Ever hear of Tumidor? I happen to have one which was liberated from Bell Telephone. This provides exactly 1 KHz at 0 db. It has a +10 db switch on it. Cable repair techs used these on spans several miles long. You can, quite literally, hear the tone with the probe two feet away.
It's not fancy, but we did a large job for the housing authority with 600 CAT 6 cables in a similar situation. The bundles corresponded to locations. I put the Tumidor on one pair of a bundle and walked down the corridor until I heard the tone in the probe. I was, at least, 4 to 5 feet away. Once I heard the tone, I knew which bundle went to which location and finding the rest was simple.
I know why Bell discontinued using the Tumidor. Subscribers would complain that there was this "noise or tone" on their line. The splicer could be miles away working on a different bundle and the tone was audible. The trick was to learn how loud it was to determine the correct cable.
Rcaman
