On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Reimer, Mark <mark.rei...@prairie.edu> wrote: > I know Fluke is the king (or at least it appears that way to me). I’m > looking for something that will catch opens, shorts, crossed cable ...
For that, you just need a glorified continuity tester. I have a "LANTest Pro", of uncertain manufacturer origin, which does the job well enough. It's also got a tone generator. The kit I bought included a cable tracer as well. This appears to be it: http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-LANtest-Remote-Tester/dp/B0001XGQ90 I paid around $120 for it, I've had it for years, and it's served me well. For the price and what I expect from it, it's great. It doesn't tell you jack about the quality of the run, of course. For that it needs to test impedance, several kinds of cross-talk, and some other things, across a wide range of frequencies. That's what makes a "real" cable tester so expensive. > ... and I really would like it to tell me how long the cable is. For that you need a TDR (time domain reflectometer). Those push the price up -- several hundred when I priced them years ago. > I think I have some cables over 300 feet, and want to double-check. 328 feet (100 meters) is the spec limit. However, it may work fine anyway. That length limit comes from the amount of time it takes for the collision jam signal to propagate. Most UTP links are full duplex these days. Full duplex links don't have collisions. The spec doesn't get into the "next" limit. Of course, if trouble happens, you're generally SOL, since you're known to be out-of-spec. We have an IP phone in a maintenance shed that's about 380 feet from the switch. So far, it works. :) -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
