Appreciation post: I wasted 2 years jamming connectors on without the right prep
For the first 2 years on the job I was pushing F connectors onto cable that I stripped with whatever cutters were in my pouch, and half my callbacks were pixelated channels or no signal at all. Then a guy named Darrell on a crew out of Dayton showed me his compression tool setup and a proper stripper, and the difference in my connector seating was night and day. I felt like an idiot because I had blamed the cable and the taps for months when it was my own sloppy prep the entire time. How many of you figured out your terminations were bad only after somebody else watched you do one?
Switched to a compression tool and a real stripper after a lead tech watched me crimp one and just shook his head lol. Turns out the center conductor was getting nicked and the braid was half folded back, which explained the pixelation way better than blaming the taps. Watching somebody else catch your bad habit is rough, but it beats another truck roll.