Scrap yard security

[Texasmark]

Once a year I take the alum cans to the scrap yard. Been a lot of thieves stealing copper and it looks like the yards, this yard anyway, has taken some positive action.

You have to fill out a form completely identifying yourself including a thumbprint and indicate where the material came from. With alum cans that was a no brainer if you get the gist. Grin.

I told the lady at the window I understood why all the security and told her I thought it was a great idea.

Copper theft is the worse and it is really getting to be a problem around here. Course if they keep electrocuting themselves they will solve the problem for us. Grin.

Mark

 

[NCWayne]

A friend of mine went in to work at his building one Monday back during the middle of last summer and noticed the hood on his old dump truck wasn't completely latched. Turns out they had stolen the copper radiator out of it, probably Fri night, and had taken it to the scrap yard less than a mile away on Sat morning. He found it in their pile on Monday morning, thankfully not damaged yet, but even after calling the cops and explaining that it had been stolen from him he had to buy it back. They claimed they didn't know who had brought it in but then again this place has good security to make sure things aren't stolen from them but they really don't seem to care where the stuff comes from...

 

[John (C-IL)]

I'd say your friend needs to contact the state's attorney. One of the local mechanics had his "good" scrap pile stolen, it was found at the local scrap yard. The scrap yard operator told him to take anything that was his.The penalties for receiving stolen goods are pretty steep, even if you paid for them.

 

[Walt Davies]

A guy stole a pickup load of aluminum wire from a new subdivision he took it down from the poles and rolled it up in the back of his little pickup. Two people saw him and called 911 he was caught driving down the road. It becoming a real dangerous and painful thing around here as the thieved stolen just about anything that is not hidden from site they dug up an underground telephone cable the other day.
Walt

 

[GeneMO]

Over the years the creek on my place has been cutting into the neighbors field. The channel has moved about 200 yards. It has exposed about 50' of the old Minute Man missle cable. I have been contemplating taking a cordless sawzall down and cutting it loose. It is almost 2" in diameter and I would suppose full of copper. The cable was installed in the mid 60's. All of the Minute man sites around us were abandoned approx. 10 years ago.

Probably cost billions to install and maintain, and never shot a missle!


Gene

 

[jlmtractor]

yeah I know what you mean I put in underground utilities and we had to put a 10 foot fence around our shop because of all the extra reels of wire we keep around so we dont have to go to the co-op to get another reel. I would hate to imagine the money they would get out of these reels there is at least a few thousand feet in the reel I never took the time to measure it but it sure is a lot

 

[troyr]

My buddy baught some property and was going to park his flatbed truck there. He nosed it into thick blackberrys and the theives still took his old copper radiator.They left a one-month old battery right next to it>

 

[Sam from WA]

I've got a roadgrader that doesn't have any wires on it settin behind the shop. We left it at a job for a week and went back to get it, and it wouldn't start or nothin. Got off, lifted the hood and HOLY SH*T!! There ain't no wires on this thing! Lucky for us, we still had a Cat D3 to push it on the trailer with. All this theft and crap is a real pain in the butt, especially when they steal stuff you use or stuff from machines that clearly work to make a living. Its sad what people will do nowadays.

 

[Anonymous-0]

What's Minute Man missile cable?

 

[big fred]

Not necessarily full of cable, but also not necessarily easy to cut. Those cables were pressurized so that any attempts to intercept the signals would be detected as soon as the jacket was cut.

Even though the sites were decommissioned, you may be subject to prosecution for espionage if you cut that cable deliberately. It might still fall into the legal category of "military installation". Unless you know for certain that it's okay, you're better off leaving it alone.

And, BTW, that billions was money well spent. Kept us out of a shootin' war.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The linemen crew subcontracted to take down an old high voltage circuit and install 2 new ones, through our place told me the guys on the crew won't fool with the scrap aluminum conductor, they said the power company has submitted samples to the local scrapyards, for theft detection.

That would be the straw that broke the camels back if they took the radiator out of my truck, this problem needs to be mitigated, it's becoming more popular every year.

The scrap business is a remnant of the past, where things were done informally, I hate to say it but they are going to have to get inolved put some measures in place, it's going to be an associated operating cost too, and if people are going to readily steal from one another, what other legal means do we have, how many people are going to have to buy back their radiators, materials etc. and support these thieves. These thieves help create other bad situations, what about the guy who gets totally p$ssed off and goes to the scrapyard with a firearm and takes his stolen property back ? Sooner or later someone is going to snap, this is beyond a nuisance problem and is going to be tough to deal with unless these scrapyards cooperate in some way.

I hate going to these places, you always get sh$t stuck in your tires, + the place near here has a nasty tire wash basin you have to drive through 2x before you are done, can't see what is in there.

 

[Texasmark]

Yeah, but it did it's job.....deterrence. You are free to go and do as you please and you can bet your bippie that was part of it.

Proud to have served USAF, 1959-1968.

Mark

 

[Tim in OR]

I saw that guy when the cops had him stopped out on I 205. I wish more would be reported and caught.
Tim in OR

 

[john *.?-!.* cub owner]

(quoted from post at 15:05:56 03/31/08) Over the years the creek on my place has been cutting into the neighbors field. The channel has moved about 200 yards. It has exposed about 50' of the old Minute Man missle cable.Gene

epending on the location that will either be shielded telephone cable, with a metal sheath and insulated 19 gauge copper strands in it ( less than half the weight is copper), or else a coaxial type cable, which is a heavy outer shield, an insulator, and a hollow copper core. A lot of work for a small profit either way. Of course, being that age it may be a pressurized lead jacketed cable, which might be worth it, but I would make suer it is not being used for other things. you could get a surprised, especially if it is powering repeaters.