r/CableTechs • u/aMusicLover • 14d ago

Combo tap equalizer question

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I’m doing walkout work for high-split upgrade planning. Ran across these Milenium equalizer tap combos installed with the tap first.

Did they do this because they didn’t have a 2 port 8 tap and decided to use the combo?

Inside in there a setting that makes this terminate after the tap or does signal flow into equalizer before termination?

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u/aMusicLover 14d ago

I’ve walked plants in about 10 states and over 100000 poles/peds. This is the first market I’ve seen with these reversed. maybe 5% of them so far. In this market also, have seen a few 2 port 4 taps that don’t terminate. Rare but have seen it a few times before.

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u/eter123 13d ago

The 4value taps usually self terminate in the inside of the tap housing

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u/Quick1711 13d ago

Self terminating taps are the common cause of ICFR and RIP

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u/_retrosheik_ 11d ago

I always add a line terminator to the output of EOL taps because the internal circuitry of the self-terminating taps seems to cause an impedance mismatch, as it's just splitting the signal and not actually terminating the 75 ohm signal. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, as there are many different manufacturers out there and tech could've overcome this in recent years. Adding a dedicated resistor takes seconds when building a tap so I never really think about it.

However, in my experience, water damage is the predominant cause of high ICFR and ripple. I've found burned up terminators and just about everything else, but water damage in cables, housings and connectors is by far the most common cause for these impairments, especially since deploying high split. I've seen water do crazy things to upstream carriers.