Careful With That Coax, Eugene

In the past couple of months I’ve tracked, on two separate occasions, cable-TV signal-quality issues down to improperly-terminated coaxial connections. Both times someone seems to have decided that the end of the center conductor should be flush with the end of the surrounding screw-on collar.

No.

For the record: when you strip coaxial cable, you’re supposed to expose one-quarter inch — sixteen sixty-fourths for the mathematically disinclined amongst you — of center conductor. The collar of the RG-6 Quad compression-fit F-connector I happen to have at hand is, according to my caliper, eleven sixty-fourths of an inch deep. The center conductor is supposed to protrude. Don’t trim it flush unless snow on your television screen and irksome connectivity problems with your cable modem are your idea of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Amateurs.

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