We were working on a house, and the home owner called a Dish Net contractor to upgrade the receivers in there home.

The DishNet guy removed all our equipment without labeling anything. From the roof to our headend panel he lost his 4 incoming wires. He paniced, got up on the roof and hooked a 9 volt battery to one of the wires, looking for voltage.

When I walked in the room he was inserting each wire in his mouth, and was tasting for the 9 Volts. HONEST, in my straightest face I said, would you like to borrow my tone generator! His reply, and he was serious, DUDE! I just cannot find the #$%^&$% wire. Would you like to try?

All I could see was the wet ends of the cables. My installers and I just fell over with laughter.

I guess this is how they do 5 installs a day.

Mike

I do this all the time. I dont use a 9v battery, and yes I have a tone generator, among other mapping tools, etc. I usually do it when the ird is already hooked up to the cable in the house, and i need to find the line outside or at the homerun. Saves having to drag out some tools and go back to the room in question.

Risky? yep. Havent been bitten w 110 yet however. Old habits die hard.

Probably fries a few brain cells each time it is done!!!

No more than the 7 beers and doober he has before he hits the jobsite.

I do this also. It saves running back up the ladder to put a toner on and then back again to take the toner off. The trick is to lick your finger first and then put your tongue and the cable connector on your finger. You get a slightly bitter taste when there is voltage. I had a helper watch me do this and next time he tried it but put his tongue right on the connector. I heard a scream!! Funniest thing....couldn't stop laughing all day.

Dave T

Thanks for quoting that dave.

I once saw an old electrician testing part of a panel with his finger, I kid you not.

Thank jesus for Darwin

This is a stupid (and dangerous) parlor trick. I, too, knew an electrician who'd do this. He's stick his thumb in a basement ceiling light socket to verify it was "hot". The current (assuming you're wearing dry shoes with rubber soles and your body isn't in contact with anything grounded) will only flow through the skin on your thumb. Also, because he was a construction worker with very callused hands, the thick dried-out skin on his thumb was a very poor conductor.

I don't care what anyone says about testing for voltage - AC or DC - some of the things listed in this string to do this are just plain stupid and an accident waiting to happen. This is why the tone generator was invented. Am I alone in this opinion? Let the thrashing begin.

I don't see what all the hub-bub is about. I have a crotch mounted electrode that I religiously use to test 3-phase.

Harvesting peas on the night shift I once jumped off my combine to piss and hit an unseen electric fence with a steady stream...OUCH!

Not to go off topic but I have another good sat guy story. We installed a plasma in a Hooker Furniture lift (nice set-up). We only had the old composite box but we ran component video in our wire loom as DTV was coming for the upgrade. Our Audioquest ITCs with ID condoms in red, green and blue were obviously not enough for this idiot so he "ran" his own. Stuck them through the side of the gear area and plugged them into the raised TV. They were only 2 meters long so they were tight and not tied. When the clients lowered the TV that night the lines got caught in the mechanism. One was severed and the others managed to yank the satellite receiver sideways. When they raised it again the lines pulled out of the TV (thankfully not forcefully enough to damage the inputs) and we got called back out.

I saw a t-shirt once that I really liked... it said "Don't you wish ignorance was painful?"

Okay, Mike, you are making us Missourians look bad. Was this guy from Arkansas or just the Ozarks?

Okay, funny story that my guys love to bring up all the time. When I first went into business I had a partner that knew nothing. Once I got rid of him I worked by myself for a couple of months before hiring some guys.. During this time I learned to work on the phones after disconnecting from the demarc. But I never thought the shock was that bad. So we are doing a basement finish one day, and one of my guys dares the other to touch the phone lines to his tongue. I start laughing and tell them I will do it. "It is about the same shock as a 9 volt battery." were the famous last words. Well just as I touch the wires to my tongue they must have been getting a call because it hurt so bad I saw spots. My tongue immediatley dried out and I had the taste of copper in my mouth all day.

Moral of the story, don't assume you know more than your guys.

This guy was from south of Springfield, just about ARkansas. Honest

Mike

I think my wife saw one of those at a party she was at...You know...one of those parties that if guys had one they would all be perv's...