 40' run to the distribution box, only about 10' was
barely underground.

Why so sloppy? My guess is that cable is the FIRST thing folks drop if
things get tight. Also, from time to time, the dish looks better. I
guess from experience the "cable guys" don't bother to even test a cable
that hasn't been used for a year or two.

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:37:40 -0300, "John Gilmer"
wrote:



As others have pointed out, cable "drops" are often the minimum to get the
job done. We have a townhouse which is a rental. The "latest" cable was
run in some conduit. The conduit is one the surface in the middle of the
back lawn. Previous "installs" had the cable just lying on the ground at
the fence. Of a 40' run to the distribution box, only about 10' was
barely underground.

The rest of yours sounds pretty amazingly bad, but afaik 'barely
underground' is underground enough. I watched and my cable was put in
just with a wiggler, a vibrator of some sort that puts the wire no
more than an inch or two underground with no other digging and the
lawn is put back togehter just by walking.

24 years and it hasn't popped out yet. I haven't used the cable for
more than 10 years, but my neighbors use theirs and I haven't seen
anyone back there replacing thiers.

Why so sloppy? My guess is that cable is the FIRST thing folks drop if
things get tight. Also, from time to time, the dish looks better. I
guess from experience the "cable guys" don't bother to even test a cable
that hasn't been used for a year or two.

In article , m44
says...

wrote in message
.net...
In article ,
says...
The commercial shows a car swerving into a guy on a ladder. The
ladder is leaning against a tree. The guy falls and drops a handful
of CATV cable. Anyone else think that you should not be using a tree
to run cable?

My parents and their neighbors both have Comcast cable hung from trees,
60-80 foot Doug Firs.


That sounds like an incredibly dumb thing for the cable company to do.
Among other things, Douglas Firs are famous for shedding branches during
wind storms, as well as upending

That's mainly true of Doug Firs in new developments, trees that used to
be inside a forest of other trees, and whose roots have been badly
weakened by grading, trenching, etc.

In my parents case, the trees are only about 70 years old, my mother
planted them in the back yard as a child. There hasn't been any
significant disruption of their roots, and they haven't grown wind-
sheltered branches that fall off when the shelter is gone.

The phone lines have hung from the trees since the 1950s without any
breaks, and cable has been on them trouble-free since the 1980s.

I mean if there's nothing else around to suspend the cable okay I guess you
have to do what you have to do, but dig a trench and bury it as soon as
possible or erect a tower. Better that than having the deal with a broken
line every time the wind blows moderately hard.

Trenching in the cable anywhere near the trees would certainly encourage
them to up-end in the next big wind storm.

I'm always amazed to see new housing developments going in with trees
predestined to fall on the new homes because of obvious root and soil
damage.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Updated Infrared Photography Gallery:
http://www.phred.org/~josh/photo/ir.html

On 2007-06-23, mm wrote:
The rest of yours sounds pretty amazingly bad, but afaik 'barely
underground' is underground enough. I watched and my cable was put in
just with a wiggler, a vibrator of some sort that puts the wire no
more than an inch or two underground with no other digging and the
lawn is put back togehter just by walking.

That seems awfully shallow for running a cable under a lawn. What
happens if someone wants to remove dandelions? Isn't there a big risk
of stabbing the cable with the dandelion extractor?