I finally figured out why my coax terminations kept failing

Been seeing a bunch of guys at my company messing up their F connector installs on RG6. They keep stripping too much insulation and leaving the braid exposed. Had a job last month in Phoenix where 3 out of 4 drops had signal loss because of this exact mistake. A senior guy finally showed me to use a compression tool instead of crimping and check every connection with a signal meter before closing up. Anyone else run into this issue with new hires?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahw539d ago

Funny you mention that, last week I was out at my buddy's place helping him run some lines for his new home theater setup. He's all proud of himself cause he watched a YouTube video and thought he had it figured out. I get there and he's already got three terminations done. First thing I notice is the braid is all frayed and sticking out on every single one. He swears up and down he used a compression tool. I had to explain to him that the tool don't matter if you're stripping with a pocket knife and eyeballing the depth. Its like the old timers used to say, you can't piss on a spark plug and call it a rain dance.

green.mason9d ago

Hell yeah man, that's the real kicker right there. How are you guys even training these new hires if nobody's checking their actual stripping depth before they even touch a connector? Seems like a solid afternoon of supervised practice would save a whole week of rework.