Up in Springfield last month a guy blamed me personally for his cable being cut by a neighbor digging a fence post hole. Now I always walk the full property line before trenching anything even if the prints look clean. Any of you had a customer blow up over something that wasnt your fault?
I was up on a job in Lincoln last week running coax along a brick facade and noticed half the clips I put in last year were already popping loose from the weather. The standard black plastic clips work fine inside a basement but they seem to crack and lose grip after one winter of freeze-thaw cycles outside. Do you guys stick with the same clips everywhere or do you switch to something like metal fasteners for outdoor work?
She said the 90 degree bend looked like a kink waiting to happen and honestly she was right. Has anyone else had to redo work because a homeowner pointed out something you overlooked?
I finally caved after fighting with handwritten tags on coax drops for years. The first day using it I labeled 40 cables in under 10 minutes. Has anyone else found a tool that cut their time like that?
After a guy from the local shop watched me crank one on with pliers and laughed, he showed me fingertight plus a quarter turn, been smooth ever since - has anyone else had a moment where you found out a basic thing you'd been doing wrong for like a decade?
I was testing signal levels and it looked fine on the meter but the whole block went dark an hour later. Turns out the weather seal had a hairline crack letting moisture in over time - has anyone else seen this with the new compression fittings?
I was pulling a new RG6 through a tight spot behind a furnace and my fish tape caught on a nail head. Snapped the fiber clean trying to force it past, had to call my supervisor and eat a 2 hour delay. Anyone else had a fish tape fail on them at the worst possible time?
I used to always leave a solid 3 feet of extra coax coiled up behind the TV. Thought I was being safe for future moves. Then last month I went back to a house I wired 5 years ago and saw my own mess. All that extra cable just collected dust and made the back of the cabinet impossible to close. Now I measure twice and cut to about 6 inches of service loop. Saves me time on terminations too. No more fighting a bird's nest of wire when I'm swapping a box. Has anyone else found a specific length that works best for their typical installs?
At a job site in Detroit last month, I was punching down cat6 on a 66 block like I always do. A Comcast contractor walked by and told me I was killing my data speeds. He showed me the test results on his meter - 200 MHz on a 66 block vs 350 on a 110. Swapped to a 110 block that afternoon and the speed test jumped from 480 Mbps to 890. I still prefer 66 blocks for voice lines, but I'm done using them for data. Has anyone else noticed real world speed gains switching punchdown blocks?
Ran into a solid fireblock in a townhouse yesterday in Arlington and my flex bit was back in the truck. Tried using a plain old coat hanger with a loop on the end and some electrical tape to hold the cable. Worked way better than I expected on the first try. Anyone else got a go-to hack for when you forget a tool?
Got called out to a house in El Paso last Tuesday and the lady complained her internet kept dropping. She pointed at my cable run and said 'those bends look kinky, that ain't right.' I laughed it off but checked my work and she was spot on. I had 5 sharp 90 degree bends where I should've used 45s. Now I always sweep my bends wider on coax, saves me callbacks. Anyone else had a customer teach them something?
Drove 45 minutes back to a house in the suburbs last week because a guy said his cable was cutting out every night at 8 PM. I get there, check the line, everything's solid. So I ask him to show me what he means. He takes me to his bedroom where he's got the TV on, and says see right there. It's a commercial for a streaming service with a fake glitch effect. I stood there for a second thinking he was joking. He wasn't. He dead serious thought the TV was broken because of a 3 second ad. Wasted an hour of my day on that. Has anyone else had a homeowner freak out over something this dumb?
I was digging through some old boxes in my van last week. Found a spool of RG-59 from 1987. The shielding is basically aluminum foil, no braid at all. Looked up the specs online and it only handles like 50 MHz tops. Today's RG-6 can do 3 GHz easy. Been running new drops with that junk for some older clients. Just assumed all coax was the same. How many of you still see ancient cable in attics?
Went to a job in Des Moines last month where a new fiber run failed and the backup copper pair on an old 66 block saved the day, and I think we ditch traditional cabling too fast just because it's not shiny anymore, has anyone else had a copper setup bail them out when the new stuff went down?
Ngl, I was at this attic in Phoenix last July and the temp was brutal, plus that loose fill insulation just kept collapsing on me. I tried using a glow rod with a slight bend at the tip and it actually helped guide the cable through without disturbing the insulation as much. Has anyone else tried bending their rods a bit for tricky attic runs, or do you have a better method?
I went with the glow rods because I figured they'd handle the 90 degree bends better and I didn't want to deal with the tape getting stuck halfway. Anyone here have a preference for long buried conduit runs or is it just whatever you grabbed first?
Was reading through a training manual from Belden last week and they said most signal issues come from the connector termination, not the cable itself. That stat really stuck with me... makes you wonder how many hours we waste swapping cable when the real problem is a loose compression fitting. What do you guys think, should we be spending more time on connector training or is the cable quality actually worse than they're saying?
So I was working in a basement last week, had to run cable through a drop ceiling from 1985. I grabbed my drywall saw thinking it would be cleaner than scissors. Man, that tile just crumbled and dust went everywhere, took me 20 minutes to sweep up. Learned that old ceiling tiles are super brittle and you are better off using a utility knife to score them first. Next time I bring a shop vac right under the cut spot. Any of you guys got tips for dealing with ancient ceiling tiles?
Tbh, after a service call in a condo last week where I had to cut 20 zip ties just to trace a bad line, I'm never going back. Has anyone else made the switch and noticed how much easier rework gets?
Was doing a new install in a condo downtown last week. Lady stood on her balcony the whole time with her phone out. After I finished she called my office and complained I was "suspicious" because my ladder touched her railing. My boss told me someone has been going around pretending to be a cable tech to case apartments. Now I always wear my badge on the outside and tell the office exactly which unit I'm in before I start. Has anyone else had weird run-ins with tenants watching you too close?
Last Tuesday I was out in Maplewood tracing a dead line in a customer's basement and my probe kept giving me false positives on every wire. Turns out the tip was cracked from where I dropped it the day before. Anyone else ever had a tool fail at the worst possible moment on a job?
Picked up one of those no-name toner and probe kits off Amazon last month for about 80 bucks. Thought I was saving cash over the Fluke or Klein stuff my buddy uses. First job it worked fine, found a cut line in a crawlspace no problem. Second job it started beeping randomly even when the probe wasn't near anything. By the third house I had to borrow a coworkers tester because mine just kept screaming at me with no signal. Took it apart and the battery contacts were all corroded and loose. Now I'm out the money and gotta spend real cash on a proper unit. Any of you guys had luck with those cheaper toners or should I just bite the bullet on a Fluke?
I started this job last month in a 1970s house over in Oakwood, total rats nest in the attic. Took my time planning the runs and labeling everything before I pulled a single wire. Ended up wrapping up this morning, 3 full days before the deadline my boss gave me. The homeowner even offered me a beer and said he appreciated how clean everything looked. Anyone else ever get a good feeling when a messy job goes smoother than you expected?
I used to do all my low voltage cable clips with a hammer tacker for like 8 years. Thought it was just fine, bang bang bang and done. Then I got on a big commercial job in Phoenix around 2018 where we had to run over 200 drops of cat6 in a drop ceiling. The GC kept complaining about the noise from hammer tackers echoing through the whole floor. So the foreman made us switch to pneumatic staplers for the clips. Man, what a difference. The stapler is way lighter on the wrist after a full day, no more sore arm. And the clips seat perfectly flat every time, no bent ones or misfires. Now I won't go back. The only downside is dragging the air hose around but for production it's totally worth it. Anyone else made the switch and felt the same way about wrist fatigue?
I started installing cable back in 1998 and back then we used those heavy RG59 cables with the crimp-on connectors that always gave me trouble. Now everything is RG6 with compression fittings and it takes me half the time to terminate a run clean. Anyone else remember fighting with those old crimpers and wondering why your signal kept dropping?