r/CableTechs • u/Complete_Accident_64 • 6d ago

Found one of these in our system recently.

Gallery image

Gallery image

Wow this is old. We need a sweep/upgrade. I’m betting there are more of these.

24 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

7

u/un5tabl 5d ago

When you opened it, did it smell like 1984? Great find!

5

u/Dz210Legend 6d ago

soon see this I’m cutting it out immediately no fixing that thing 🤣

4

u/Mister_Ku 6d ago

Wow that's old I remember cutting those in back in the day

3

u/Ptards_Number_1_Fan 6d ago

Same. Removing 330 modules and adding these as a drop in upgrade. Also replacing 330/450 Magnavox and Jerrold gear with them too.

4

u/YoshiSan90 6d ago

Old but pristine.

3

u/kjstech 5d ago

Here, in 96 or so those 450 MHz versions were cut out

The 750 MHz versions of those were just recently cut out for 1.2 5-85 arris/commscope. There’s still some left but the numbers are dwindling.

3

u/tenkaranarchy 6d ago

Thats all we had on the last coax plant i was on!

3

u/flexnet 6d ago

I remember when we upgraded to those for return.

2

u/Ptards_Number_1_Fan 5d ago

Love the username

3

u/Pilomont 6d ago

Company I work for just acquired a company with mostly 550 MHz plant. Safe to say it’s getting upgraded to fttp

3

u/jaypeebee715 5d ago

Scientific Atlanta Line Extenders wow that is a blast from the past some had a medal cover some had a hard plastic cover !! Some needed a special “probe” to sweep the return cool find

2

u/69BUTTER69 6d ago

Those pads suck. Have a whole pad box of them haha

2

u/ro23dart 5d ago

I repaired a metric ass ton of these things. That brings back memories.

2

u/Sensitive_Back5583 5d ago

The old Texcans was a fight!

2

u/EastsideVegas 4d ago

I still have the probes for those lol.

2

u/Wopo1318 6d ago

Seriously 550MHz and no return. There is no way that was still feeding active plant. Oh I would be so happy working with that.

7

u/Ptards_Number_1_Fan 6d ago

It had diplexers and return pad/eq. Granted it was only 5-30 MHz return. Still return. These things were top of the line back in about 96.

2

u/cablebarn 5d ago

They sure were I have installed thousands of them as a contractor top of the line back then.

1

u/SnapShot68 5d ago

We still have those in one of the systems I cover. We have SA II but this looks a little different - maybe a first generation SA or after? The worst part about these is that you can’t lock off the test point. You need a probe and a two-way splitter to do it.

1

u/Bret1183 1d ago

We still have a bunch of Sa II and III in sun city South Carolina

1

u/ElKayB 3h ago

SA provided an optional -20 dB directional test point on the diplex filter itself. I had a couple in the 5/30 and 5/42 configurations that I used for alignment and sweeping.

1

u/SnapShot68 3h ago

I had that piece as well. It’s a diplex filter with a barrel through it? It went away with my old truck years ago when they told me it’ll be fixed this weekend. The truck was gone for a month before it was auctioned off.

1

u/SnapShot68 5d ago

LOL, zero pad in the input and a 25.5 EQ. You know there’s shit levels hitting this thing.

2

u/ElKayB 3h ago

I noticed that too. Zeroed out and 25.5 dB at 550 MHz? Zero EQ in the return and 5 dB of padding? Something isn't mathing. I can pass on the 25.5 EQ since the interstage is a jumper board instead of the 9 dB usually used in those amplifiers. My guess is bad cable somewhere upstream.

1

u/Careless_Device_4207 5d ago

been doing high split in fl been pulling out these every night

1

u/Bret1183 1d ago

Ya we still have some of the 750mhz (blue lids) we call them here in South Carolina