Lost signal on a whole street in Green Bay after I nicked one tiny wire

Had a rough one last Thursday out in Green Bay. Was running a new drop for a customer and everything tested clean, so I moved on to the next house. About two hours later my phone starts blowing up, six houses on that block all reporting no internet and dead TV. Turned out when I stapled the line along the siding, one staple clipped the edge of the coax jacket and pinched the center conductor just enough that it worked fine at first then killed the whole tap once the sun warmed things up. I felt like a total idiot. Spent the rest of the day in that 92 degree heat re running the drop and going door to door apologizing to folks who missed their afternoon shows. What got me is the signal meter read perfect when I left, so I never would've caught it without the callback. Now I'm curious, does anybody else use a staple gun with that depth guard or do you just hand tap them to be safe? I keep going back and forth on buying one.

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val_ramirez10d ago

I used to hand tap every staple because I figured a depth guard was for guys who couldn't feel the wood. Then last summer I nicked a drop in Appleton on a Friday afternoon, same deal, meter looked great, customer called Monday mad as hell. Two hours of my own time re running it for free. Now I use the guard set shallow and swap to a wider crown staple, and I haven't had a callback since. That one pinch cost me way more than the gun did.

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