Took 8 years to realize I was coiling coax the wrong direction

Been doing residential installs since 2016. Always wrapped cable around my elbow, clockwise. Felt natural. Then last Tuesday I'm on a job in Fresno and the homeowner, older guy, used to do cable for a living. He watches me for a minute and goes "you're putting a twist in that line every loop." Showed me the over-under method. Took me 20 minutes to get it smooth. Next three jobs, no kinks, no fighting the bend. I feel stupid. How long did it take you guys to figure out the right way? Or am I the only one who did it backwards this long?

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jamesc7916d ago

Hold on, let me push back here. Over-under is for storage, not for what you're doing on a live install. When you're pulling cable off a spool or running it through a wall, a simple clockwise coil actually feeds out smoother with less fighting. That homeowner was stuck in his old broadcast days, where you're coiling a 50-foot patch cable to store in a bag. You're dragging 200 feet through an attic, over rafters, around corners, and that reverse loop is just gonna flip and twist when you're pulling it off your arm mid-job. I did over-under for a year after some old-timer showed me, and I spent more time untangling the feed than I ever did with the old way. Plus, when you're on a ladder with one hand holding a drill, you don't have time for that fancy wrist shuffle. Your clockwise method wasn't wrong, it was just different for the kind of work you're doing.