The Coax Tester — A Helpful Gadget
Coax cables are among the top materials used for networking a house or office. Regardless of whether it is about satellite, cable, or even internet, coax wire has a possible application in most rooms of the house or business. Such as with many other networking cables, the coax connector will be a product frequently used to debug a network of cables in a home or office. The coax tester is a handheld instrument designed to put a tone signal on a coax cable to find and identify several cables situated in a structured media panel or enclosure. Coax connectors typically come with four to eight uniquely colored F-terminators. Some models like the Test-Um CX200 also include a southwest end launch connector because these are common in CCTV applications.
In this section, we’ll tell you how the coax connector operates. For most models, press and hold the TEST button and release when ready to test the cable. Results are displayed for several seconds before shutting off automatically. An LED will light the color of the terminator found. If there are splitters linked in the path, an LED will light for every terminator. Before going through these steps, perform a quick assessment to determine if any voltage is on the coax cable. A positive DC or AC voltage on the cable would trigger the ‘voltage’ LED of the coax termination to light. If this happens, disconnect the coax tester from the line and remove the voltage-producing source from the coax cable arrangement. Coax testers will not typically test cable with powered amplifiers, isolation splitters, attenuators, directional taps, power dividers, or transformers.
As mentioned earlier, coax testers are battery-operated. Most models like the Advantage Meters ADV1018 and ADV1008 are sold with 3V batteries included. Consider rechargeable batteries if you are a professional installer that uses the coax tester frequently and your model offers that option. If the batteries aren’t rechargeable, you will need to keep a watchful eye on their charge.
