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Spent 4 hours chasing a signal drop in a 1920s brick house
The drop was in a back bedroom, and the attic crawl was a nightmare of old knob and tube wiring. I finally found the issue where the coax had been pinched behind a baseboard heater for probably 20 years. Re-ran the whole line and it was perfect. Anyone else have a crazy old house story that ate up a whole morning?
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xena_brown501mo agoMost Upvoted
My old 1912 craftsman had that same knob and tube mess. I learned to always check where the line runs near any old heat source, like a radiator pipe or chimney chase. The jacket just cooks over time and gets brittle. You find the break, but the whole run is shot. That pinch point behind the heater is a classic spot.
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rowan21mo ago
Yeah, I used to think you could just patch a spot like that. But you're right, @xena_brown50, once that old jacket goes crispy near a heater, the whole section is basically toast. Makes sense now.
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felixramirez17d ago
Gotta push back a little on @xena_brown50 here. I've seen plenty of old coax that looks like death warmed over but still passes signal fine after you clean up the connection. That crispy jacket thing is real, sure, but it doesn't always mean the whole run is toast. Sometimes you just gotta trim back a few inches and put a new connector on. I've got a 1928 house myself and I swear half the time the issue is just a loose fitting or a nail in the line, not some deep fried cable jacket. Feels like folks get a little dramatic about old wiring sometimes, you know?
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