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I finally figured out why my signal kept failing on the same two houses on Elm Street
Spent 3 hours last Tuesday on a drop that kept showing 42 dBmV at the tap but nothing at the box, and I was ready to run a new line. Turned out the homeowner had a 15 year old splitter buried behind the drywall from an old satellite setup, and a staple had nicked the shield on the run going into the living room. I tested every fitting three times before I thought to trace the whole line with a toner, which took 10 minutes once I actually did it. Now I keep a cheap tone generator in the truck instead of assuming the plant is the problem. Anybody else got a go-to move for phantom signal loss that saves you from ripping out good cable?
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henderson.hugo23d ago
How did you narrow it down to those two houses in the first place, or did the calls just keep coming back to the same addresses on your ticket list? The part that gets me is the 42 at the tap, because that reading looks healthy right up until you're standing in the living room scratching your head. What made you finally grab the toner instead of just running a new drop and eating the labor, since most techs I know would've swapped the line an hour in and called it fixed? And when you found that splitter behind the drywall, was it actually terminated on the unused legs or just hanging open soaking up reflections? Ask because I've chased the same ghost twice this month and both times it was old wiring nobody remembered installing.
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