atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information My first experiance terminating a new upscale house

I was hired as a subcontractor on behalf of a audio/video home theater company to terminate and test the outlets in a new up scale house. I know I have been warned that doing homes has a much lower profit margin by several techs in the past. The manager stated the margin is very thin. This does not surprise me since Vancouver is the most expensive city in which to live.

I was asked if I can do rg59 catv cable. I told them I have a greenlee termination tool. Asked if I can do cat5 and phone and said yes.

Got to the site and the audio site manager showed me the rj59 ends. My termination tool did not terminate that type of end. So was provided a compression press on tool. Manager showed me the mini pcb board patch boards. I had no idea how they were secured inside the wall chassis nor was I showed how they secured to the Cabinet. After he showed me these items and got a idea how they were terminated, he left the site to go some where else for another project.

I began by trimming the cat5 to the extra and curl it inside the cabinate. I felt would allow for pulling more cable out of the wall in the event of some wire was cut "drill in the wall for some other reason and the cable was cut".

The company manager comes buy said my installs looks good, but The termination of the phone and data needed to be done all over again. He asked me if the rg59 cable was terminated, I said no, because the tool that was provided me just pushes out the cable when the head of the compression tool pushed on the head of the termination end. He stated, did my area supervisor provide a stripper, I said no. Three hours had passed when I was doing the walls and could have terminated the rg59 jacks.

He showed me in a picture, the patch panels are pressed into the Cabinet, at the top of the Cabinet. I said okay, will do over again.

I called them said there are more phone pairs, then there are termination blocks, and he said you can double terminate pairs over pairs on that block. I did this, and was using my toner, and in two of the wall ports, heard faint tone signal. Checking my work, the second pair did not hold well into the sockets. This was creating more work running up and down stairs for false or weak signals.

On top of this some cables were not ink labeled. Some cables were ink pen labeled but the cable installer did not use permanent ink and it smeared making it illegible. I do not know if nice upscale homes have a blue-print where cable connections are hooked to which room, this one did not. All total, there were 11 data, 11 phone, 11 catv cables and also, DVR cables, some not labeled, that when installing my toner at the wiring closet, provided no tone to no where. The audio manager stated the dvr will be in the closet. I never questioned him on this, but how in the hell can the operator FF, play or stop the DVR if its in the closet when he is in the living room with the remote?

I was clear that my experience is all commercial and no residential experience. Overall all, I think the experience was a bit disorganized and the lack of fundamental training, which did occur AFTER I terminated the ends, would have sped up the job and completed it much sooner then possible. Ohh the heat that day was unbearable and lost 5 bls in body weight


Do these sort of problems sound typical in a house cable termination project?

Why were they using RG59 for CATV??

I know I have been warned that doing homes has a much lower profit margin by several techs in the past. The manager stated the margin is very thin. This does not surprise me since Vancouver is the most expensive city in which to live.

Bull! Those homes sell for big bucks and you can bet your a** somebody is making good money- just not you.

I also agree with Jeff, what's up with the 59? Sounds to me like this AV company are a bunch of losers.

I was clear that my experience is all commercial and no residential experience. Overall all, I think the experience was a bit disorganized and the lack of fundamental training, which did occur AFTER I terminated the ends, would have sped up the job and completed it much sooner then possible.

I see little difference between commercial and residential as far as wiring terminations. It concerns me that you required training and tools from your employer to do some simple tasks. Ya kinda think that maybe that's the reason your pay was so low?

-Hal

Unless they were using RG59 with BNC which I highly doubt, that would be used for CCTV or TV production type stuff.

Shows how far behind I am on catv cable. I looked it up and it is rg-6. A wire outer shield and foil inner shield.

This is what the media Cabinet looks like https://www.sellntell.com/find_htm/pb.htm?action=item&SK=1280

and the mini patch panel. https://www.sellntell.com/find_htm/pb.htm?action=item&SK=778

Electricians in the area are charging anywhere from 80-100 dollars a hour. Low voltage however, is much lower. When I worked for a company that had BIG national contracts, I was making enough to pay half the rent and other expenses where the wife covered the other half. This job , as a contract was less then that!!

I did not state why I had to redo the cat5 and cat3 patch panel punch downs. It was because the cable was to long for there liking. So I pushed these little PCB board into the panel, which has holes, and pushed the little plastic buttons to lock them in. Think of these little plastic inserts as PC motherboard standoffs.

They did advertise in Craigslist but I suspect, no one was interested with the price they were offering. These little basically 110 punch down boards. The only thing I dont care about them, is there is no way to secure the wire to the board to prevent moment of the terminations.

Whenever I encounter one of those structured media cabinets at least the insides immediately go into the garbage. They offer no flexibility, no room for a router or modem and the cable guy is going to want to install his own splitters and cable fittings (ends).

I did not state why I had to redo the cat5 and cat3 patch panel punch downs. It was because the cable was to long for there liking.

I like long cables because when I s***can those garbage modules I need slack to re-terminate on a 66 block (or BIX for you guys up North)or a proper patch panel outside the enclosure.

-Hal

CCTV is security cameras, typically RG59.
CATV is cable tv or satellite, RG6 or RG11
What Hal says about those media panels. JUNK!

Spastic fingered double post.

There's nothing unusual about the module, it's a standard one inlet 8 outlet bunching block. Pretty worthless for much of anything but square resi terminations. In fact, come to think of it, 110 for resi bunching is retarded!

If you're not using compression fittings for RG cable in commercial, then go out and get with it.
I have PPC, T&B, Digicon (my favorite) and carry both RG6 and 59 connectors and I can use RG-11's but never done so. I own 3 or 4 termination tools for RG and two for BNC's so I don't have to switch back and forth between manufacturers. My least favorite is the little Ideal unit sold in the home improvement stores. It sucks for production because the handles are too short, but it fits nicely in my "carry on" bag.

Carl