Appreciation post: That moment I realized I was stripping coax wrong for 2 years

Honestly I was out at a job in North Carolina last Tuesday and an old timer came by to help me with a tricky box. He watched me strip the cable and just sighed. He showed me how I was cutting too deep into the dielectric and causing signal loss the whole time. I had been fighting intermittent issues on like 15 jobs before that and never connected it. He told me to use the compression tool at a 45 degree angle instead of straight on. Has anyone else had a basic skill click way later than it should have?

3 comments

3 Comments

lindal131mo ago

The real issue nobody's talking about is how stripping coax wrong changes the impedance match at the connector. I had this same problem for years with a batch of Belden 1694A cable in a hospital job back in 2018. Turns out cutting into that dielectric shifts the capacitance just enough that reflected signal bounces back down the line and messes with the return loss. That's why your signal might look fine on a simple continuity test but falls apart under a real load test like a DOCSIS 3.1 modem trying to bond channels. The old timer probably wasn't gatekeeping, he was saving you from a call back three weeks later when a customer's internet goes to crap during a firmware update. I've seen it happen to guys who swear by the teeth method and then wonder why their SNR margins are garbage. It's physics, not opinion.

ryantorres1mo ago

Ngl, are you sure it's that serious though? Like yeah you were stripping wrong but is a few degrees on your compression tool gonna make or break the whole job? I've seen guys strip coax with their teeth and the signal still worked fine. Unless you're doing some kinda high end commercial work where every dB matters I feel like you're overthinking this. I had an old timer tell me my crimps were garbage once too but honestly half that stuff is just gatekeeping.

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dianaanderson1mo ago

Yeah totally get where you're coming from @ryantorres. I think there's a fine line between legit best practices and old timers just wanting to feel important by nitpicking everything you do. Like if the signal works and the connector isn't falling off, who really cares that much?