Missing Yokes?

[nitrogen_widget]

So I've been walking around the city on my lunch and wandering into some less affluent parts of town exploring all the old houses & renovations going on and i'd been noticing a lot of CRT TV's at the curb with the cases smashed.

I thought it was weird then the other day I saw one where the yoke was missing.
Every time I passed one I looked a little closer and those CRT's were missing their yokes also.

I assume this is a copper scrapper doing this?
How much copper is usually in those things?

[ed12]

about 2 pounds

ed

[lilshawn]

copper round here pays a little over 2 bucks a pound. it's actually worth it to strip that stuff out and sell it to the scrap

[ed12]

it was here also >here< key word
1.54/lb now

ed

[dkersten]

We have a warehouse in a not so great area of Phoenix and about once a year the phones go down for a couple days because the transients in the neighborhood would break into the phone box across the street and steal the copper.. Prices must be down because it hasn't happened in about 2 years.  Or they put a better lock on it...

[pbj]

Well, son of a ---smurfette---.  Time to start smashing all those CRTs I find.

[Howard_Casto]

We have a warehouse in a not so great area of Phoenix and about once a year the phones go down for a couple days because the transients in the neighborhood would break into the phone box across the street and steal the copper.. Prices must be down because it hasn't happened in about 2 years.  Or they put a better lock on it...

Amateurs.  Around these parts they steal the utility lines.  Like miles and miles of it.  Sometimes they go into a coal mine and pull out all the copper as well.  Somebody dies at least once a year... you'd think they would learn. 

[ChadTower]

Around here it goes in waves.  First they hit the churches because the churches are arrogant enough to keep putting out fancy metal fixtures, water spouts, gutters, etc no matter how many times they get stolen.  Then they hit all of the empty foreclosed homes.  Then they hit the partially constructed homes.  One guy even hit the war memorials and stole the bronze plaques.  I seriously hope that guy melted the plaques down himself and that no scrapper had the sack to buy them.

[Howard_Casto]

Heh.  I just read an article where copper thiefs are actually expediting the upgrade of utility lines.  Even though fiber is much more expensive it's STILL cheaper than replacing the lines every time someone cuts them for the copper.

Hitting war memorials is pretty messed up.  I'm a proud pacifist but I still understand that people frikkin died in all these wars and we should respect their sacrifice. 

[dkersten]

Can't transmit electricity over fiber optic...

Around here all the power is up on poles and all the telecom is buried..

[lilshawn]

everything in our subdivision is buried. there is not a pole in the whole area.  it makes it a real pain in the butt when something goes wrong.

I have a bonded ADSL internet service of 100 megabit/second. As such, I have 2 telephone lines that run into one modem. each run supplies about 50 to 75 megabit. the combonation of the lines gives me my total speed. I was experiencing slow speeds about 2 weeks ago. I didn't think much of it since the service kinda goes up and down a bit based on load. was still about 70 something megabit so i didn't look too much into it other than occasionally running a speed test. after 3 days, I investigated the network a litte more into the cause of the issue. I have an older system taking care of my firewall for the rest of the network, so I thought maybe I had an issue there.

what had actually happened was one of my lines got damaged about 12 days prior...the other line just took up the slack. I had a technician from the telecom come down with 2 others and spend probably a good 2 days diagnosing and repairing the issue. It was difficult since my line to the box across the street and the line to the CO at the corner of our subdivision was all buried... so they can't just follow the line like they can when it's on the pole. the buried line zig zags through the subdivision to get to the CO at basically the opposite corner of the subdivision.

Had the line been old school and hanging on the pole, even if the issue was the same, it would have only taken a few hours to find and fix.

Burying things looks nice, but makes it a pain in the assycakes if something goes wrong.

[ChadTower]

Can't transmit electricity over fiber optic...

Around here all the power is up on poles and all the telecom is buried..

Any given scrapper only cuts the live power lines once.  It's the telecom lines that they steal.


Burying is also a major pain in the ass if your region is covered in snow half the year.  Makes it that much harder to repair anything.

[Howard_Casto]

Some of the stupider one steal power around here, but it doesn't happen as often.  Like I said, somebody gets killed every year. 

Last month they hit one of the sealed coal mines where people died due to methane.  Real rouge scholars these copper thieves. 

[pbj]

Real rouge scholars

Wow.  Just wow. 

[ChadTower]

Real rouge scholars

Wow.  Just wow. 

Hey, if you're suffocating, you tend to turn a bit reddish in the face...

[Howard_Casto]

Real rouge scholars

Wow.  Just wow. 

What.  You are amazed that auto correct butchered my post and I didn't catch it?  You really need to get over yourself man.