Aside from a 5k cable tool what is a cheap way to verify if there is signal on a coax line?

An RF signal? Or a signal from a satellite dish?

Plug in a known working cable box. But even then, you wouldn't know which region you are in. You may have a Comcast box and be in a Comcast area, but the box maybe a type A and the region be a type B. Thus the cable box still won't work. Not even sure if it will even see a signal via the diagnostic menu.

KOT

Any signal! Don't care if it's satellite or RF (Comcast/fios)

Generally I can figure out I just need to figure if there is something on the line

Fred hits the center of the target with this one.

How can we help you check for a signal with no hint as to what the signal is?

Short the wires. See if something burns up somewhere. Look especially for smoke.
Put a flashlight bulb across the wires. See if it lights up.
Connect a Dish/DirecTV/Other satellite receiver to it and see if it receives a station.
Put a test telephone on it and see what you hear.

If you mean cable company signal feeds, check for both AC and DC voltage; if none, put a spectrum analyzer on it and see what pops up.

Check for continuity between the shield and ground. If there is none, get out your phone toner. Connect one end of the signal generator to power ground and connect the other end to the cable line ground. The pickup should now be able to tell, from a couple of feet away where the cable is. If it's connected to other cables but not to the ground, it may seem the wire is all over the place.

You can use a multimeter to detect Rf if its connected to an Rf probe. There are a few sites online that will show you how to build a DIY one if you're interested.

This one is pretty good.

Also, most cable modems have a built in diagnostics function, that includes signal level.

An old TV? You'll need a little practice to interpret the display (because the TV will be expecting an analog signal). And, the TV will not respond to the satellite frequencies. If you can find it, the AGC pin on the TV's tuner will give an indication of signal strength.

You could also make a very quick and crude RF detector with a diode in series with the cable's center conductor. However, this will tend to be a VERY broadband detector. You could get cute and apply some filtering in order to separate power line frequencies from RF.

Are you attempting to find the cable feed in a mess of wires? If you have a cable modem it will likely sync up to something when connected to the cable feed.

Lick it. Your tongue should tingle if there is signal.

I use a 7" TV that I bought for setting up cameras while I'm on the ladder- I connect the cable and if I have video, which I only do if I know Satellite isn't the provider, I know the trap wasn't installed or the account may be active. For anything that uses a receiver, I just connect to the composite output. It cost $80, but if you want to keep the price low, I'm sure goodwill has something.

This is mainly for finding out if a wall RF jack or pile of coax to figure out which one is to go in a splitter. I know I could put my toner on one end and sniff it that way but I would just love to know if an outlet has signal.

It would be so helpful to know this without having to drag a receiver first or before they are even on site!

Does the lick trick actually truely work for fios/Comcast/satellite ?

We use this one for that purpose and it works fine without getting into pricey models.
[Link: amazon.com]

I have actually been looking at testers, and the one I have been looking at is $1600. I looked about 5 years ago and they were $10000, so they have come down in price.

Look for a cheap or used leakage detector. You Should be able to find one that picks up the 138Mhz on the lines if active.

Lick it

"The 138 MHz"?
What's the signal at that frequency? In broadcast frequencies, it's between the FM band and Channel 7. In CATV frequencies, it's between Channels 16 and 17.