New Cable Designed To Deter Copper Thieves 668
Hugh Pickens writes "Pervasive thefts of copper wire from under the streets of Fresno, California have prompted the city to seal thousands of its manhole covers with concrete. In Picher, Oklahoma, someone felled the town's utility poles with chain saws, allowing thieves to abscond with 3,000 feet of wire while causing a blackout. The theft of copper cables costs U.S. companies $60 million a year and the FBI says it considers theft of copper wire to be a threat to the nation's baseline ability to function. But now PC World reports that a U.S. company has developed a new cable design that removes almost all the copper from cables in a bid to deter metal thieves. Unlike conventional cables made from solid copper, the GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel Cable consists of a steel core bonded to a copper outer casing, forming an equally effective but far less valuable cable by exploiting the corrosion-resistance of copper with the conductive properties of steel. 'Companies trying to protect their copper infrastructure have been going to extreme measures to deter theft, many of which are neither successful nor cost effective,' says CommScope vice president, Doug Wells. 'Despite efforts like these, thieves continue to steal copper because of its rising value. The result is costly damage to networks and growing service disruptions.' The GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel cable is the latest technical solution to the problem of copper theft, which has included alternatives like cable etching to aid tracing of stolen metal and using chemicals that leave stains detectable under ultra-violet light. However the Copper Clad Steel strikes at the root of the problem by making the cable less susceptible to theft by both increasing the resistance to cutting and drastically decreasing the scrap value."
Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually, the thieves will take care of themselves.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the Darwin slush pile, I'd say electrifying them is doing a fair job of it.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work with some fairly high powered transmitters here and there. Funny thing about large antennas is they tend to be located in lovely remote areas. Generally, the places where no one lives and consequently a great target for moronic thieves. Depending your point of you view you could say it was very fortunate our equipment always needed maintenance or was always failing. Consequently, we spent many events at an uncomfortable distance to the population. Being occupied during the day and night was a great deterrent to douche bags. (I know because after we left the thieves moved in like jackals I'm told)
On one occasion it looked like someone had started to cut the copper from air conditioning unit, but gave up for some unknown reason. Now, what I had been waiting for was an attempted theft at the coax line for any number of transmitters. There was a metric crap ton of this and the word coax does not lend credit to the thickness of these particular runs. Such an act would create an immediate alarm and nor would it be fun to be on the receiving end of the line. The return feedback during the process would disengage the transmission, but not before baking a few fleshy components.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh. I feel for you. Been there, done it. But I'll tell you this -- we get hit just as frequently at our big 100,000 watt FMs in Birmingham as we do at the remote sites. My colleague at the Clear Channel site right next to our FM on Red Mountain in Birmingham has video of a guy jumping the fence, clipping a handful of copper, and then gracefully jumping back over the fence, into his car and down the hill -- all in less than a minute. By the time the cops arrived, he was long gone.
The cameras at that same Clear Channel site also provided a (somewhat scary) image of a different copper thief shooting out the lights before proceeding with his theft. He got caught, though, because even though he was wearing a mask, you could see his (unmasked) girlfriend crouching in the trees. She was identified and later sang like a canary when she was brought in for questioning.
These guys know how long the police response time is and make sure they can grab and scoot before they can get caught. The deputies who investigated our big theft at a 50,000 watt AM a couple of years ago said the best way to catch them was to set a trap (but even then, they got discouraged because the thieves would spend a few months in jail, then be right back out to steal again).
The deputies told me that on a slow day, they'll actually cruise the neighborhood with the windows down, sniffing for the smell of burning plastic. Whenever thieves steal telecom cable, they often try to burn off the insulation before scrapping it to get a better price.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
The last bit is why it's increasingly being made illegal for scrap dealers to purchase burnt cable.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of them don't care. It is pretty obvious when someone is a copper thief.
I think anything less than full photo registration of sellers, and a bureaucracy to make sure sure no scap is being "laundered", is about the only way to stop it. However that would probably cost more than the copper thieves do.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
"My colleague at the Clear Channel site right next to our FM on Red Mountain in Birmingham has video of a guy jumping the fence, clipping a handful of copper, and then gracefully jumping back over the fence, into his car and down the hill -- all in less than a minute. By the time the cops arrived, he was long gone."
If the thief only got a handful of copper and he was escaping by car, what is the chance that it actually cost him about as much in fuel and car maintenance to steal that copper as he got in scrap value? At the very least he would have made considerably more per hour to work in McDonalds.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Funny)
Steeling infrastructure today is like steeling horses in Wild West time
What, they made horses out of steel with just a thin cladding (of hide?) in order to deter thieves?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
Plutonium is only mildly radioactive thanks to its long half life. Cesium-137 would be a far better deterrent.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Funny)
Plutonium is only mildly radioactive thanks to its long half life. Cesium-137 would be a far better deterrent.
What about having a tube around the wire that is filled with white phosphorus? If they mess with the wire, they start on fire!
Re: (Score:3)
Nice! Now people are thinking!
But better yet - how about a sintered cladding aluminum and iron oxides?
Re: (Score:3)
What about having a tube around the wire that is filled with white phosphorus? If they mess with the wire, they start on fire!
Too fast - it only gets the lowest-end personnel, leaving the dealers and traffickers unscathed.
What we really need to do is encapsulate ebola virus in the plastic sheathing - do it in such a way that skin contact releases it.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that plutonium is far more valuable than copper. Thieves from all over the world, and possibly from other worlds, would hurry over to come and steal the plutonium clad wires.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many such noted incidents, but there are many that go unnoticed. A worker at a French nuclear plant [iaea.org] bought a watch using steel pins mixed with a Co-60 source one of these idiots stole, and this was only found when he wore it to work where radiation monitoring is required. No one knows who was exposed or killed earlier in the supply chain.
As far as the poster blaming Brazil below, this happens here [nrc.gov] in the good ol' USA as well.
And this will keep happening, as long as laws are not enforced and thieves continue to have such a willing market in disreputable scrap metal dealers
More than the guilty parties have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in every single one of these incidents. Scrap metal thieves literally kill people.
Re:Just coat them with plutonium (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually, the thieves will take care of themselves.
I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 2012 it's a little hard to come by. Just ask Iran... plus their scientists have a tendency to spontaneously blow up.
Theif soultions (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Copper is more dense than steel. I don't know if the equivalent capacity cable is lighter though.
Re: (Score:3)
I seriously doubt it; steel is a terrible conductor (compared to copper), so I'm guessing you'll need at least twice as much of it to get the same conductivity.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:5, Insightful)
What's New? (Score:5, Informative)
Same thing in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
Same reason too (strength and cost). When you are talking shorter run, like in a house, where weight doesn't matter and voltage is low you go copper. The lower resistance is well worth it. However for the long haul runs aluminium wins the day, and steel at the core to strengthen it. The higher impedance does lead to a bit more loss, but then you are talking as much as half a million volts so that equalizes things a bit.
Re:Same thing in the US (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason copper is used, is that copper oxidizes much less. Which is why you have special connectors for aluminum wire, and for most modern building wiring, aluminum is forbidden. (Super-simplified version)
Re:Same thing in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Theif soultions (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong, skin effect is related to frequency. There is almost no skin effect at 60hz, or even that much effect on audible frequencies in the 20khz range.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:5, Informative)
As someone else has pointed out, this is factually incorrect. The skin depth in copper at 60 Hz (377 rad/s) is over 8 mm. [wolframalpha.com] The skin effect won't make a difference here.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Theif soultions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Theif soultions (Score:4, Insightful)
Which would be indistinguishable from solid copper until cut to a depth of more than 9mm and still contains a substantial quanity of copper.
Re: (Score:3)
Steel is far harder to cut than copper though.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:4, Interesting)
More than likely though they just find other sources of copper to steal from or just steal more of it in more sophisticated operations.
You overestimate the intelligence of thieves. The word is out that cable is valuable so the average thief will carry right on stealing it.
The fact that he doesn't get paid much just means he won't take the day off to spend money. He'll be out stealing cable next day instead. Net result: even more cable being stolen than before.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:5, Interesting)
Also by the time the thief discovers the cable isn't valuable the damage has already been done. As happens with telephone cables. Since the typical thief can't tell the difference between copper and fibre cable before cutting it.
Re:Theif soultions (Score:4, Informative)
Except for the big white letters embossed into the jacket that say "FIBER OPTIC"
Re:Theif soultions (Score:5, Informative)
Most power cables are NOT copper. Even the low power 220V ones coming to my house are only copper clad aluminum. they connect to a copper whip that goes from my meter to the masthead where the cable from the street goes.
From wikipedia and personal experience.....
"Aluminum conductors reinforced with steel (known as ACSR) are primarily used for medium and high voltage lines and may also be used for overhead services to individual customers. Aluminum cable is used because it has about half the weight of a comparable resistance copper cable (though larger diameter due to lower fundamental conductivity), as well as being cheaper.[1] Some copper cable is still used, especially at lower voltages and for grounding."
This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All they have to do is include a few thousands signs with each order that says "This cable is GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel Cable and is worthless to scrap yards"... sure, some would ignore the sign, but after a few batches would fail to get sold for much, the signs suddenly become an even better deterant than the actual cable.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
We have signs like that. Our signs also point out that stealing from a federally-licensed facility could result in a federal investigation. Shoot, the Birmingham Police have their antennas on one of our big FM towers, and the thieves DON'T CARE. They get hit all the time.
The thieves will destroy the cable to determine if it's clad or pure copper, then throw aside the stuff they don't want. It still leaves *ME* with a ton of cleanup and repair to do.
That's what I love about this crap: they steal $20 worth of copper and do $10,000 of damage in the process. They'll take the three ground cables from a 700' tower (worth about $10 for scrap) -- and those grounds are what keep lightning out of my equipment. A storm rolls along and I get hammered, while they sit back with their six pack of beer and think they've done well for themselves. (Whimper.)
Are your numbers right? (Score:3)
Re:Are your numbers right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are your numbers right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe instead of making cables harder to steal we should make citizens that don't want to steal them...
At a certain point having a "welfare state" might become cheaper overall. Then most of them won't bother to steal if you provide them with food, shelter and tv/"youtube"/game consoles/parks.
Not a big difference if you're going to put those you catch in prisons where they are fed and housed...
Of course you'd also need to fix the education side to it, compulsory education for kids, free education (maybe even up to undergraduate level), free meals for school-kids. That way you don't get stuck with 20% or more of your population being under-educated and not very competitive with the rest of the world in terms of cost/ability.
Re:Are your numbers right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are your numbers right? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2620558&cid=38698508 [slashdot.org]
That said, perhaps they should also do a test of the teachers, perhaps the direct reason for the difference is Finland has better teachers ;).
BUT even so Finland might have better teachers because the teachers were once students themselves, and if most of the students were well-educated, then most of the teachers would be too...
Whereas if you have crappy students each generation and most teachers coming from the "crappier end" of very unevenly educated students, you're not going to get very good results.
In a democracy if you leave too many people "behind", unless you're at the very top, you're still eventually going to pay for it one way or another, as long as those behind can still vote ;).
What a load of drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why do north european countries with socialized healthcare and education AND social security still get hit by copper thieves?
There are always people who want still more. Claim social security and go out stealing copper to get more money. Or do you think thieves are such noble people they don't claim social security because they got another source of income?
Re:What a load of drivel (Score:5, Interesting)
Because we have open borders. People from former eastbloc states, who do not have any social welfare, come in and steal the copper. This must look like a harsh statement but the statistics do not lie; 90% of copper theft in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium is performed by people from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria etc. (I know, missing reference)
Re:Are your numbers right? (Score:4, Interesting)
At a certain point having a "welfare state" might become cheaper overall. Then most of them won't bother to steal if you provide them with food, shelter and tv/"youtube"/game consoles/parks.
I'm not sure that works as well as you would imagine. Theft is still a problem in Denmark, where we do have a welfare state (of course, one should really do a comparison of Northern European countries, and try to correlate the degree of welfare state to the crime rate, but even there, ause and effect might be hard to tell apart). It seems to be mostly drug addicts and Eastern European gangs doing the theft.
Of course, if we are talking about the price of a welfare state, be sure to include the lesser amount of work hours being produced. Higher taxes means less incentive to work, and higher social benefits means lesser incentive to work. Even though people are not only economic creatures, that reduced incentive does have an effect on the amount of work people are willing to do.
Re: (Score:3)
Or it doesn't matter. Opportunistic thieves come from all classes.
I believe that many of the people involved in this kind of theft are drug users of the heavier variety. You'd do more to cut down on this problem by allowing pharmacies to administer a patient's drug of choice at market prices, as opposed to street prices. Just a hypothesis, anyway.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what I love about this crap: they steal $20 worth of copper and do $10,000 of damage in the process.
If this happens regularly wouldn't it be worth investing in some better security, or even a security guard? Doesn't your insurance company insist on it?
From the stories people are posting here about thieves jumping over chain link fences I can't help but think some barbed wire and a high concrete wall might help. Or am I missing something?
Re: (Score:3)
Personally... I am in favor of the sniper option as it sends a clear message that looters will be shot (oh the good old days when it was more common place).
wow I've seen those sniper on duty signs before and thought they where jokes... I best be more careful..
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to ensure that the signs are in all appropriate languages and that they themselves have no scrap value.
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Interesting)
How about FIX the problem by requiring all scrap yards to hold scrap cable for 7 days before payout and require a real drivers license or ID. the scrapyard then posts the cable turned in to a police website so the cops can cross reference a theft with a scrap drop off, and then wait for t he guy to show up to collect his payout.
but no, we cant do that. Just like how we cant require this to happen at pawn shops.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Informative)
Too true. They'll still try to cut and strip cable, if they think it's valuable. There's been a lot of cases not only in the US but in Canada where these jackasses have cut fibre links thinking they were copper.
While copper coated steel is a good idea, steel still has a market value. So these guys will simply strip the copper off, either by shaving or electrolysis. And then sell both. After all they wouldn't steal manhole covers if steel(and iron) had no value either. Really though, as long as scrap dealers are willing to look the other way for where metal is coming from it'll be easy.
Though you can bet that once the job market picks up, this type of stuff will become rare again.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Really though, as long as scrap dealers are willing to look the other way for where metal is coming from it'll be easy.
I'm all for the government increasing regulatory burdens for scrap dealers and coming down on any scrap dealers caught "looking the other way", by throwing the scrap dealer in jail if necessary
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think they are going to actually strip it.
These guys basically destroyed tens of thousands worth of property to make twenty dollars at the scrap yard.
On a bit of a karma note I once heard about a scrap yard theft. The guys would pull up next to the yard in a boat (it was next to the river) and haul in a bunch of copper. The next day or so they would come back to the scrap yard and sale the theft back to them.
Unfortunately, that trick only works so many times.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They must be very good at NetHack.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Funny)
Another scrapyard karma story:
Many, many years ago my mother worked at an iron foundry. One day she transferred a call from a scrap dealer to the president, and afterward he told her the story. The scrap dealer had called to ask if the foundry really had sent these guys to sell the pig ingots back that they had just shipped the previous afternoon, and the answer was of course "no." The dealer knew exactly who to call because several of the ingots still had his chalkmarks indicating which foundry he had sold them to!
Seems these enterprising thieves broke into the back gate from the railroad tracks, saw a large number of shiny pig ingots stacked on the back dock, and thought they were valuable (probably not knowing that pig iron was going for about $20/ton.) They must have sweated all night carrying these forty pound pigs a block and a half down the railroad tracks, then up a railroad bridge embankment, to their waiting truck. The scrap dealer also told the president that these guys had broken the springs on their truck by overloading it. Since he was keeping the thieves busy outside by having them unload the ingots from their busted truck, he asked the foundry president if he should call the police for him. The president was laughing by this time and said as long as he got his iron back, they'd been punished enough. "Hell, if they hadn't stolen from us, I'd hire them! Nobody around here works that hard!"
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a cost-benefit thing.
Right now, stealing copper is easy, and gives a high benefit. Attempts to make it harder to steal have failed, as they profit outweighs the cost. This simultaneously makes it harder to steal (steel cable is harder to cut) and sell (the average *person* doesn't even know how to do electrolysis, let alone the average thief), while also decreasing the profit (copper is about 10x as expensive as steel by mass).
This may also be worth it simply as cheaper cable - while I expect manufacturing costs are a bit higher, material costs would be far lower. If you can buy "theft-resistant" cable for half the price of pure-copper cable, why the hell wouldn't you?
Re: (Score:3)
the average *person* doesn't even know how to do electrolysis, let alone the average thief
The average scrap-metal salvager does, and that's all that's important. Are you operating under the flawed assumption that scrap-metal dealers will turn away obvious thieves? That's most of their business.
while also decreasing the profit (copper is about 10x as expensive as steel by mass).
Yes, so the thieves will steal more of it, or switch to something else. They're already stealing manhole covers (causing auto cra
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Informative)
People get real desperate when they have hungry kids. When I was a kid my father poached wild game. It was the only way we could afford meat. And my mother ground hogs feed to make bread, because we couldn't afford either bread or grain intended for human consumption. When you are in that kind of situation you do or you die. There is no other option.
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Well diesel/gas/white gas fuel theft isn't anything new, or grounding rods or ac thefts either. One thing I can suggest, is if you're using a fuel dump or several. Switch your tank an cap labels, and inform your drivers of it. Meaning gas = diesel, and diesel = gas, and "mislabeled" water tanks can sometimes be mixed in too. And do it randomly, so the thieves have no idea which is which. It worked for us at a remote site when we were doing trench dumps.
We'd park our fuel buggies out in a field and leave them and people would 'help' themselves. It stopped right quick once we did that, and there was a line of cars down the road. I know plenty of farmers that do the same thing.
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Funny)
I had a can labelled "unleaded petrol" stolen out of my shed a few weeks ago. It was full of diesel. I really, really hope somebody tried to use it as petrol without checking. :)
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck, we just need to bring public caning back, or hack parts of limbs off. Those have to be for heinous things though like theft that causes damages of $5,000 or more (cane them for less). Take two fingers each time. Figure if someone can't figure out after five tries, they really don't enjoy having functional hands, and eating. Figure after the first time it'll just stop. People who steal stuff like copper won't be served by MORE education. They are out of the K-12 educational system by then, and generally methed outa their head.
Why wait for laws like this to be introduced? There are a countries that are decades ahead of the US with laws like that in place right now and if you speak to the governments there they say the laws are working wonderfully. You should move to one of those countries. Today.
Re:This won't work (Score:4, Informative)
That's a nice story except it's not true. If that were the case then how do you explain the fact that crime is still dropping despite cutting back on stiff sentences and releasing criminals for budgetary reasons?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/07/us-usa-crime-idUSTRE60613K20100107 [reuters.com]
Re:This won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
Google the Bastoy prison in Norway. It looks like a damn summer camp, where the inmates can go swimming, cook their own food (they're given knives!), watch TV. Hell, their "cells" look more spacious than my old dorm room.
Criminals sent there have some of the lowest recidivism rates in the entire world. It works because the Norwegians believe in rehabilitation instead of retribution.
License scrap cable sales. (Score:5, Interesting)
Removing the market for scrap copper cable might also work. Typically this stuff flows thru metals recycling yards who are only too happy to look the other way when white-van-man shows up with a half ton of scrap copper. If these recyclers. or the smaller number of up-stream buyers, had to have paper work from licensed demolition companies or power utilities tracing the copper they buy you could stop the theft very shortly, without having to wait till every mile of copper is stolen and replaced before your deterrence sets in.
Re:License scrap cable sales. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Very clever...
Re:License scrap cable sales. (Score:4, Insightful)
We desperately need that here in Alabama. At present, there are plenty of crooked scrap dealers who buy the copper, then immediately load it on trucks and take it up to Tennessee, where it's melted within a matter of days. Even if you mark the copper, it doesn't make a bit of difference. It's long gone by the time the police show up to ask questions.
I agree. Take pictures of anyone selling scrap metal. Get their ID.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So ... let me ask you this, Goebbels. (Hey, if you can invoke Geoffrey, I'll invoke him right back.)
A bunch of teenage-and-twenty-something kids come into your facility with a huge bundle of telecom cable. The insulation has been burned off. You just KNOW that they're legit; right? You don't even ask for ID?
Sorry, dood, but you ARE part of the problem. Calling me a Nazi for pointing that out to you doesn't change that fact.
Re: (Score:3)
All that adds costs for the bad guys, that eventually exceed the market value of copper in the first place.
Used by hams for decades (Score:5, Informative)
Copper clad steel has been used by hams for decades. It is most effective at radio frequencies, where the "skin effect" causes the current flow to exist primarily in the outermost regions of the cable. 50 or 60 Hz AC current is not high enough frequency to have much of a skin effect, so it will consequently be a poor conductor compared to solid copper. There's no doubt that it is harder to cut, though.
Re: (Score:3)
The benefit to steel here is making the cable stronger (longer spans) and more resistant to cutting.
I wonder about that; I thought one of the reasons they used aluminum for high-voltage power lines was because it weighs much less, and that this enabled longer spans than denser material. Steel is dense and heavy; even though it is indeed very strong, wouldn't this be a giant disadvantage for spans?
Re:Used by hams for decades (Score:5, Interesting)
Not much current??? Ummm... better double check that. The US power line infrastructure is stretched to the breaking point. Most 21KV and up lines are running near their max rated current.
To the GP -- Aluminum is much more conductive than steel, and in power lines the cables are large enough that they have enough tensile strength to easily make the spans that power lines are designed for. Aluminum is lower loss than steel for 60 Hz. I've been making ham antennas out of CopperWeld since 1972, usually #12 solid, sometimes #10 solid. It is nassssty to cut. I use nail nippers these days, or a hack saw if I don't have a nail nipper handy. Small bolt cutters would be good. #12 soft-drawn copper doesn't stand up to icing all that well for larger antennas. CopperWeld is much stronger. (CopperWeld is the Cooper trademark, other vendors make copper-clad steel wire.) I think CopperWeld dates from around "The War", as my parents generation called it -- WW II.
Easier solution (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I Know All About This One. (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who has been hit repeatedly by these morons, a few thoughts. Radio in general offers a very attractive target to these thieves, especially (believe it or not) older installations like AM radio stations. (At low frequencies like AM, the tower itself is actually the antenna -- that's why there are insulators in the guy wires -- and the tower field is laced with gobs and gobs of soft copper that acts as the ground plane.)
1. Copper-clad steel is nothing new. Some of this is just marketroid hype (though to be fair, I don't think anyone has ever made clad *telcom* cable before). But other types of clad conductors have been common for some time -- not just to deter theft, but because of the price of copper.
2. The real problem is the scrap metal dealers. You can't tell me that they're not suspicious when a couple of teenage guys come dragging in the core from a big honkin' three phase HVAC unit. But THEY want the copper even worse than the thieves, because they turn around and sell it in ton lots at a huge profit.
3. Copper is considerably more conductive than steel. We can get away with it at RF frequencies because of skin effect (i.e., the signal travels through the "skin" of the conductor, rather than the center), but it's not a perfect solution. It's much more difficult to work with and it's easy to accidentally strip off the copper cladding, leaving you with far less desirable steel at the connection point.
4. These thieves really are morons, and yes, most are repeat offenders. They even talk to one another in jail and compare notes. When we were hammered in February of 2010, the deputies who investigated our incident told us that they even knew who most of these people were. We had video cameras and they scoured the images to get a clue as to who it was.
But sometimes I have to laugh. One of our FM stations here is in the huge metropolis of Pumpkin Center, Alabama, which defines "middle of nowhere." The house up the (dirt) road from the transmitter site has been hit repeatedly; I drove to the site to do routine maintenance a couple of years ago and noted that the air conditioner had been ransacked. But they won't mess with the FM site.
I guess the fact that our landlady likes to go out and there and shoot with her boyfriend gives them pause. The sight of all those targets with bullet holes all around the center makes them think twice. :)
Then some thieves tried to cut the gigantic, 6" copper coax going to our 100,000 FM in North Central Alabama. I posted a note that said, "Dear morons, if you try to cut this line, please have your life insurance paid up .... "
They've stolen our grounding several times since, but they haven't touched that big coax again. :)
Re: (Score:3)
Copper Clad is NOT new (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course a few more charred bodies like was found on a building roof near here recently when a copper thief THOUGHT the 660 volt power line to the chillers was disconnected and it wasn't could also be a deterrent
Legalize Drugs... (Score:4, Interesting)
Legal drugs still cost money (Score:3)
And they are still addictive. There's arguments to legalize drugs. This isn't one of them. In fact, you'll discover that some of the addicts that do this are alcoholics, their drug of choice is perfectly legal.
When you combine a messed up mental state with a desire for money to pay for the addiction, you'll get people doing stupid shit. Legalization won't change that. It isn't as though someone doing legal drugs will suddenly be clear of mind and a productive member of society.
Now don't misunderstand this a
Re:Legalize Drugs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vancouvers supervised sites more than pay for themselves just in reduced emergency room care, and when the feds tried to shut them down, the Supremes ruled that it would have been both an infringement on the provinces' right to administer their health-care programs, and an infringement on the individuals' right to security of the person by putting them at increased risk of dying.
As someone who has never been into recreational pharmacology, I say just legalize it and deal with it - it's a social, not legal, problem. Or stop being hypocrites and ban alcohol, tobacco, and every other product proven to affect brain function, including coffee, tea, sugar, breakfast cereals, any product containing corn or corn by-products, chocolate (don't you DARE!!!) etc.
Seriously - the war on drugs is hypocritical. It's also one that cannot ever be won. Seriously, the way to reduce drug use is to set an example, and to keep an open, non-judgmental attitude when talking to people who chose to use drugs - not have a bunch of drug-addicted politicians pass laws against it.
Article (Score:4, Funny)
GSmart: Let's steel copper cables!
Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
No cash for copper. ID required and a direct deposit to a bank account.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The problem is thieves. Get rid of them. (Score:5, Funny)
I like it, though I'd execute the children, too. A crime-free society is less than a generation away.
We think much alike, you and I.
Re:The problem is thieves. Get rid of them. (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you hadn't noticed, everything [amazon.com] is a felony these days.
But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.
Re:The problem is thieves. Get rid of them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Flamebait? I was completely seriously. I don't commit crimes - those who do obviously don't want to be part of our society.
One generation from now, being completely serious will be a capital crime in our society (you'll need a good deal of craziness to survive).
Re:The problem is thieves. Get rid of them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Then you must be the ONLY person alive not to have. With so many laws on the books, it's impossible NOT to have unknowingly broken one of them, whether it's your dog mating with another dog within 1,500 feet of a public school (California [turtlezen.com]) or other such stupidity.
We had the city pass a really stupid law - because kids were holding on to the back of buses during the winter and "sledding", they passed a law making it illegal to hold on to or grasp any part of a vehicle in motion inside city limits. So how are you supposed to steer?
Ditto with the law they passed trying to ban massage parlors by defining massage as the physical manipulation of any part of another persons body - making everything from handshakes to helping your kid blow her nose.
It's a safe bet you've broken a few stupid laws.
Re:The problem is thieves. Get rid of them. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure their are jurisdictions were publishing something anonymously is illegal.
For example your post annoyed me and: ...
"""
Whoever -
makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications; ...
shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
""" 47 U.S.C. Â 223(a)(1)(C)
Now sure "intent to annoy" means something entirely different - but do you really know every single law that applies to you in enough detail to know you have never broken one?
Re:JOBS (Score:5, Informative)
A glance at this graph [mongabay.com] will give you a swift education on why copper theft has increased recently.
Re: (Score:3)
And the prisons were indeed terrible places
This did not make for a safer, more law-abiding society.
Re:Hang theives (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they are more throwing a fit because he crams them into dark green korean war surplus tents in the 115 degree Arizona heat with no cooling and limited water. I think they are more throwing a fit because he also uses hot boxes as additional punishment in those conditions. I think they are more throwing a fit because he is literally running concentration camps here in the US.
Re: (Score:3)
PICHER, Okla. — Theft of copper from utilities and other businesses is nothing new, but officials say some brazen thieves took the crime up a notch — and should consider themselves lucky they’re not dead, even if they haven’t been caught yet.
The thieves made off with 3,000 feet of copper wire and some aluminum wire after cutting down numerous utility poles northeast of Picher, causing a temporary power outage for a handful of Empire District Electric Co. customers.
“They were sawed off at ground level with a chain saw,” Empire spokeswoman Amy Bass said of the six poles.
...
Nine residents were without power for several hours Wednesday. The lines apparently were cut about 7:30 a.m.
...
Empire District Electric Co. is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in the copper-theft case at Picher. Officials said they are asking people who might have information about the case to call local law enforcement.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x1399736758/Copper-thieves-cut-poles-energized-lines-in-Picher-buyout-area/ [joplinglobe.com]
Re: (Score:3)
They never said anything about stainless steel, and in fact, SS would suck for wire because it's rather brittle. Copper is very ductile which is why it's so good for wire, plus, as you said, it's second best next to silver.
But yes, copper has less-than-stellar corrosion qualities (so does silver), and so does steel, depending on the alloy.
That marketing statement therefore sounds like a giant load of crap: the corrosion-resistance of copper and the conductive properties of steel sounds like a terrible wire
Re:Fuck meth (Score:5, Insightful)
I say we kill all the meth addicts. Seriously. Bullet to the head and a proper burial in a pine box. People need to *FEAR* doing drugs of this variety
I got a better idea. Let's kill all the tyrants who want to imprison or murder other people because they disagree with how that person lives his life. Tired of meth addicts stealing copper? If the shit was easily and readily available (like it should be, since it's ridiculously cheap and easy to produce) then this small segment of the population could continue to exist in harmony with the rest of society.
If we're gonna start lining people up against the wall and shooting them Nazi style, then I propose we do it to the hateful, moronic, and downright IGNORANT elements in our society such as YOU. See how slippery this slope gets, and really damn fast?
Re:Fuck meth (Score:4, Informative)
You know, as an American, I will always tip my hat to the Chinese. Damn, how I envy their effectiveness at dealing with drugs abusers. They put up with none of that politically correct non-sense.
What are you babbling about? The Chinese treat addiction with rehab programs, the recidivism rate for which was 80% in the 90's (Mao 1999, 151), and is documented to be over 90% in the '00s (China Daily Youth, 27/4/04). You will need access to Lexus Nexus or a similar thing to easily follow these citations, unfortunately.
Perhaps you are thinking of their trafficking penalties. It is true that being found in possession of over a kilo of cocaine or heroin in China is often punished with the death penalty [journal.com.ph]. However, stepped up enforcement efforts are met by increased prices, inducing repair to the supply chain, resulting in no long term gain. As a result, China has been investing heavily in a multifaceted program of treatment, interdiction, social welfare targeting at-risk populations, education, rehabilitation, and diplomacy seeking to convert drug growers abroad to production of legal staple crops.
The Chinese government is already aware that they can't make significant progress solely by killing all addicts, or even just major drug traffickers - there is an unlimited supply of people who will accept any risk. Fear has become just one component of the Chinese strategy. Read up on what they're doing - in many ways, they are actually more progressive than the United States. Unlike you, they aren't entirely naïve.