I finally figured out why my coax termination kept failing

Spent a whole 4 hours last Tuesday wrestling with a single RG6 connector at this old house in the suburbs. Kept getting intermittent signal loss and I couldn't figure out why until I noticed the center conductor was slightly bent from the previous guy's bad cut. Had to redo the whole thing three times before I grabbed my micrometer and saw it was off by like 2mm. Anyone else run into a tiny bend that takes forever to spot?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_patel2729d ago

Holy crap, a micrometer? That's wild. I usually just eyeball it and hope for the best, maybe give it a little squeeze with my teeth if I'm feeling fancy. Can't believe you actually measured the bend, that's some next level dedication to a coax connection. I would have given up after the second redo and just blamed the house wiring.

cooper.nathan28d ago

And honestly, that eyeball method has probably cost me way more time over the years than I'd like to admit (like, I've definitely blamed the cable box before checking my own work). But I think the real takeaway here is that even pros get lazy, and a 2mm bend is basically invisible until you've got a tool measuring it. That micrometer trick might seem overkill, but it's saved me from a third redo more than once since I started carrying one in my bag.