Outback shocker left Aussie techie with a secret not worth sharing
Who, Me? G'day readers, and welcome once again to The Register's reader-submitted column of cold comfort that we call Who, Me? where you find out that everyone – even clever clogs like you – makes mistakes.
This week, meet a hero we'll Regomize as "Mick" who worked for "a large Aussie telco" in the 1990s (a time when there were not exactly a plethora of large Aussie telcos, so that narrows it down a bit).
One fine day Mick found himself having to head out to somewhere between the Queensland towns of Mt Isa and Townsville. For the unfamiliar, much of the 900kms between the towns offers is hot desert famed for its heat, red dust, and lethal nastiness.
The unstaffed telephone exchange in this remote location required the installation of two 16-amp rack-head fuses on its 50 volt main power cables. Mick notes that this was an unusual requirement, as equipment racks usually only needed one fuse. But in this case the equipment was particularly power hungry – thus the two.
The other trick was that the installation had to be done while the power was live. It was, after all, a telephone exchange, so shutting it down for any length of time would represent a great pain in the proverbial.
