LTC Rewind: BICSI Certification, BIX vs Krone Blocks, MPTL Testing, and Fiber Transceivers

The dial tone is the sound that you hear when you pick up a landline , and we would send our new guys out to go get a bucket of dial tone and we used to mess with them . We used to do that kind of stuff . We used to pull all kinds of jokes on our people . Now let me see , we are live , everything's broadcasting , fine and dandy .

So how is everybody doing tonight ? You know we always start off every show with what are you drinking ? What are you drinking that always start off every show ? Now , this looks like water . I think you guys can see it there . I got tic-tac going live right here . It looks like water , but this is actually root beer , zevia soda . Root beer , zevia soda .

How about go to the warehouse for some frequency increase ? That's a good one too , yes . So what are you drinking tonight ? Tell me in the chat and the comments what are you drinking ? I love my zevia soda . No sugar , no caffeine , all that fun stuff . So let's check in the chat box See what people are drinking . Anthony Romeo is in the house .

He is drinking black tea . Nolan is in the house . Nolan , what are you drinking this after hours ? And Mr Steve is in the house . Mr Steve is drinking some water . He's playing at conservative tonight . So anything alcoholic it can be , it's after hours . It's after hours . That's why I named it this . It's called the after hours for a reason .

I can't be drinking because I'm doing the show . Maybe it might make the show a little more entertaining if I did . I don't know . Lisa is in the house . Hello , lisa , she's drinking water as well . Let me see what was Nolan saying . He was drinking In the car . Drinks all gone . Yep , yep , yep .

We're going to be talking about NPTEL testing , big C training , b plus and C plus transceivers and the difference between Bigs blocks and LSA blocks , right , so we're going to be starting off with all kinds of cool stuff tonight . Now , before I get oh , I forgot the acronym challenge I can turn off that . Turn off this caption first . Do you do , do , do .

This is what happens when you're one man band . So we got to put in the acronym challenge because we always started off every week and if you , if you're following me on LinkedIn , you know that I do a acronym challenge every weekday morning at 810 .

And if you , really if you want to , my ardent people , you know that this week I am in chapter 12 , the outside plant edition chapter of the TDM . I'm going through the team and few chapters , so this acronym is found specifically in chapter 12 . It's another chapter too , but it is in chapter 12 . And the acronym is PVC , pvc .

Now , do you know what PVC means ? If you do put it in the chat box , right , let us know . Right , pvc . That is the acronym challenge . Oh , I've got to say my acronym morning , right ? Please spay ? Or new to your acronyms . Help control the acronym population . We have enough . We don't need anymore , right , so spare . New to your acronyms ?

So the acronym is PVC and it stands for that Ready One , two , three , drum roll , boom , polyvinyl chloride and and a . Kudos to Mr Nolan for knowing that . Kudos to you , buddy . And PVC . Now , pvc is a compound that's used . I apologize if you hear my puppy , our pizza must be getting here . Polyvinyl chloride is actually used for wrong button thing .

It , polyvinyl chloride , is used for lots of things . It's used for making conduit , it's used for making the jacket of the cable , so that now you know I love something that way . Hey , you might have noticed I put a new new thing up here in the corner . It's a QR code .

See , right there , somebody put their camera on that QR code and let me know if it works . Please just put your camera up to it . It should pop up and say , open up that website , that will take you to what's called a link tree , and then that link tree is going to give you quick access to my Instagram account , my TikTok account , my LinkedIn account .

It's going to give you access to give me an email . There's even a tab there for scheduling time 15 minutes with me , right . And there's also a tab there to buy me a cup of coffee . If you buy me a cup of coffee , I'll send you one of these for free . Yeah , I'll send you one of these if you buy me a cup of coffee . Yeah .

And then there's a link to the podcast . There's a link to the show . You can start seeing a QR code everywhere . My buddy Todd would probably be happy with me , because then I'm used other figured out QR codes and I'm actually using them , yes . So there you said anybody , anybody , try that to see if it worked . By any chance , it does work .

Yes , thank you . That is absolutely cool . I'm gonna start putting it on my stuff now . See when this gets recorded and Then it gets put out on the on the YouTube and LinkedIn . It's always gonna be there . So all there's someone's gonna do is hate what's a QR code ding ? Hello , I am just a social media Star . What can I say ?

Alrighty , so permanent virtual connection . That's what the old tech guy says on tiktok . Is that actually true ? You just make that up , just curious , just curious . Okay , so here's the first question . This question , actually , was a leftover from last after-hour show that you probably remember .

Last Thursday I didn't do a show , and I didn't do a show Because , honestly , I forgot about it and actually I remembered it at like 440 Something , and I'm like I don't have enough time to put this together now , because it takes about an hour and a half to Two hours of prep time to do the show , believe it or not .

So can I colorize it with my own logo ? I , you know , I don't know . I will give that a shot . That would be cool , wouldn't it ? That would help my branding even more . Off the try that , because that would look really , really cool . But , yeah , I'll give that a shot .

So how do I take my coffee ? I take my coffee With cream and sugar , yeah , so thank you for asking . It's . If you click on that QR code , there's a spot we can go . Buy me a cup of coffee and then I'll . I'll send you a , a Sticker . You know , that's right , my brain is not working right there .

Giving back to my original question , remember , this question actually came from last , the two weeks ago , and this is a summation of it , because when I saw the thing come out right , I Saw come up in the chat box , but the chat box is pulling feed from YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook and I just could not find the Comment .

So but I did remember and the guy and I remember who wasn't I apologize and they , whoever was asked Chuck , what is the difference between a big block and an LSA block ? The big block and an LSA block . I'm kind of glad that I didn't answer a door in the show , because that allowed me to create this cool graphic .

Now , my tiktok folks , you're not getting to see this cool graphic . I'm sorry , but if you go to YouTube and watch the YouTube live stream , you'll see it there . So what you see on the screen in front of you , on the left top left is a big connector and the top right you see an LSA Connector .

So the question that was put to me is what is the difference between these two connectors ? Right now , I've terminated both of these . I'm changing glasses because I can see better with these right . So let's start off with the Bix block . That's the one on the left-hand side . Now , when you look up in catalog it's always spelled B-I-X , b-i-x .

Just looking to do an Ethernet birth test , what like in Cas-7 , but want to verify . I have a termination . Oh , jason took and fiber flippers in the house so I've got some test people in here that might be able to help you with that Moving on .

So it's actually B-I-C-S and that's like acronym , another acronym and it stands for Building Industry , cross Connect , but it's pronounced Bix , so people just spelled B-I-X . Now Bix is used for IBDN work and that is information building something , distribution network , integrated building , distribution network .

So , and it was actually created by a company called Nortel , nortel and it uses a dovetail base and you can terminate both unshielded and shielded cabling . Okay , that's the Bix block I'm talking about there on top . Let's see in the screen of your thing .

It can accommodate cables between 22 and 26 gauge and it does not allow you those to stack conductors like the 66 blocks . We could actually put two conductors on a pin , but you can't do that with the Bix blocks . Now , according to the Bix telecom distribution methods manual , the TDMM , you can actually get these Bix blocks up to category 6A .

I've never terminated one up to category 6A . It's been years , decades , even since I've terminated one , it was probably cat 5E or maybe even cat 3 , right Now , when you actually look at the pins inside of that Bix block , it's a phosphorus-blond alloy that's played with tin alloy .

So the way that you actually would terminate this block , when you look at the block you'll notice there's some labeling in the middle of the block , but then there's these two holes on the very left-hand side and two holes all the way over in the right-hand side .

You actually have to put these two little tie wraps through those things and then you put this block in the holder , the 100-pair holder , and then you bring the cable in from the top and you run it through those tie wraps and then you double it back and then you terminate it .

Now it uses a very special tool , the tool you see underneath that that's called a Bix tool , and I really like the Bix tool when I first started doing terminations with them , because the Bix tool has like a pair of snips or scissors on it .

It cuts the conductor for you and then , after you cut it down , you've got to take the Bix block out , rotate it and then put it back in . I never liked that part of it because I could never get it to look nice . So I'm not a real big fan of the Bix blocks . I'll be the first to admit it . And then there's the LSA connectors .

Now some people know them as the Crone connectors , but Crone was a company that came out with the Crone connector . They're based in , I think , germany , berlin , I think , actually .

So the LSA actually and I'm not even going to try to pronounce those words because they're German , right , I don't want to try it but the LSA , l is a word , s is a word , a is a word . But those words actually mean if you run them through the translator on Google , did you know Google was a translator ? Isn't that cool ? Isn't that cool ?

You run them through there and what it means is solder free , screw free and strip free . So that's what that means . So the connector you see there the Crone has actually two different connectors . They've got one connector for doing four pair cabling and another one for doing back bone cabling . So what you would do is you run the cable up behind .

They have a metal can that you would mount to the wall and then the metal can . You've got to be really careful because those ends , where the blocks come on , are extremely sharp . Sorry , ask me how . I know that .

Yeah , and then what you do is you run the cables up , you run it through the little hook thing in the back of the block , bring it up over the top , you punch it down with the Krone tool punch tool and then it punches it and then you can't really tell from the picture here , but there's actually a spot inside of that you can actually insert an equipment

cord and you can actually test it and you can actually even do a disconnect with it . Now here's the cool thing . So the Krone tool I mean the Krone punch block it also uses a dovetail design as well , but there's these two connection clips inside of it it grabs a hole in the connector at a 45 degree angle .

A 45 degree angle which is different than the Bex . Now , I remember all the marketing literature when this thing first came out , and he said that the advantage of that 45 degree was , if you're trying to identify a cross-connect and you're tugging on the cross-connect , you're not going to pull it out of that block . Okay , that was one of the marketing tools .

And then the connectors are also phosphorous brown alloy , but the original Krone ones , the original Krone blocks , were played with silver Silver . Yeah , if you're my TDMM study group , remember , we talked about silver this week , didn't we ?

Silver and gold are the best conductors for electricity , but we don't use them for cabling because the cost Copper is a much more cost efficient way of doing that . So my preference to it has always been to do the Krona over the Bex .

Oh , one other thing about the Bex With a 66 frame you start from the left , you work your way to the right and it's one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , ten , eleven , twelve and so on and so forth .

With the Bex , you start down here and you put one there , and you put one there , and then you put one up here and you put one there . It's like a really weird kind of thing , so , but I still have my . Somebody on TikTok says they still had the Krone punch . I had mine too , floating out in the garage . I haven't used it in 20 years , right ?

So , and here's the funny thing . So Krone got bought out . They got bought out by who was it ? I think I wrote it down , yeah . So Krone got bought by ADC , which then got bought by Tyco , which now , I think , is ComScope . So some of your new , some of your new LSA blocks aren't silver-plated , they're actually tin-plated like dollars .

So I don't know if you still get the good advantage out of that . So there you go , alrighty

. So let's go up to the next question Dun dun , dun , dun Boom . So this question came to me via Facebook . I get lots of questions throughout the week and I always save them . I answer them to the people in the in , the in where media they come from , but I save them for the show as well . So this one and I kind of get boiled down that question .

That question reads hey Chuck , if I was looking to get 20 plus of my technicians to take the Big C Tech one certification , what would be my recommendation for a game plan ? First off , I got to say kudos to you . Kudos to you for doing that , because a lot of people in our industry don't .

I thought everybody wanted to get certified in it , but I see a lot of comments from people saying , oh , I don't want to do certification , and they're doing it either out of fear or whatever the personal reason may be . But I'm telling you a certification tells an employer or a potential customer that you're willing to go the extra mile .

I heard that from Lee Renfrow . Thank you , lee . At the Big C conference I told you I was going to steal it . Told you , I warned you yeah , it's going to go the extra mile . So that way , if you're the customer , you know that that technician is going to go the extra mile for you when it comes to doing your job . So that's kind of cool there , right ?

So you have several different options here , okay , and I don't know any of the costs , because when I became a Bixie instructor , that was 20 something years ago . So if you want the actual cost , you're going to have to go to Bixie . I'll talk about that more in a second . So the first option and these options are in no particular order .

So the first option is send all 20 of your guys to Tampa . They go take a class . Now , that's going to be expensive because the class is going to be , I don't know , $12 , $15 , $1800 per person . Then you got to fly them there , then you got to put them in a hotel and then you got to feed them .

That's going to be an expensive option , right , lots of cost there . So option two is you can have Bixie do and I think they call it a suitcase class , right , a suitcase class , so they will actually come to your office to teach your technicians . Now I have no idea what that cost is .

I would imagine it's at least the base cost of the class plus travel and expenses for the instructors and whatever profit for Bixie . That's called a suitcase class . The third option is this is the option that when I used to work for Hingles McCoy that we did . The third option is become an ATF , an authorized training facility , an ATF .

Now , to become an authorized training facility , you got to put in an application , you got to send at least one person down to become a certified trainer . They take what's called the TE350 class , or at least I think it's called the TE350 . It's been a while .

And then what they do is they teach you the class and then you got to teach the class back to the instructors and there's some modeling stuff and then , when you pass that class , now your instructor is allowed to actually teach the Bixie curriculum . Okay , now that's the first step For that option .

Now you also have to build out your Bixie lab , because Bixie is very particular about the size , how it's set up , the number of people that you can have in that room , because they're trying to maintain a quality training program . Now I know when we built our Bixie lab when I worked for Hingles , it cost us $15,000 to build the lab .

That accounts the labor and the materials and all that other stuff . You might be able to do it cheaper if you get some vendors to donate some product , but remember , though , it's got to be vendor-neutral , so you can't just use all of one manufacturer . It's got to be vendor-neutral . And when it comes to the Bixie ATF license , there's two options here .

You can get what's called the proprietary license , or you can get what's called their general agreement . Proprietary agreement or general agreement . Sorry , I got that wrong . So the proprietary agreement means you can only teach your staff . You can only teach your staff .

So you would schedule the class , you would notify Bixie that you're teaching the class , so that way , if they want to come out and audit you , they can and they will audit you . They will come out at least in the very , very beginning , to certify you , to see you actually in action , and then they reserve the right to audit you at any given time .

So you notify them and you got that proprietary agreement . You're teaching your own people and then you get done . So that's a really good way because now you can keep doing that and there's some clout that goes with that .

If you are a Bixie ATF and you put that on your jobs when you're submitting for proposals and stuff , I'm telling you , customers love that and I know that from personal experience . So then the other license is called a general agreement . Now the general agreement means that you can train any qualified individual , any qualified individual . So you can train .

If somebody were to all of a sudden when you become a Bixie certified installer , they could come to you and you could train them and you could charge to pay them . Some people think , oh , check , that's an additional revenue source . Could be , absolutely could be .

Now , what I have found of being a trainer of many people over the years cause for those who don't know me , I'm a . My day job , I'm a trainer and I've been training . Well , my whole entire life I've been a trainer .

I'm always teaching people , but I'm actually being paid to teach people now and for the last 10 years I've taught probably I don't know two , actually 11 years 1500 to 2000 people a year times 11 years , you do the math .

I've taught a lot of people and one of the things I find to be a constant true statement is if you're a contractor and you got an ATF and you are training people and you have the general agreement , other contractors are not going to send their guys to your office for you to train Because now you got that technician for eight hours a day , five days a week

and they're afraid that you're going to steal them . So that doesn't happen too often . So you know you won't find you won't get too many customers that way . But there are a lot of people in distribution , like the gray bars , the Accutex and some other people they're in distribution . They will create a big C lab at their sales office and then they'll come in .

Now you're in a neutral environment and you don't have to worry about somebody stealing your customers , stealing your customers . Now let's talk about pricing . So if you're going to go down the ATF route , you're going to want to reach out to Christopher Hobbs at Bigsy .

If you want to go down that having the Bigsy suitcase thing , you're going to want to reach out to Nelson Cologne Both great guys . I know them both . I've met them . Both Nelson and I are really good friends on Facebook and LinkedIn and all this stuff .

Those are the people you don't want to talk to when you actually do your pricing , because I have no idea no idea period what that cost is going to be Because , like I said , it's been a long time since I've done that . So the next question is I got and this one came in from TikTok and so again I got bull down on that to make it short .

But basically he says Chuck , I want to buy a G-PON OLTC plus transceiver and also a B plus transceiver . If they are equal , why do I need both ? Why do I need both ? You know , I tell you all the time I know a lot about our industry , but I don't know everything about our industry . I had to reach out for some helpers .

The expert had to go to the experts to get the answer to this question , because Chuck doesn't know . I've never done G-Pond . So I reached out to some friends of mine on LinkedIn and I got some answers for you . So when you actually look , I'm pulling up my notes for those who are seeing , so you see a change of light there .

I'm looking at my notes here . So when you look at those two , they both operate at 1490 and 1310 , right ? They both use encapsulating SFP types and their port rates are both 2.49 gigabit per second for transmit and 1.24 gigabyte for the receive . Now , where the difference comes between the B plus and the C plus is in the transmit and receive powers , right ?

So the B plus it can only it puts out 1.5 dBm minimum output optical power , where the C plus puts out 3 dB . Okay , so it's actually twice as strong , right ? So then the maximum output power is 5.dbm for the B plus and 7.dbm for the C plus . For the receiver sensitivity , it's negative 28 dBm on the B plus and negative 32 for the dBm .

So the C plus is it's more sensitive , so it can pick up the signals better and it's a stronger output . But everything else is pretty much almost identical between those two . So that goes to answer your question , right ? There we go , alrighty , and now another question , and then I'll go up to the chat box and see what questions are there , alrighty ?

So this question comes from Brian via email . Brian , via email . Brian wants to know what is the best way to test a wireless access point terminated with a mod-end connector . Now , before I answer this question . I gotta give a plug . I gotta give a plug . Go check out my buddy , steve . He's in the room tonight . Tech Talk with Steve .

He's doing a show on this March 1st . I highly suggest you attend it , because Chuck will be attending it , and if I think it's enough for me to attend it , then you should be attending it as well . So if you're not already following Tech Talk with Steve , you should be , and you definitely wanna be watching that . So I'm only gonna give you the brief answer .

I guarantee you Steve's gonna be typing in way deeper than I will . So let's talk .

So what happened in this particular scenario was somebody ran a category 6A cable from the horizontal cross-connect in the telecom room to a wireless access point in the ceiling and , instead of putting a keystone jack on the end of it and a patch cord , they crimped an APHC or RJ45 mod-end connector and plugged that in .

Now , when you think about your testers , they got permanent link heads and they got channel heads . We can't use the permanent link heads , so it leaves you the channel heads . But here's the problem the channel head the measurement starts on the other side of the mod-end connector . So the thing that you most likely messed up . You're not even measuring .

You're not even measuring , so you have to use what's called a patch cord adapter , a patch cord adapter . They look similar to channel heads , but the patch cord adapter , the measurement starts in front of that mod-end connector in front of it . So you gotta use that patch cord adapter .

And on top of that you gotta make sure that you use the right category rated adapter for that . So if it's a wireless access point , it's most likely a category 6A cable . So you gotta use the category 6A patch cord adapter , the category 6A patch cord adapter .

If you run an MPT out to like an industrial sensor , an access device , and you use CAT 5E , you gotta use a CAT 5E patch cord adapter , cat 5E patch cord adapter . So there you go . So let's go ahead and close that . That was all the questions I had for tonight . Let's go check the chat box .

Now I apologize because I haven't been keeping up with the chat box because , well , you know lots of stuff . Yeah , because I am a one-band show , so I'm doing all this kind of fun stuff . So let me see , anthony says here the Big C installer , installer training course , virtual class central 25 , 12 , 10 AM . So very good , there is .

Somebody put up the link for that as well . I'll make sure I put that in there . Tel-aid is an authorized training facility . I looked them up . Big C has a spot on their page where you can look up by state and find what ATFs are in your state . There's none in Florida . There's absolutely none in Florida , which really , really sucks .

But you know , maybe that's a business opportunity for somebody . If I had the money , I'd do it . If I did , if I had the money , I would absolutely do it . Let me see . Let me see . I'm trying to see if we have any . Well , fiberflip Fiber is on here through Facebook now . Fun fact Nordel's automated assistant voice is Nancy Nordel . I didn't know that .

I didn't know that . Very cool , let me see . Okay , that was the only question . I have any other questions ? So again , make sure you visit the QR code , okay , and make sure that you go buy me a cup of coffee . I'll send you a sticker . If you want to schedule 15 minutes with Chuck Bowser , rcdd , you can do that through there as well .

You can send me an email . Check out all my social media accounts . 629, . Pizza should be getting here any minute . Until next time . Everybody , remember , knowledge is power . See you next Thursday night . Take care .