Violin sound.

[rob aylestone]

In the U.K., we have always had telecoms infrastructure from originally the Post Office, then British Telecoms. Then all the others appeared and the compromise was that BT set up Openreach, who would do the infrastructure for everyone. Openreach run the ducts from telephone exchanges to the local boxes, and own the poles, that do the final wires to premises. For the past few years in towns, new build estates have underground entrance to homes in tubes.

the deal the the government did was to allow new companies to install the complete thing, so as the experiment went, the new company put their own ducts in. Every street had the pavement dug up and a nice purple tube buried, and these led to BT poles. Yes, they were allowed to run the fibres up the poles of the big firm who could not actually supply fibre, because their ducts were full! Worse, these pavements (sidewalks, I think in the US) are all sliced with a foot wide trench, slit with rotary cutters, then dug out. Not in straight lines, but randomly zig zagging down the road, because, having watched the man with the machine, they would drift one way under its own power, he would then kick it, and it would go the other way, and he’d kick it again. A huge mess, and because they were the only fibre option, the take up was good and they’d return to many areas multiple times to add more ducts. Now BT can offer fibre to the home, but in my road, those who wanted fibre have it already. What a cock up. We do get decent speeds now, and it’s reliable, but what a mess. Every single road in our big town is a total trip hazard.

 

[DM60]

Several years back, Google Fibre came into the city. They embedded the cable on the edge of the roadway in a few parts of town as a start. However, they were doing "microtrenching" which made something like a 6 inch deep x 2 inch wide trench. After they laid the cable, a asphalt/rubber sealant was put into the trench. All was well, until the sealant started to pop out of the trenches all over town. Big rubber ropes were being pulled up. That led to the next problem. Snow and rain went down the trench, froze and started to make instant potholes with the winter freeze.
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After 2 years, Google pulled out of the city, and paid to have all the streets that were affected repaved. However, we still get little "cave-ins" along the edge of the road in spots. They went back and filled them with tar. We'll see if it holds up another winter.

So for now, we get all our cable and internet off a pole... as God intended!

 

[Retired]

Hi,

I bet it cost Google a great deal of money TalismanRich not only to lay their cable then having to remove the cable and make good. We had Cityfibre down our local lane a few months ago causing chaos with lots of temporary traffic lights some of these four way meaning lots of frustration but as yet they haven't connected up.

Your choice Raymond; 5 ton or 25 ton new manhole cover; we've lived here for 36 years with I think a 5 ton cover in front of our bungalow on the pavement; years ago a large car parked directly on top cracking the cover across its center but not smashing it so it's held together until the skip lorry attacked it; if your cover is located where only cars are likely to drive over it then the 5 ton cover should be fine.

I'm starting to think all ISP's are giving customers a hard time if the customer wants to leave; it's been terrible trying to leave Virgin Media costing me days of stress.

Thanks rob for adding your story; everything in the UK is upside down and messed up; how can all the gas & electricity suppliers be cheaper than each other; we used to have the post office delivering mail and parcels now lots of companies deliver parcels; surely one big company can supply lowest prices? lunatics are now in charge of the asylum.

We've enjoyed basic Netflix for over a week supplied as part of our new BT bundle and not as yet paid a penny to BT; our new account is fully set up with BT and direct debit in place; BT will be here on Thursday to do the installation so it will be interesting because it's over 30 years ago NTL installed their cable; we're sorry to be leaving NTL/VM but it's impossible to contact VM by landline and there reliability has deteriorated over the last few years whilst they've become more expensive; I'll lose my NTL email address but can use my Gmail address it means spending time letting everyone know of the change. VM told me I'd lose my NTL email address.

Back to the plot; I've enjoyed two short violin practices during last week; and as the thread title is violin sound I'm now on topic again; I don't know if it's my imagination but the sound from my Yamaha YEV-104 coupled to my Yamaha amp seems to change; could it be studio temperature or the amp taking a bit of time to warm up because of short sessions; some days it sounds much better than others; I'm starting to notice such things. The studio temperature has been all over the place; it's even been too hot to spend time in the studio then other times I've popped in it's felt a bit chilly but because of my time constraints I've not put the heating on; my arms too often cause problems due to aching after days of heavy work in the gardens; the change in sound could be a combination of everything; whatever the sound poor of good it's always a pleasure to pick my violin up.

Winter will soon be upon us so I hope to get more studio time without aching arms.

I'm grounded today; my wife is very anxious awaiting two phone calls from the hospital the first from the neurologist hopefully with test results regarding her two MRI scans; CAT scan & x rays; the second regarding the medication she's taking; she's very unwell worried if she has Parkinson's Disease on top of her other health issues so it gives me some free time.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

There is another factor to the manhole cover. Thieves will take any metal. They've already had all the lead flashing.
I know they take manhole covers from streets.