That cheap signal generator I bought on a whim actually paid for itself on the first job

Honestly I thought those $40 handheld signal generators from Amazon would be junk but I used one yesterday to trace a faulty coax run on a Garmin G500 setup in a 172 and found the break in 15 minutes. The old method of just eyeballing and swapping parts would have taken me half the day. Has anyone else found a cheap tool that actually held up better than expected?

4 comments

4 Comments

thomas.parker12d ago

@max415 nailed it - a good coax tracer beats guessing every time. How long did that G500 end up being grounded for the break hunt before you grabbed the signal gen? I'm curious if the $40 model had any trouble with the shielding on that coax or if it cut through clean as advertised. Most of the cheap gear I've tried tends to crap out on anything shielded heavier than RG58.

fox.derek12d ago

Gotta push back a little on reesea49's take. That "just guess" approach works great until it doesn't, and I've seen too many guys spend hours swapping connectors and barrels on a hunch only to find the fault was somewhere random in the middle of a run. Visual checks miss stuff too, especially if the coax is bundled up tight or running through a conduit. A $40 tracer that actually works? That's a win in my book (especially since the cheap ones usually crap out on shielded cable like that G500 stuff, so yours holding up is solid).

max41512d ago

Glad that worked man! Good coax tracer beats guessing for sure.

reesea4912d ago

Flip it around and say guessing is actually faster if you know the building. Most coax faults are within the first couple feet of a connector or a bad barrel splice anyway. A tracer is just one more tool to carry when a quick visual and a couple continuity clicks would tell you the same thing.