Day 9

The stage manager's console, my work for the past few days. The video screens all feed back to the control room. The stage manager also has full intercom, paging, cue light and house light control.

Today was a continuation of yesterday's cable pull. As a recap, we needed to get a bunch of video cables from the stage left wing (the control room) to the stage right wing (the stage manager's desk). Since we can't run cables across the stage, we need to use existing conduit. For this run, we drop below the control room into the electrics shop, then up to the dimmer room. We then travel all the way under the audience to the Orchestra Services department (under stage right). Then we go up to the stage right wing.

We ended yesterday outside of Orchestra Services, and pulled the video cables up to the Stage Right wing. From there, it was a struggle to get it through the ductwork, down a cable trap to the stage management desk. But it happened. :)

Towards the end of the day, I decided to figure out why one of the existing cables Stage Right SAID it was going back to the control room, but in fact was not sending or receiving any signal. It was labeled the same as a cable in the control room, but all testing indicated that there was a break somewhere. I grabbed the sniffer and started poking.

A sniffer has two parts: A tone generator, which you attach to one end of the wire/cable, and a sniffer, which has a metal probe and a speaker. The tone generator sends an alternating tone (high, low, high low, think of a police siren) and the sniffer "listens" as you hold it's metal probe to the cable you're sending tone to. It's great to find a cable in a stack of other cables (like finding a needle in a stack of needles).

I knew this line worked in the control room previously, there was paperwork that referenced it in years past. So, it's time for the grunt phase. I grab a flashlight and a hardhat, and FOLLOW the conduit down into Orchestra Services, through the orchestra pit (with lots of other conduit, too), through the percussion storage room, into the dimmer room, up to the control room junction box. Every chance I can break the conduit and get to the cable, I jam the sniffer in, and I'm getting a tone. This means that the cable is still good, all the way from the stage right wing to the entrance of the control room. This also means I don't have to pull new cable. I continue following the cable through the conduit to the patch bay, and I get tone all the way to the end of a cable. A different cable.

To recap: I have a cable labeled the same in both the control room and the stage right wing. The ACTUAL end of the cable in the control room is labeled something differently. So then what's the original cable's (in the control room) real purpose? I'll have to find that out another day. Needless to say, my original project is done.

I had purchased a bunch of groceries yesterday, and resolved to cook it all for meals for the next few days. By 11pm, I had six meals done, with some other frozen meals for when I get home (the cooked meals will mainly be lunch at work).

See you tomorrow!
-Matt