My uncle's advice about stretching RG6 before clamping saved my bacon last week

He told me to always pull a good 6 inches of slack before locking it in the compression fitting. I ignored him on a job in a tight attic crawlspace and the connector popped right off after I shifted the cable - took me 20 minutes to redo it. Anyone else have a relative's tip that turned out to be gold?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix_adams6017d ago

My uncle who ran cable for 25 years always said the 6 inch rule is like the old "measure twice, cut once" for coax work. He'd get real quiet and point out that RG6 has a memory, so if you pull it tight and clamp it, that memory is just waiting to pop loose when the temperature changes. I've seen it happen on a hot day in a cold attic, that connector shot right off like a cork.

leep8917d ago

Yeah my old man drilled that into me too. Said you gotta treat coax like a stubborn mule, give it some slack before you lock it down. I learned the hard way on a satellite dish install, yanked it tight and snugged the connector, thing popped off before I even got the receiver hooked up. Had to crawl back up the ladder with a flashlight. That little bit of wiggle room saves a ton of hassle every single time.