ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Voice - Data - Video Discussion inexpensive coax tester

Can anyone direct me to an inexpensive coax/video tester. I'm looking to cut into an existing coax in an attic with a splitter and don't know which end will be the feed. Hate to carry a TV up there with me.

TIA,

Joe

can you ring it out with a ohm meter?

If possible open up the coax at a connector before the attic & clip the shield and center connector together. Once you are in the attic, you can find determine which end of the cut cable of shorted with a ohm meter.

Home Depot sells a relatively inexpensive tone/trace unit for about $50.00 that is made by Ideal. It's not very sophisticated, but is generally intended for just the kind of simple stuff you are looking to do.

A 1.5V penlite cell and an LED would do the same thing.

As a cable technician, I recommend/request the following: DO NOT PUT THE SPLITTER IN THE ATTIC!!!!!!!!!! Run the new line back to the existing splitter, and either use an unused port on that splitter, or add another splitter to the existing one.

With my dad being a cable guy, I gotta agree. Run it to the source, don't tap off.

Ian A.

these are like 15.00

I did an analysis of the CATV system in my home when I first got HDTV, and was astonished to discover I was splitting my signal down to about 2% of the original signal at the box. All the splits really add up...

5-way splitter at the drop- 4 ea to 4 TVs in the old house, 5th to another 4-way splitter in the addition. And then that goes to a 2-way splitter to feed the DVR and TV inputs. The DVR then has an internal 2-way splitter for the dual tuners.

20% x 25% x 50% x 50% = 1.25% per tuner in the DVR, both of which had crappy signals and a horrible picture that would constantly break up on several channels and never work at all on a few others. What it DID have, though, was an excellent signal meter! I added a 15dB amp, which increased signal strength, but didn't solve the problem, which was never signal strength (despite the losses), but signal-to-noise ratio- and the noise remained. I troubleshot all the connections and other lines, but the difference was negligible. (Even when disconnected from cable, I was getting a clear picture of several channels on my one TV- there was just that much EMI bouncing around.) The additional grounding point the amp offered is what finally fixed my TV- Grounded the amp, and BAM, every analog TV in the house cleared up considerably, and errors dropped to 0 at the DVR. Problem solved! My analog TV pictures are still quite lousy, though. I blame my neighbors, gotta be their fault, probably using a coat hanger instead of RG6 or something.

So... ah... don't mind the haters, just use a splitter in the attic

So what is it and where do I get one?