Finally ditched the coax tester for a cheap tone and probe, night and day

For years I carried that fancy Fluke tester on every job, thought I was being professional. Last week on a rerun in a 70s split level, the thing kept giving me false readings because of some old amplifier in the attic. My partner handed me his $40 Klein tone generator and probe, and I found the dead pair in about 4 minutes after fighting the Fluke for an hour. I still use the expensive unit for final signal checks, but I'm never tracing without the tone set again. Kept it in my bag now and it's actually saved me twice since, once on a commercial drop in Portland with terrible labeling. Anyone else run into a situation where the simple tool beat the high tech one? What's your go to for tracing?

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dakota16019d agoTop Commenter

The "terrible labeling" part got me. I've seen that more times than I can count, especially in older buildings where somebody wrote on the wall with a sharpie twenty years ago and it's all faded now. You'd think the expensive gear would cut through that mess, but no, it just sits there blinking at you like it's confused. I'm honestly shocked you fought that Fluke for a whole hour before trying something simpler. That's the kind of thing that makes me wonder if we overthink this stuff sometimes. Good on you for keeping the tone set in the bag, that's the real lesson right there.