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That time I finally figured out why my coax connectors kept failing
After about 80 bad connections in a row on a job site near Austin, I took a closer look and realized I was stripping the cable with way too much jacket left on, maybe a quarter inch too much. A senior guy named Dave walked over, saw me fighting with a compression fitting, and said "you're leaving too much dielectric, man." Once I trimmed it down to exactly 3/8 inch exposed, every single connection passed on the first try. Has anyone else had a similar "aha" moment on a basic step they thought they had down?
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the_eric10d ago
Wait, you went through 80 bad connections before someone finally told you? That's wild, man. I would have thrown the whole crimp tool into the river after 10 tries. I had a similar thing where I was using the wrong connector for RG6 instead of RG59 once and just kept stripping cables and wondering why they all looked loose. It took me a whole afternoon of cussing before a dude next to me just looked over and said "that's the wrong size, dummy." How do we get this far into the trade without someone smacking us upside the head sooner?
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simon_jackson8110d ago
Would you really want someone holding your hand through every mistake though?
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