The difference a proper coax prep tool makes is night and day

I used to just use my snips and a utility knife for stripping coax, figured it was good enough. But last month I finally bought a real coax prep tool for $25 after fighting with a bad connection on a job in an attic. The strip came out clean and even the first time, and my signal loss meter dropped from -12dB to -7dB on that same line. Has anyone else noticed a big difference after switching to a dedicated prep tool?

3 comments

3 Comments

irisowens1mo ago

Wait, you were getting -12dB from bad prep work?

adams.uma1mo ago

Old school tech I used to work with swore by the Knipex strippers for coax. Said he could do it blindfolded. I tried his method once and ended up with a cut shield and a bad day. So I bought a Klein prep tool after reading a post from a guy who worked at a cable company for 20 years. He said it was the single best tool in his bag for keeping signal clean. That -5dB drop you saw matches what I got too. Mine went from -10 to -5 on a really old line in a customer's house. Dirty cuts are just noise waiting to happen.

wade2501mo ago

Right? That's like using a butter knife for surgery and wondering why it's messy. @irisowens probably thought the cable was haunted with that -12dB reading.