Watch out for that old coax in the attic crawl space

I was on a job in a 1970s split-level last week and the main line from the pole was buried under blown-in insulation, but I found a short piece of old RG-59 running along a joist and used it as a pull string for the new RG-6. It saved me about an hour of fishing and kept me from having to cut a new hole in the soffit. What's the oldest cable you've found still useful on a job?

3 comments

3 Comments

campbell.evan1mo ago

Heard a buddy find some ancient RG-8, proving river_scott right about old cable being risky.

tara70020d ago

Yeah running old RG-59 as a pull string works fine if the jacket hasn't gone stiff and cracked yet, just give it a gentle tug before committing to it. I always keep a few feet of scrap coax on the truck for this exact reason, beats cutting open a new spool just for a pull line. The real trick is to tape the new cable end nice and smooth so it doesn't snag on any nails or staples along the way.

river_scott1mo ago

Careful using RG-59 as a pull string, that old jacket can be brittle. Found some cloth-wrapped 300 ohm twin-lead once that just crumbled.