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Used to guess at signal levels with a $40 meter, now I chart every drop at the tap
I used to just eyeball it, hook up the meter, see a number in the green, and call it good. But after a callback in Tucson where the customer's modem kept dropping every night, I started logging readings at the tap, at the splitter, and at each outlet before I leave. That one job showed me the drop was hitting 47 dBmV at the wall and the spec sheet said 45 max, and that 2 dB was enough to cause intermittent issues nobody caught for weeks. Now I take 5 minutes to snap a photo of the meter with the date stamp on every job, and it has saved my butt on 3 callbacks since. Any of you keep a log like this or do you just trust the meter beep and move on?
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richard_wells594d ago
How are you logging those readings, paper or phone app? I ask because I tried paper first and the ink would smear in the rain, then switched to a notes app but had no way to line up the photos with the address. What finally worked for me was a simple spreadsheet on my phone with columns for tap, splitter, and each outlet plus the date, so I can pull up the whole history when a modem starts acting up. Curious how you keep the photos tied to the job.
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