[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jb66

One example is I can go to a house and the upstream is 49db and I think that's fine no fault there. But after I get a repeat fault my principal tech who has an upstream meter finds out the upstream at the taps is 34db. So I've lost over 10db on the drop so there must be a heatshrink or damage to it. I have no tools to check that

Surely this is distance & frequency dependent, JB? For example taking 150m RG11 cable as the external example and 1m RG6 as internal with a 3.5dB splitter at the Omnibox you'd get attenuation as follows:

4.5 dB for 45.8 MHz
3.5 dB for the splitter (there may be one on the outside too)
0.6 dB for the 1m coax from the modem
----
8.6 dB total loss based on the assumptions

So without the parameters I've suggested being given, we have no way of knowing if a 10 dB loss on the drop is reasonable.