We once hired a guy trained on cable systems to do A/V installs with us. At one point during an installation I hooked up to my signal meter using a short piece of cable with an F81. The cable guy told me that wouldn't work because F81s cut the signal in half. This had been taught to him to guaranteed that he would NEVER use an F81 for anything.

I had already learned that he was trained to do things without thinking so I didn't try reason on him. I strung together a half dozen short pieces of cable with F81s and I showed him with my nice signal level meter that the six F81s in a row attenuated the signal by about a half hour. Just one half. He was flabbergasted.

We talked about his training and in a couple of minutes I realized that he was taught mistruths that guaranteed a good installation but gave him zero tools to be able to think through new situations. You should have seen his reaction when I set up a piece of cable (this was back when you could diplex LNB signals) that took an LNB signal from end A to end B while taking a TV antenna signal from end B to end A. He thought it all had to go in the same direction, a logical conclusion, if you don't or can't think it through.

Since then I've seen a situation where a nurse could not think something through because she had been given iron-clad rules to follow. That realization was a bit scary.

And as for the rest of us here, has anyone reading this the first time yet realized that it takes seven, not six, F81s to string together six pieces of cable?