The wires we spliced were usually on long cables, more than 100' long (>30 m). The cables were laid out across pastures, through wooded areas, up drilling rig d

The wires we spliced were usually on long cables, more than 100' long (>30 m). The cables were laid out across pastures, through wooded areas, up drilling rig derricks, etc where they would remain until the data had been acquired or the well drilled. After that, they were rolled up and stowed for the next job or moved forward on the line and redeployed, again for several days at a time. The emphasis here was on maintaining the ability of the cable to be easily rolled and unrolled multiple times. If mechanical splice connectors had been used then each cable would have a section which was much larger diameter than the unspliced cable diameter and if you didn't match the curl in the cable when you did the splice it would make the cable hard to roll since the coils would not lay flat. Some cables might accumulate multiple splices before aging out of the inventory and all those fat splices would make it hard to deal with very quickly. The idea here is to produce a taped and sealed splice that has a final diameter that is as close to the unbroken diameter as possible so that there is nothing for the cable to hang on if it has to be pulled or dragged across the terrain or some machinery. Crimp splices, especially if you have multiple conductors cut will always produce a section of the cable that has a much larger diameter after splicing than the original cable and will be less flexible and therefore harder to deal with in the field. Any time you have a guy trying to shoulder or neck roll a cable that weighs more than 100 pounds you need to avoid complicating things. When we did multiple conductor splices, up to 96 channels in my own experience, we had boards that were notched for each conductor pair and they were color-matched and spaced so that the entire splice would be a little under 2 feet long (.6 m) and all of it was looped and soldered. With a breakout box we could check continuity on each channel (a standard daily test) and have confidence that the splice was good before deploying the repaired cable. I guess the easy answer is that you worry less about cracking solder than you do about being able to use the repaired cable as if it had not been damaged. Since each individual repair affected only an inch or so of the cable it had little effect on your ability to reuse the cable after the repair. The whole taped repair on a single conductor could be less than 2" long and would have a wrap of self-sealing rubber tape and a swipe with liquid tape to seal the ends. Very durable for all those chewies that cattle, deer, marmots, mice, etc. would add to your gear if it sat around in their neighborhood long enough. I hope that explains it. By keeping the diameter of each repair near the diameter of the unbroken wire and spreading them along the cable if there are multiple repairs, the overall diameter of the cable ends up close to the unbroken diameter and the natural coil of the cable is unaffected.