[Elecraft] Any benefits to a Long "Long Wire"

[kc4kgu@ENTERZONE.NET]

On Wed, 7 Aug 2002, Charles Mabbott wrote:

> Ron,
> Had some discussion on other lists, keep in mind telephone poles
> regardless of where they are belong to the phone company.  The climbers
> will cut the 'extra' stuff off if they have to climb.  Just a
> thought.......  [got from a climber this information]
> 



Charles,

You are sadly mistaken.  If I catch someone climbing the 40ft "telephone
pole" I had planted at my QTH as an antenna support, let alone cutting my
antennas down, I'm going to demonstrate my firearms collection to them in
great and destructive detail. [you might want to tell you climber friend
about this because I am not the only 2nd ammendment fan who feels this
way]

The term telephone pole is much like the term kleenex.  Kleenex is a TM
but has become the defacto name used for any facial tissue.  Not all
facial tissues are made by the company who makes Kleenex brand facial
tissues though.

If you take the time to read what Ron posted, you will note that he said,
"In the future I'd like to see about putting up some telephone poles."  He
said nothing about using existing infrastructure.  Also note that MOST
telephone poles are *still* NOT the property of the ILEC (telephone
company is such a broad term) but rather the collective property of the
taxpayers as they were purchased with funds made available by the US
Government to ILECs as part of the Universal Access/Universal Service
initiatives.

You are correct that climbers will quite often cut down things that they
are unfamiliar with.  This being common practice does not make it legal
practice.

The mistaken notion that the "telephone company" owns the vast
copper/fiber infrastructure is the result of misinformation that the ILECs
spread on an ongoing basis.  They don't want you to know that the
infrastructure is YOURS.  You pay them to provide SERVICES on that
infrastructure and MAINTAIN that infrastructure that they built with YOUR
tax dollars.

Nuff said,

John - KC4KGU
K2/100 #2490