January 12, 2004
Mission Impossible, day 1
Day one. The plan was to use a CPC (an adapter to connect two cables to a third) to tap into the cable carrying the ISDN-ST interface to the backboard and to the sets on the agents' desks. Only problem, CPCs were used with the old KTS (Key Telephone System) which has been obsolete for a couple of decades. They are manufacture discontinued. Managed to scrounge 40 from odd corners of our junk room, along with what was taken off the trucks of our retirees.
So Grace attached them to the backs of the rack mounted ISDN NIUs with double-stick tape. The cable marked L is the line, the U interface, from the central office. The cable marked T is the ST interface to the terminal sets on the agents' desks. All we need do is swing the cable off the NIU to the CPC, run a short cable between the NIU and the CPC, and bridge on the cable to the new backboard and the VAM on the third connector of the CPC.
Then we ran the cables from the ISDN rack on the first floor up the pipe to the second floor and over to the backboards that I mounted while Grace was doing the CPCs. Tomorrow I have help coming to run the cables from the second floor ISDN rack to the backboard -- all of 10 feet away. Then he'll terminate the cables on backboard. Meanwhile I have to rack mount a switch in each building, connect the fibers to the routers, configure the switch, test with the NIC or NOC or whoever they are. Maybe even get the cables ran and terminated that will go from the backboard to the square hole in the floor to connect to the VAM, when it arrives, supposedly on thursday.
Meanwhile, over in the '41 building, the backboard is mounted just two feet from where the VAM will sit. In the background you can see the LAN rack and the ISDN rack. Grace also got CPC's mounted here, and hopefully we'll be running cables to the backboard tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday. We'll see. That's what a digital camera is for.