Picked up a trick from an old timer about coax prep yesterday

I was swapping stories with a guy who's been doing cable since the 80s over at the supply house in Denver. He showed me how he strips the jacket with a razor instead of the standard tool, leaves just the right amount of braid exposed for the connector. Tried it on three runs this morning and my signal loss readings were way lower than usual... anyone else got weird hacks that actually work better than the book says?

2 comments

2 Comments

daniel_walker3d ago

Yeah, but you gotta be careful with that razor trick (I mean, I've nicked myself more times than I care to admit). The thing is, the old school guys sometimes forget that modern connectors have different tolerances - like the braid exposure needs to be exact for the compression fittings to grip right. I've found that leaving a little extra braid, like maybe an eighth of an inch more than they say, actually gives you a better bite on the center conductor if your cut is slightly off. Your signal improvement might be more about the perfect braid exposure than the method itself though, since less signal bleed usually means a cleaner connection.

jana1193d ago

Oh man, tell me about it! I swear half the scars on my fingers are from those stupid razors, lol. You're probably right about the braid thing though, I never thought about it that way.