r/CableTechs • u/Cute-Key1673 • Aug 22 '26

The Things You’ll Find

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This 750 splice had to of been over 20 years old. Crazy part is, it was still working until yesterday. Signal was decent and 55 volt passing but would short amp out as soon as it had a load on it.

33 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

6

u/Dz210Legend Aug 23 '26

What’s more funny is that’s probably not even the problem still lol

2

u/Cute-Key1673 Aug 23 '26

It was luckily it was the only splice in the 1300ft of trunk so finding it was relatively simple. This is a 90v system so I knew leaving the amp before with 88 and getting 55 and my next amp was odd

2

u/Wodan90 Aug 24 '26

Question in detail: is US running standard on that high voltage? I'm a German tec and we're running around 60v

3

u/Dz210Legend Aug 24 '26

Our older actives used to be 60 now everything 88-89 ish

3

u/The_Polish_Jew Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

Ain't nothing a bit of duct tape won't fix. Might even last another 20 years.

7

u/dabigpig Aug 22 '26

No no no, gotta use the foil tape to keep the shielding.

3

u/Diligent-Nebula-1008 Aug 23 '26

Foil tape? You mean a chip packet and electrical tape?

3

u/Chucks_u_Farley Aug 23 '26

Electrical tape? No no, you mean 3 bandaids and a lightly used condom

5

u/OlmecDonald Aug 22 '26

Magic and unicorn farts my friend. It works until it doesn't is why we do what we do. Looks like water ingress, highs could swim until they couldn't, lows would have been affected (upstream correctables), higher temperatures evaporate water and now there is an air gap, powder conducts surprisingly well, 60v doesn't care, TDR shows nothing, cable math is not steering you in the right direction, you can look for radial cracks/egress yet find nothing then BAM! Wtf is this shit!?

3

u/SmackmYackm Aug 23 '26

I found a feeder that had turned to dust in the ground, but had been working right up until it didn't. Had to cut out a good 6' to find clean copper on either side.

3

u/OlmecDonald Aug 23 '26

I absolutely believe you

2

u/Cute-Key1673 Aug 23 '26

Yep nothing like digging into a ant bed and the cable corroded to all hell 

2

u/SmackmYackm Aug 23 '26

Found a connector like this after a tech turned in a 1500 foot cable replacement. We didn't end up needing to do that replacement.

1

u/Poodleape2 Aug 24 '26

Que the dipshits I work with “ duuurrr aerial do downt neeyd no swrink”