HamWAN is in the business of deploying lots of long CAT5 cables,
terminated by amateurs, in remote locations. We often have a hard time
getting the terminations right. In the worst cases, the problems are
only discovered once the cables are installed on a tower, and need to be
re-terminated up there. A method of testing the cables before
installing them would save us headaches and speed up deploys.
Can someone volunteer to lead an effort to research the market and
select an appropriate cable tester? HamWAN would then purchase at least
2 of these, and keep them with folks who are doing site deploys.
Here are some requirements I'd like the tester to meet:
0) The tester is a reliable quality device.
1) Ability to detect proper shield termination, since we use shielded
CAT5 to keep RFI down.
2) Ability to report performance characteristics of the cable, beyond a
simple pass/fail LED.
3) Ability to operate in rainy conditions.
4) Battery powered, preferably rechargeable.
5) UI friendly to color-blind people. :)
Additional requirement suggestions welcome.
--Bart
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