That is so true! When you add "corporate ego" to the mix, things get really murky. A case in point: Back in the mid-eighties, one very large and well-known computer equipment manufacturer was contracted to install some facility monitoring equipment at Space Launch Complex Six at Vandenberg AFB, a site that was to be (until the Challenger disaster) the west-coast Space Shuttle launch pad. The monitoring equipment was divided into two major pieces, on separate floors of the Launch Control Center and about 200 feet apart. From the moment the system was energized, a number of data channels had 60 Hz common-mode noise corrupting the data on the RS-422 circuits.
My crew was attempting to investigate the noise issue, when we discovered that the supplier's technicians had deliberately "floated" the upstairs cabinets by using insulating washers and plastic sheets to avoid contacting any grounded facility items such as embedded rebar. When advised by our AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) inspector that the installation violated Article 250 of the NEC, the manufacturer's engineer explained that this was the way his company did these installations, and- here's the corporate ego part- they had been doing it that way for years, and his company was highly respected in the computer industry. The AHJ was not fazed at all, and refused to approve the installation until it was grounded in accordance with the NEC. The engineer refused to change the grounding scheme, and the inspector refused to okay the installation. It was an ego clash of the first magnitude! On a hunch, an engineer on my crew temporarily installed a heavy (4/0 AWG) jumper to bond the upstairs cabinet to a nearby facility grounding plate, and the noise problem disappeared. When the manufacturer's engineer was shown the effect of properly grounding the equipment cabinet, he almost went into cerebral corruption, in effect saying "That can't be true! We are industry leaders! We are never wrong!" I was reminded of Robby the Robot (in the movie Forbidden Planet) having a smoking CPU when confronted with conflicting instructions. The Air Force Colonel overseeing this contract issued written instructions, ordering the computer system installers to follow NEC requirements to the letter, or they would be removed from the GSA approved contractor listings. Corporate ego got stomped on, big time! 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -----Original Message----- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of men...@pa.net Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 10:45 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Dispatcher injured by lightning strike When the "expert" label starts to get thrown around too much I like to quote one of my math teachers in junior high school whose definition of expert is worth remembering to deflate any over sized egos. "Ex is a has been and a Spurt is a drop under pressure" Milt N3LTQ Quoting Doug Hutchison <specialq....@ntlworld.com <mailto:specialq.que%40ntlworld.com> >: > What concerns me more than anything....so many experts yet this sort of > thing still happens...(in many fields)!!! > > Hindsight is great!! > > D > <Remainder of this thread snipped>
