Customer told me my coax bends were too tight, they were right

Had a customer last week point out that my 90 degree bend on their cable line was pinched pretty bad near the ground block. I brushed it off at first thinking it was fine since it still passed signal. But after he showed me the kink and I checked the signal levels on my meter, the return loss was way off. I went back and redid it with a proper sweep bend, took maybe 10 extra minutes. Signal cleaned right up and the guy was happy. Made me rethink how I route cable around corners now. Anyone else had a customer call you out on something that turned out to be good advice?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_gonzalez13d ago

I'd push back on that, a little pinch won't kill the signal.

miasanchez3d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I gotta say I've been on both sides of this one. In my experience, even a "tiny pinch" can totally mess with the overall balance if you're not careful. I tried that approach once on a pretty similar setup and it ended up throwing off the whole downstream signal, took me forever to track down the issue. Take this with a grain of salt, but I've found it's better to just stick with the recommended levels and avoid any adjustments unless you're really sure. Your mileage may vary, of course, but that's just what worked for me.

the_alice3d ago

I've got to respectfully disagree with you on this one, @spencer_gonzalez1. Back when I was helping a friend tweak their cable run a couple years ago, a "tiny pinch" turned into a 3dB drop that caused random disconnects for weeks until we realized what happened. The issue is that even small adjustments can shift impedance or create reflections that mess with the signal in ways you don't notice right away. I've seen it where things seem fine for a while, then boom, the SNR goes to hell when the weather changes or traffic picks up. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, keeping everything straight and sticking to the spec saves a lot of headache later.