Field Experience with Fiber-Optic Cable Installation, Splicing, Reliability, and Maintenance
The experience obtained during the installation of more than 700 sheath km of fiber-optic cable is summarized. These include in-building, underground (duct), aerial, buried, and underwater installations. In general, no special precautions are required except to maintain the specified pull tension and cable bend radius. Field splicing is discussed and results are given on splice losses with and without splice loss monitoring with the optical time domain reflectometer. A 28 percent learning curve for fusion splicing is derived. Reliability data on 312 sheath km of installed cable and field splices are presented. Most of the cable failures were in the "uncontrollable extrinsic category," and most of these were due to complete cable cuts. Finally, restoration is reviewed with emphasis on troubleshooting, repair, emergency restoration, and offset breaks.
Tests of Pocket Gophers Gnawing Electric Cables
Rodents of various kinds occasionally gnaw insulation from wires and cause short circuits. Such damage usually occurs on wires located inside buildings or on cables buried underground, although at times tree squirrels become destructive to wires suspended between poles. Pocket gophers (Thomomys, Geomys, and Cratogeomys) are probably the principal offenders responsible for damage to buried cables. In certain localities pocket gophers have been reported gnawing through conduits and insulation on signal cables along railroads. Cases have been reported where the copper conductors as well as the cable insulation were gnawed away by gophers. Because of these instances, this study was undertaken at the request of W. J. Delehanty of the General Electric Company, to test the ability of pocket gophers (Thomomys bottae) to penetrate different types of insulation. Most of the samples used were provided by the General Electric Company, although some (many of which are not illustrated in this article) were furnished by the following: Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, Alarm Corporation, Carbon Products Corporation, and Yardley Plastics Com-
Livestock Aspects of Feed Grain Policy
It is a signal event that our topic should be included on this program. In recent years, the livestock and poultry economy has scarcely been considered in the making of price and income policy for feed grains. It has been disregarded by pragmatic policy makers. It has been almost equally bypassed by theoretical economists, who usually kibitz freely. Policy for support and target prices for corn, grain sorghums, and other feed grains has been made with an eye almost exclusively fixed on the producers of those crops. The target price has been set relatively high in order to protect crop farmers' income. The latest (and current) loan rate policy has been to hold the rate low. Although a low rate facilitates moving grain into livestock and poultry consumption when crops are abundant, it does nothing to provide buffer stocks for years when crops are short. In addition, a couple of years ago it became administrative policy to dispose of the stocks inherited from an earlier period, even subsidizing their sale abroad. But the foremost example of one-sidedness is the attitude toward release prices. In all the rhetoric heard recently about the peril of holding corn or sorghums in reserve, the scold has been that release prices would not be set high enough. What group can the spokesmen have had in mind? Feed producers, of course! Not feed consumers, that is, livestock and poultry men. It has been a one-sided consideration of a two-sided issue. If all groups are to have equal voice in policy making, how can livestock and poultry interests be so ostracized? The one-sidedness has more impact now that so much livestock and poultry production has become detached from feed supply on individual farms. The livestock-poultry economy is therefore more sensitive to the availability and price of feed. It is in fact a contradiction that historically, livestock and poultry got more attention when they were still closely connected with feed production on the farm. In the early years of farm programs, the "ever-normal granary" was consciously designed to level out the supply and price of feed for livestock and poultry. Now that livestock and poultry have become more commercial and more vulnerable to a volatile feed situation, feed price stabilization has been progressively removed from the councils of farm policy. And the ultimate contradiction is that the alleged price-depressing perils of a feed reserve have been proclaimed in disregard of the fact that the main defense of feed grain producers' incomes is the target price-direct payment mechanism, not support prices. If grains on reserve should cause market prices to be reduced below target level, producers would get bigger direct payments, that is, producers with a base on their farm are protected in that way. Admittedly, production outside such a base would not be eligible for payment.