I keep seeing new guys not stripping coax the right way

I've been doing installs for about 8 years now and lately I'm running into a ton of jobs where the previous installer left the braid all frayed inside the connector. Last month alone I had to re-terminate 4 different cables at one house because of bad signal from loose braid touching the center conductor. Anyone else finding this is getting worse with the newer guys coming in?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_patel4129d ago

Oh man, tell me about it. It's like nobody gets taught the proper way to strip that braid back clean anymore. Last week I pulled a connector off a cable and the braid was basically a bird's nest wrapped around the center conductor. Had to redo the whole run because of intermittent signal drops. I've started keeping a little pocket knife on me just to trim down the messy braid when I find it on new installs. It's honestly faster to just re-terminate than try to fix someone else's sloppy work sometimes. The worst is when they use the wrong compression tool and leave the connector barely hanging on.

michaeljones29d ago

Nobody gets taught the proper way" is the whole problem. Training is just gone now.

gibson.robert10d ago

Is it really that big of a deal though? I fix messy terminations all the time and it works fine after a quick trim. A couple seconds with a knife and you're good. Yeah it's annoying but we've all had to redo a connector here and there. Feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Half the time a dirty cut will pass a signal check anyway.