the_nina•18h agoProlific Poster

Customer told me to stop being lazy with my coax prep, and he was right

Had a job last month in an older building downtown, running RG6 to a third floor apartment. Im usually pretty quick with the strippers and compression fittings, but this guy who used to install back in the 90s watched me for a second and said "youre leaving too much braid exposed, thatll ghost signal on you within a year." He showed me how he trims it flush every time and uses a bit of dielectric grease on the connector. Honestly felt dumb but I tried his method on the next few drops and my signal loss readings dropped by almost 2 dB. Now I take an extra 30 seconds per termination and havent had a single callback since. Has anyone else had an old school customer drop some knowledge like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_harris7818h ago

I mean... I get where you're coming from but honestly I think people get way too caught up in old school techniques that don't really matter with modern gear. I've been running RG6 for about eight years now and I've never once used dielectric grease or trimmed braid flush and my callbacks are maybe one or two a year tops. Most of those signal loss issues come from bad splitters or connectors that were already worn out anyway, not from a little extra braid hanging out. The 90s guys had to be that careful because the equipment back then was garbage compared to what we have now. Spending an extra 30 seconds per termination when you're doing forty drops in a day adds up to twenty minutes of wasted time for something that probably won't cause a problem.

kelly38518h ago

So you're really telling me you've never had a single callback from moisture getting in through untrimmed braid? I've seen braid wick moisture right into the connector on outdoor runs, especially in humid climates. Maybe your area is just drier than mine but up here that extra fuzz is a problem.