toner/probe question

[jeffmoss26]

I just ordered a Progressive 701K kit from my dad's work
I have heard/read that you cant tone Cat5 cable. I asked a tech at my dad's office about this and he said you can, but the tone has to be on one specific pair , it wont work through the jacket like on cat 3. Any other suggestions on how I can get tone through cat5 cable? jeff moss
jeffmoss26@adelphia.net

 

[franklin97355]

It helps if you spilt pairs. Cat5 is designed to reject noise which is what your tone is. You can hear the tone on cat5 but you have to listen for it and probe all around the wire to be sure. You might want to make up a small jumper that takes the default pair and splits it. bl\wt pair on the white of the blue and brown for instance.

 

[marklouie]

I have not experienced any problems but I would be careful not to use a pair that is being used by the system. Years ago I fried a couple of ports on a terminal server by toning on the wrong pair. We now often use a Siemon STM-8 for toning as well as continuity testing as this allows us to select the pair that we tone on.

 

[daronwilson]

What difference would it make if the tone was on a specific pair? Unless that pair is terminated on some equipment (i.e. loading the pair down) the tone should propogate just fine on any pair. Picking it up through the jacket is not as easy as older cat3, just like franklin97355 says, however it is possible and yes toning on split pairs does seem to help.

We frankly don't tone a lot of unterminated wire anymore. In the old days (relatively), we pulled in miles of cables, terminated the workstation end, then toned them out and punched them down. However, to meet current standards, the cabling requires permanent labeling on each end of the wire. To that end, we need to label the wire as we pull it. So it appears to be quicker to just label as we go, then we don't need to tone. Service and repair of substandard installations of course we still need some method of determining which wire is which.

Good Luck! It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[InnoTech]

i'm not sure of the model number but the toner and probes i use to use would allow you to "strip" the sleath from the copper and "pinch" a alligator clip to each copper of a pair and the continuity would carry the tone. if yours don't have alligator clips, there has to be a way...... hold on, i just searched the internet for the toner you're talking about and found that it is the same kind I have. YES, you can do that and it will work PERFECTLY! i've done it thousands of times, you can also use the RJ-11 plug that it has also, just plug it into your rj-45 and go to the other end. viola! i don't care what anyone says, it WILL work. you do however have to watch and make sure your pairs are NOT touching anywhere or the tone will stop. hope this helps!

Ivan

 

[Bobg1]

Like Daron says, you don't need them as much now as before.
Come to think of it the last time I had to dig mine out to use I needed to replace the battery. Of course now I wondering where it is?

 

[InnoTech]

maybe I've doing things wrong but we always did the same thing as far as labling first however no matter how hard you try, unless you are the ONLY one running the cable and lableing, the lables will always be misslabled or there will always be a need to find out where a specific cable is punched down at on the panel or block.

 

[Bobg1]

If you are having trouble with cables being mis-labeled it might be time to have everyone get together and discuss the problem. As for where things are punched down you should still be able to read the labels on the cables after they are terminated. The only problems we seem to run into is when there are multple jacks and someone miss labels them, but then you can just pull the thing out of the box and check the cable label.

 

[jeffmoss26]

I used a toner the other day at a customer's site because they did not label the jacks properly. They labeled the data jacks but not the phone jacks. jeff moss
jeffmoss26@adelphia.net

 

[InnoTech]

yeah, see you will ALWAYS need a toner.

 

[executone]

I have found that you need a toner for older wired voice systems and where Techs have split pairs at the jacks. I have also ran into places where I can not get access to the jack but they have a long basecord pluged into. A toner/probe is a good investment for any Communications Technician. It should always be handy, but a butt set is a must.

Good Luck!!

 

[daronwilson]

Back to my original point, I said we dont tone a lot of UNTERMINATED wire. Sure we tone all the time, but if you are dealing with a 110 or 66 block, or a modular patch rack, you can stick the non-conductive amplifier tip right near the wire/jack and pick up the tone just fine.

Where you lose signal strength and it gets a bit tougher is Cat5 or 6 wire with tight twist and you are toning on a pair, you just can't hear it through the jacket as well as you could the old Cat3. Sure, it can be done, but it isn't as easy as it used to be.

I have 5 or 6 toners in the truck, wouldn't be without them.
It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[jeffmoss26]

Yeah, the tech I worked with has a ton of toners, he finds them all the time on jobs. Ameritech leaves tools everywhere. I got tone thru a cat5 cable by the way, I just had to touch the probe to the jack. jeff moss
jeffmoss26@adelphia.net

 

[jeffbouldin]

Hook one lead to one ofe the conducters and the other to ground, you'll hear it. You'll probably have to turn your amp down to hear it over the bleed over.

 

[TouchToneTommy]

On Cat-5, split the pairs to be able to hear the tone farther away from the jacket. I usually use White/Orange and Brown/White, because at the patch panel it is easy to get the tip of the probe angled into the jack and hit pin 1 or 8. If the jack is already patched into a hub at the patch panel side, the tone is still easy to hear on the patch cord, but the tone is not going into the hub since it's only on one side of one active pair.

 

[jeffmoss26]

Jeffbouldin, what do you mean by hooking it up to ground? jeff moss
jeffmoss26@adelphia.net

 

[daronwilson]

Jeff, hook one lead of the tone generator to frame ground and the other lead to a conductor in the wire. Assuming you have some ground point around the location.

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[jeffmoss26]

well im working on stuff at home. if i ran a ground wire to a cold water pipe and connected the toner to the wire would that work? jeff moss
jeffmoss26@adelphia.net

 

[jeffbouldin]

Yes it would. I've also loosened a screw holding a face plate on a light switch or outlet. I've done a couple of other things to get to ground that I will not post here because someone will kill themself trying them. If you have help have them stand there holding one lead of the tone generator to thier skin, that will ground it.

 

[daronwilson]

Well I can't completely agree with that having having one end touching your skin will do anything for you. Wearing rubber sole shoes (as most are) will make the resistance through your body to ground very high, thus making it quite unlikely that the audio tone signal will complete much of a circuit. However with one hand on the ground conductor and the other hand on the tone generator lead, yes it will pass through you somewhat to complete the circuit ( of course, so will any other voltage ).

There are many ways to get a tone through the wire, you should try several different combinations if you are having trouble. Try a wire and ground, try multiple wires, try all the wires, whatever works for you.

Good Luck!


It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com