c/cable-installers

That $30 toner probe actually saved my Thursday afternoon

Took a service call in a 1970s split-level where the previous guy had labeled every drop as 'misc' in the attic, no color coding at all. Found a $30 toner probe on Amazon last week, figured what the heck, and it traced the line in under 10 minutes after I'd already wasted an hour guessing. Anyone else find cheap tools that outperform the expensive ones on weird older homes?

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milaprice•6d ago

Old timer in the warehouse said something that stuck with me all week

Guy in his 60s was loading up his van next to mine on Tuesday and said 'you kids never had to run coax through a ceiling that was 120 degrees because the AC was broken and the boss said deal with it.' We got to talking and he showed me a trick for fishing lines through existing walls using a chain and a magnet, no glow rods needed. Said he learned it back in 1998 on a job in Phoenix. I tried it on a retrofit today and it worked way better than any of the fancy kits I've got. Makes me wonder how many other old tricks are out there that we just forgot. Anyone else had a veteran installer drop some knowledge that beat modern gear?

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the_nina•9d ago

A customer in Boise asked me to hide all the coax in their walls, even the ones that didn't need moving

Last month I did a whole home rewire in Boise. The homeowner, a retired electrician, followed me around the whole job. He kept pointing at the exposed cable runs in the basement and saying 'you can do better than that.' So I spent an extra 4 hours running everything through conduit and behind drywall access panels. He didn't tip me, but he did hand me a cold beer and said 'now that's how you leave a job.' Has anyone else had a customer who actually cared more about the hidden parts than the working outlets?

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susana66•9d ago

Old coax in a 1980s house beat new fiber today

Spent the morning in Glendale on a service call. House from the 80s. The old RG59 was beat up, paint on it, looked terrible. But my meter showed 0.2 dB loss over the whole run. New fiber I put in last week was worse at the connector. Sometimes the old stuff just holds up better. Anyone ran into old coax that works too good to rip out?

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paige427•9d ago

Customer asked me to snake the line through her bird bath, I thought she was kidding

Got a call last Tuesday in Austin from an older lady who insisted her internet dropped because her router was "lonely" and needed to be near the bird bath for good vibes. She wanted me to run the coax through the decorative concrete because she read somewhere that birds attract positive frequencies or something, I swear I almost laughed out loud. I explained the signal doesn't care about vibes, but she was dead serious, so I spent 40 minutes just sitting on her porch explaining how the modem works with a diagram on a napkin. She finally let me put the line where I wanted, but only after I promised to wave at the birds for her. Has anyone else had a customer who thought nature or superstition was messing with their cable signal?

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james_singh7•11d ago

Rainy Tuesday turned into a 14 hour chaos shift

Last Tuesday the forecast said light showers, but by 9am we were in a full downpour. I had three residential installs lined up in the Hillsboro area, and the first two had attic runs that were basically swimming pools. Third job was a new build with conduit, but the pull string snapped halfway through, so I had to fish a new one with a glow rod. Took me 4 hours just to get that line through. By 6pm my van had water on the floor from my boots, and I still had a service call for a lightning hit that fried the drop. Has anyone else had a day where the rain just turns everything into a nightmare?

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hayes.jake•12d ago

Overheard a guy at the supply house say he never labels his drops

Some older installer was telling a new guy that labels are for the office guys and he just remembers which line goes where. I had to go back to a job last month where the previous guy pulled that, took me 3 hours to tone out 14 cables in a crawlspace. Has anyone else had to clean up after the 'I'll remember it' crowd?

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lilyg83•12d ago

A raccoon chewed through my drop cable mid install, worst Tuesday ever

Last week in Austin I ran a full 200 ft drop, went back to the truck for the modem, and came back to find the line on the ground with tooth marks. Two hours of work gone. Anyone else had wildlife sabotage a job mid run?

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rodriguez.diana•13d ago

That new fiber splice tray sent me back 45 minutes today

Got a job over in Oakridge this morning, brand new enclosure with those clear plastic splice trays. The clips on it would not hold my loose tube fibers no matter how I seated them. Spent 45 minutes wiggling and redoing the same splices cause the tray kept popping open when I closed the lid. Ended up zipping a couple of small cable ties around the tray hinges to get it to stay put. Anyone else run into these trays and find a better trick than mine?

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rodriguez.diana•15d ago

Taping the coax before pulling it, game changer or waste of time?

Ngl, I started wrapping the connector end with electrical tape before every pull through a conduit after a job in Denver last month where the jacket kept snagging. It took an extra minute per run but zero re-pulls, which got me thinking, are we overcomplicating this or am I just lucky so far?

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uma685•16d ago

Crossed 5,000 service calls and it hit different than I thought

Logged my 5,000th completed install last Thursday over in Clovis. Not a planned milestone, my dispatcher just mentioned it after the route. Five years ago I was doing 10 jobs a week and counting every one. Now it's just numbers on a tablet until you stop and think about all those attics and crawl spaces. Anyone else ever hit a round number that made them pause mid-job?

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hugo825•16d ago

Labeling spools by date cut my dead pull time way down

Ngl, I started writing the month on every spool with a paint pen after I wasted an hour on a 500ft run that turned out to be the wrong gauge from my own messy van. Now I can grab the right one in under a minute. Anyone else do something similar or just roll the dice every time?

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hayden466•21d ago

A customer complaint changed how I terminate RG6, no more compression issues

Had a job in Mesa last month where the homeowner pulled the plate off the wall and showed me the center conductor sticking out crooked. Said it was the third time a tech had been out. I was about to blame the crimper, but he asked if I strip back the dielectric at an angle. I didn't, I always cut it flat. Switched to a 45 degree cut on the dielectric and haven't had a single bad termination since. That guy knew more than my trainer did. Any of you guys do the angled strip or am I just way behind?

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the_xena•23d ago

Finally switched to a flex shaft after 8 years of wrist pain

Heard a guy at the supply house say the 90 degree adapter was a crutch and flex shafts save your joints. Tried one on a remodel in Austin last week, my wrist feels better after 3 days than it has in years. Anyone else make the switch and never go back?

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rowanellis•25d ago

The biggest difference I've seen in cable drops over 5 years isn't tech, it's the walls

I've been doing installs in the same older neighborhood outside Portland since 2019, and the before and after on wall material is wild. These new builds use some hardboard composite that chews up my drill bits way faster than the old drywall and plaster I used to deal with. Anyone else notice a major shift in how newer homes are built making your job harder?

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james_kim•26d ago

Am I the only one who spent 2 years crimping coax connectors wrong?

Last Tuesday I was on a job in Oak Park and a senior guy watched me strip a cable. He just laughed and showed me I was leaving the braid too long before putting the connector on. I had been wondering why half my signal checks were borderline. Has anyone else had that moment where an old timer fixed a bad habit you didnt even know you had?

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the_lee•28d ago

Blew a main line junction box in Wichita this morning

Tbh I was rushing on a commercial install and overtightened a connector. Snapped the plastic clean off and water got in before I caught it. Had to re-run about 30 feet of coax and swap the whole box. Anyone else had a cheap plastic part ruin their whole morning?

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paige427•1mo ago

Why does nobody talk about those cheap coax crimpers from the hardware store

I lost 4 hours and $35 on a no-name crimper from Ace last month because it mangled every connector until I finally borrowed my buddy's Klein tool and finished the job in 20 minutes, has anyone else had a cheap tool waste their whole day?

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oscarb77•1mo ago

Hot take: fiber splices got worse after the 2000s tech boom

I started installing in 1998 and back then you had to fusion splice everything by hand with a cheap clamshell rig. Those old splices held for decades with practically zero loss. Now these newer guys roll up with automated splicers that cost 5 grand and I'm seeing 0.5 dB loss on jobs from last month alone. Saw a crew in Tulsa redo a whole node because their $15K unit misaligned 12 splices in a row. The training is weaker too, nobody learns how to read a cleave angle anymore. Am I the only one who thinks the old ways had less issues?

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ryan_ellis•1mo ago

Fished a coax through a wall for an hour before noticing an open crawlspace 3 feet away.

I was in a basement in Akron last Tuesday fighting with a fish tape when the homeowner walked in and pointed at the drop ceiling panel I'd been standing under the whole time. Anyone else ever wasted a job just because you didn't look up first?

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alicew68•1mo ago

Just realized that $60 Klein crimper I bought off eBay last month was a fake

The die markings wore off after 20 compressions and it left burrs on every connector so bad I had to redo a whole job in Bakersfield, has anyone else gotten burned on counterfeit tools from resellers?

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the_riley•1mo ago

That $200 fiber fusion splicer from a pawn shop was a total gamble but it paid off

Honestly, I found a used Sumitomo Type-72C at a pawn shop outside Denver for $200. Figured for that price, even if it was busted I could scrap parts. Cleaned the V-grooves, ran a test splice, and it worked perfectly on the first try. Saved me like $2k over a new unit, anyone else ever score a deal like that on used gear?

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grant.nina•1mo ago

Vent: That $50 crimper I bought off Amazon was a waste of money

Picked up a random brand crimper last month for $50 because it looked just like the Klein one but cheaper. First job in Phoenix, the ratchet mechanism jammed up halfway through a 50-pair bundle. Spent an extra 45 minutes fighting it before I just drove to the supply house and bought the real deal. Anyone else fall for those knockoff tools that look identical online but fail on the first real job?

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xenagarcia•1mo ago

That time I ran coax through a return air duct and got chewed out by the HVAC guy

So I was doing a new build in a strip mall outside Dallas last summer, and the quickest path from the demarc to the back office was through this massive return air duct. I figured it was just sheet metal, so I snaked my RG6 through there and called it done. Next day the HVAC contractor shows up, sees my cable, and goes absolutely ballistic. Tells me that violates fire code and could mess with the air flow calculations. I had to pull all 80 feet of it and reroute it through the ceiling joists, which added like 3 hours to my day. Now I always check with whoever is running the ductwork first before I even think about going through one. Anyone else get burned by assuming something was okay on a commercial job?

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jennysullivan•1mo ago

Back when I used to fish cat5e through drop ceilings with a fishtape and a prayer

Back in the day I'd spend 20 minutes wrestling that tape through insulation and ductwork, but last week I tried one of those fiberglass push rods for a tough run and had it done in under 5. Has anyone else switched and never looked back?

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