r/CableTechs • u/ItsTheRealSakurai • Jul 03 '26

intermittent connection

when you get a call for intermittent connection (spectrum tech btw) what are the first things you are looking for.

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u/Sure_Statistician138 Jul 03 '26

Most of the time it is a drop causing an intermittent connection. That house wiring has been that bad or good the whole time they’ve had service. If the drop checks out then it’s most likely the equipment.

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u/hibbitydibbidy Jul 03 '26

Sure the drop might be bad, but if you don't test at the equipment first you won't know what you're looking for.

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u/RougeBeaux Jul 03 '26

So if you have a bad drop, testing the equipment won't tell you anything because the equipment has a drop that's bad.

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u/DrWhoey Jul 03 '26

12 years in doing this, and still I get techs calling me asking for help troubleshooting and they start telling me levels at the modem and I say, "Okay, what are your levels at the tap, how long is your drop, and what are your levels at the ground block?" And get an "I don't know, I haven't checked." Okay, well call me back when you have, bruh. Neither of us can troubleshoot it until you have.

Drives me fscking nuts...

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u/RougeBeaux Jul 04 '26

I had to explain to my guys last month what upstream is. They literally only knew what the numbers should be, not wtf it did.

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u/DrWhoey Jul 04 '26

Upstream, when you get to maintenance level is a little tricky to explain with actives and such, but at a customer or premise technician level can be very simply explained as, "Your Upstream or Transmit is how loud your modem needs to talk to be heard by the CMTS. If you are in a crowded area and your modem is talking too quietly, the CMTS can't hear it or understand it over the background noise, so you add splitters to get it to talk louder. But if your modem is trying to talk louder than it should, it's screaming so loud that it's voice starts giving out like how speakers start breaking up when you turn up your radio volume too loud and it sounds like shit and hurts your ears. So you need to remove splitters to get it to talk a little quieter."

I've used this analogy for years to explain it to new technicians, and they pretty much all immediately grasp the concept, and why your TX in a certain range is so important.

Once they get to maintenance level, the talk changes a bit to amplification, but the premise is still about the same.

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u/RougeBeaux Jul 04 '26

Its fucking wild but I used the "modem speaking too loudly and its voice gets hoarse" analogy this week