Toning Coax 1

[DTSMAN]

I am currently doing some contract cabling for the local cable company. I have a tone and probe I have used for data and telco cabling. I can not seem to get a strong signal when searching cable.
It is one of the Tempo kits from Home Depot. Any tricks to this? It is killing me in apartment situations with many cables. Shouldn't I be able to to use one of the alligator clips to the outter shield and tone connectors that are connected? It doesn't seem to work at all.
I have seen a small coax toner with a red light and tone, if it isn't one of the loose cables in the box, then you have to undo the others one at a time to find the right one and tag it. What are the suggestions to this?

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[skip555]

you can get tones with f connectors built in or make yourself a adapter with scrap piece of cable and a barrel connector

strip your test piece so you have a good piece of shield and strip back a fair length of center conductor crimp a f connector on and use the barrel connector to mate them

 

[mforrence]

The very nature of coax is to provide a significant shield to the signal going down the center of the cable. Hence, you won't be able to tone a cable that is connected to a tap port. No good way around this...
Mike

 

[skip555]

how about one clip of the tone to the cable shield and one to a bldg ground ?

 

[wires]

how about one clip of the tone to the cable shield and one to a bldg ground ?"

That works fine for unconnected cables.

In a properly connected system the shields are connected to building ground at the entrance. Connecting a toner between a grounded shield and building ground results in little if any tone anywhere.

Unless the all the cables are disconnected toning can be very difficult.

The common practice of having splitters all over the place causes many problems.

I usually start with a hand drawn floorplan showing all the places where coax appears. Then I document where everything is connected before disconnecting everything. Start toning from the building entrance using the center conductor and shield. This will allow you to find all the continuous runs as tone does not always penetrate hidden splitters. If you can map all the runs this way have a BEER!

If no beer then continue by toning between shield and building ground. Unless hidden splitters are grounded you will find the tone on all cables connected to a splitter.

Finally if nothing else works connect one cable at a time to a signal (cable TV or antenna) and take a small TV around and see where the signal appears.

Good luck!

 

[DTSMAN]

Found something here. Wish it weren't 60 dollars but I think this is what I will have because it supposedly goes through the splitters and traps. I looked at the fact sheets and the outputs are way different than that of my network tester.

http://www.valuetesters.com/Tempo-402T-CATV-Cable-Tone-Generator.php

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[mikeydidit]

You know how to get in touch with me DTSMAN. Email me and I'll send you something to use. I bought a Micro scanner Pro kit a while back that comes with several adapters. One of them is RJ-45 to coax. It should work good for what you are needing to do. I use it every once in a while and connect it to a regular tone with a double female connector on the RJ-45 end. Then on the coax end you need a double male and your set.

Let me know If you are interested.

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

For the best response to a question, read faq690-6594

 

[wires]

This might be a better choice in the under $100 range:

http://www.techtoolsupply.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3629