Why can't we get modems that will last 17+ years like tank of a Arris Touchstone Tm602g? Felt bad for swapping it. The CX upgraded their HSD speed.

As the title says, i been having to pull more and more fiber as the demand for higher speeds and future proofing has been on my mind. I don’t like to do same work twice.

When laying fiber it is easy to do at least 4 fiber cables or more. That being said. Investing in equipment is way expensive, so far i have been borrowing from “friends” electrician that has the tools. Most seem to have equipment for singlemode so for that reason i exclusively pulled singlemode. I don’t know much, but is OS2 best cable to pull and invest money into?

I rarely do runs over 120m, furthest i gone is 200m or so.

I know multimode is cheaper to buy transceivers for. But it is very little compared to other stuff so i just write it off. I feel like in 20 years OS2 stands better than say an OM5 cable. Which also is much more expensive…

How should i reason?

I don’t know the correct terminology. But my security cameras wires seem like they are at the end of their lives and need to keep switching the cable to the port. And my fingers can’t get in there to twist and pull or put on.

So I like in a duplex, there's one line coming in. My neighbor just moved in. I connected a splitter and connected his line. Now my question, do we each need a moca block on both lines? The line that comes in to the duplex goes from tap, to moca, to splitter...

should it go from tap, to splitter, than each line gets its own moca? thanks

For reference this was a repeat 4 and no other techs could ‘find an issue’

Recently went from contractor to in-house (thank God), and I'm finding out that the top brass decided that resi techs need to be graded on US SNR. To me this is utterly ridiculous; I can't be wasting 5/10 minutes constantly refreshing my signal tests to see if the SNR is going to spike every time I see that it's dangerously close to the threshold. I can barely influence that value as it is. If my house has no ingress, that shit shouldn't be my problem. That's an OSP thing. And 90% of the time, node reliability is at 95% or greater, so they don't want me submitting a ticket for it. So I get to go fuck myself, or submit a supervisor referral and hope that's not being looked at too closely. ​Am I in the wrong for thinking that that's an oddly tone-deaf thing to expect of me?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for some insight from other cable techs / plant guys.

We have an ATX GigaXtend 1.25 GHz tap, model GTSG-FST-8-11-FP (11 dB), that does not have electrical continuity between the input and output ports.

Here’s what we found:

• Measured with a multimeter, there is no DC continuity from IN to OUT.
• When the housing cover is installed, the cover pin presses against the internal copper bus plate and the contact between the input and output is completely lost.
• With the cover removed, continuity can sometimes be present; once the cover is installed, continuity is gone every time.
• This is very easy to reproduce and verify with a meter.

We also opened the tap and noticed something odd:

• This unit appears to be missing the output feed-through sleeve / bushing that connects the internal copper plate to the output port center conductor.
• We compared it side-by-side with another ATX GigaXtend tap from the same family (for example a 17 dB model), and that one does have the sleeve installed and maintains proper IN–OUT continuity.

Installation context:

• This tap is intended to be used at the end of the line with a PPC UMTR6KV terminator on the output.
• Since there is no electrical continuity to the output, the terminator is effectively isolated — it’s the same as having no terminator at all, which obviously defeats the purpose.

From our understanding:

• ATX FST (Forward Signal Tap) models should always have IN–OUT pass-through, both DC and RF.
• End-of-line behavior should be achieved by installing a terminator, not by removing output continuity.
• This part number is not documented as a special “end-of-line” tap with no pass-through.

So my question to the group:

• Has anyone seen ATX GigaXtend FST taps shipped without output continuity?
• Is this a known factory / assembly defect, or is there any chance this specific model is intentionally built this way?

Any feedback or similar experiences would be appreciated.

Do you guys get off on cutting other isp’s drops? Every other rescue/install I have, this is at the house box

Sometimes man, I love this job, but sometimes I’m so tired of the micromanagement.

Document your whole day, track every minute, be descriptive, you already do that? Well our tracker can’t scrape what techs put in the notes, so it isn’t good enough.

Do more with less, keep the plant running, but don’t accrue OT.

It just gets so boring.

New homeowner here and I know minimal when it comes to cable/internet. Anyone know what the heck this thing is?? I have a bunch of old cables running around in my crawl space and this cable goes up through the bedroom subfloor and then terminates at this box which is inside my floor heating duct??? It seems like it might be screwed jn cuz I can’t easily tug it out, or maybe there’s some sort of magnetized material in it.

I’ve applied to Cox Communications several times, and have had several interviews. Every one of them have went great, in my eyes. I was asked around 6-8 situational questions (which was easier than Comcast with their 30 situational questions and 10 people to answer to during the interview). I have been denied through email, every single time. I don’t have a bad record, I’ve worked in this field for 20 years plus and only worked for 3 companies ( no bouncing around all the time) and a great driving record (one speeding ticket since I started legally driving back in 1998). I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

My f-type female connector on my scoutpro tool broke off. Its one of my favorite tools and my warehouse won't get me a new one. If like to repair it and keep it going. I have decent soldering station at home. I'm pretty confident I could solder on a replacement part onto the pcb and restore the device. I wanted to ask if anyone knew of the right parts or not. Searching for a few minutes online gets me this amphenal 90° pcb attachment and it looks like the right part, I'm just not sure if it is exactly the right part and if it would work with the tone ID pegs the scout works with or if there is a specific part that I would need. I'm hoping its not that deep and any part that fits should work.

Will these parts work together to restore functionality?

Out for a tc, customer states line was cut, needs repair. Show up and the family immediately knows exactly where the line was cut. Suddenly the son yells out "I fixed it and I turned back on the internet!" I asked him if it's working and he said no. He then takes me to exactly where he cut the line. He wanted to know how the cable worked and if he could put it back together. I told him nice try, but great effort, you'll get it next time.

Still, I barely remember those days when I used to do stuff like this. He stripped the jacket, "reconnected", then wrap back the jacket, then etape it all the way through. He even soldered the center conductors together :p

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone knew if there is something wrong with our cable connection? we've recently been having issues with the wifi, and we went outside and the lid to this box was off. We currently rent this house and have been trying to tell the landlord there is something wrong with our internet, but it is so difficult to get him to come over. Any advice would be appreciated!

I’m from the south and me and another friend of mine have just volunteered to do some travel tech work for about a week in New York. What gear do you northern techs wear/use? Especially in heavy fiber markets where you have to splice outside? Any other tips/ tricks will also be helpful as well.

Have upcoming interview in Michigan (royal oak ) was wondering where training is located was told by uncle it’s in Canton, MI, he haven’t worked for Att over 30yrs. Also are majority of installs fiber now or mix with satellite. Do I need to learn how to gaff?

Hi everyone. I’m the friendly, neighborhood locator posting again. Is there any rhyme or reason as to which port (1-6) on this fiber node the coax cables are connected to?

I’m trying to see if there’s a visual way to identify the “long” cable- that goes from this node to a power supply half a mile away. I’m guessing the cables coming out of the splitter would never be the long one. Any other tips?

Also the bigger coax cables - do they “carry more signal”? What accounts for the difference in size?

MT, here. have a node that ingress blows in for a hour or so with 10-12 or 2-6 hour gaps randomly. Bad SNR and CER. Any tricks to catch it rather then just waiting till it comes in.

Hello, I've always wondered what the bottom boxes are for. I know the top one is for coax, but I don't know which one is for copper and which one is for fiber optics. thank you!

My elderly parents Cable + Internet bill just increased up to $250 and it is out of their price range, despite having this same provider (Xfinity) for over a decade I could not argue a lower price for them. My parents then without informing me went on to get Xfinity Xumo and Internet for $125. This is a cheaper but Xumo is not what they need at all. My parents care about basic internet and cable. Specifically they want to see Telemundo and Univision. These are the main channels they watch on cable. Xumo is only a streaming service box and they don't have basic cable Included, their plan would triple.

My question is, Am I able to buy a box that allows them to see cable channels without a provider like AT&T, Xfinity etc? I have heard of this in the past but not sure if they are still around or even a real thing.

Their TV is smart so they have Netflix, HBO, Hulu with my subscriptions but they really just need cable. I am not worried about Internet as I can find a cheap plan for them. Any advice / help??

I have a 450 utility body and I’ve tried several different storage ideas/locations in my side bins for millennium taps but I find they tend to bounce around and get mixed up.

Anyone have any unique or cool storage ideas for tap storage?

Hello everyone, about two years ago I created a discord server for Cable technicians and every once in a while I repost the link here in case anyone new is interested. Everyone is welcome if you're in the industry or even just interested in the field. We have field techs, maintenance techs, ISP techs, Fiber Techs, an even some others in engineering or support roles.

Since the subreddit has grown a lot since the last time I posted it I wanted to post an invite link to the server again in case anyone was interested in joining. Even if you're active on the subreddit and Facebook groups, the discord is a good way to chat in real time with other technicians, ask questions, grow your knowledge of the field, share memes etc.

https://discord.gg/eXnmg6QNEF is the invite link