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Bought a $200 cable toner that lied to me every time
Picked up one of those fancy Fluke toners last month thinking it would save me hours tracing lines in a new build in Denver. Turns out it kept picking up phantom signals from nearby live wires, sent me chasing the wrong coax for 3 hours straight. Anybody else had a toner that just flat out fibbed on you?
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emma_rodriguez305mo ago
@anthony763 could probably chase a ghost tone faster than that Fluke after a few coffees. Had a cheap toner from Harbor Freight once that insisted a dead cable was live, ended up cutting into a live line and smoking my whole tester.
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anthony7635mo ago
Three hours chasing the wrong coax because of phantom signals? That's brutal man, I'd have launched that thing into the drywall.
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williamw755mo ago
...and I'm sitting here wondering if three hours is really that bad. I've had a toner that was off by a few feet on a 50-pair cable and still called it a win because at least it pointed me in the right building. Sounds like your Fluke was garbage, sure, but maybe the problem is more about trusting a $200 gadget to do the thinking for you instead of just using your ears and a little logic. I've seen guys spend half a day chasing a bad tone only to find out the cable wasn't even terminated. So yeah, it sucks, but launch it into drywall? That's a bit dramatic for a Tuesday.
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