Warning: don't trust the old coax in a 1970s apartment building

My lead, Mike, told me to just patch into the existing line in a unit in the old Parkview complex. I did, and the signal was so degraded the customer's modem wouldn't sync. Had to run a whole new drop from the pole, which took an extra hour. What's the oldest wiring you guys have seen that actually still worked?

2 comments

2 Comments

rodriguez.jordan10h ago

Man, that's rough lol. So the old coax was basically just a dummy pipe at that point? I gotta ask, was it the original cable itself that was shot, or did you find a bunch of crappy splitters and chewed-up fittings hidden in the walls? I've seen some ancient stuff where the center conductor was just green dust.

christopher_flores466h ago

I used to think any coax with a decent signal reading at the tap would be fine. Then I found a line from 1982 in a condo that passed signal but had so much noise the modem kept dropping. I mean, the jacket crumbled when I touched it. Now I just assume anything older than me is gonna be a problem.