Southwire Tools & Equipment M500CX4 Coax Continuity Tester/Mapper, Allows You To Identify Up To Four Coax Cable Remote Locations With 4 Color Coded ID Remotes, Test Patch Cables Or Installed Cables, Durable Molded Housing

This is the best mapper I've ever owned. I've tried them all and found myself repeatedly buying more mappers every year. The one that seemed to most popular was the simple $20* Jonard. The problem with that piece of junk is the batteries don't last a year and eventually you just have to buy a new one because they didn't make it replaceable. This mapper is the answer to that piece of crap. This has equality feel to it with an almost velvet like a grip and a soft button, unlike the Jonard that you have to press very hard and the button itself will hurt your thumb after repeated usage. best of all, you can replace the batteries on this thing over and over.

My house was wired with 3 different groups of coax (satellite, cable, security cams), but not very well labeled. This tool made it a breeze to track down which cables at the panel in the basement went to which jacks, and especially tracing down which of the several cables in the junction box outside the house went where.Just plug the 4 color coded ends onto the jacks you want to trace down, then head to the other end of the cable and plug in each cable until a green light shows up next to one of the colored dots, and you have ID'd those 4 jacks. Repeat until everything has been identified and you are done--couldn't be easier.I knocked off a single star because the color coded "caps" store in a foam piece that is separate from the tool itself, which almost guarantees they will get separated at some point. If the manufacturer had molded storage spots for the caps into the body of the tool itself, it would get an easy 5 stars even if it cost an extra few bucks.

It did it's job, I assumed it would also generate an audible tone though, it does not, only visual which is still fine. You can get some bad and false readings but that is NOT due to the product. If you are going through splitters or there is equipment on the line you can get some inaccurate readings and that makes perfect sense. This is for "continuity" which is nturally affected by that stuff.

I bought the Klein tester a couple years ago and just wasn't satisfied with it. This one by Southwire is a big improvement. The test button is larger and much easier to press. The colored end pieces are the push-on type rather than screw-on which makes them very get on and off wall plates. Probably the most important thing is that the batteries ARE replaceable, unlike the Klein and most other testers. Very good unit.

This works exactly as described. I was able to trace back 12 different coax feeds from the distribution splitter to each TV hook up -- and it took less than an hour! I also discovered a splitter buried in my attic that was the reason why my antenna signal was weak in just one room -- the splitter looked like a nail went through it. I have 12 TV hook ups and am only using three (do I really need 2 hook ups in the dining room and 4 in the living room????). I debated getting a distribution amplifier, but this was much less expensive and the distribution amplifier would have been overkill as I really only wanted to isolate the 3 hook ups I use. Even though I may not use this again for a while or often, the low cost made this worthwhile for me.

Moved into a rental house with some creative coax. No idea what did and didn’t work. Put the colored plugs in the coax connections and within 5 minutes checked all 9 connections. 4 active, 3 inactive and 2 that we’re active but not really good. Just what I needed to know.

I've been using this in the geld for a few weeks now, and it is great. Couldn't give it a full 5 stars as one of the tracer caps pulled apart on its first day and I had to put a dab of blue locktite on it. But other than that it's been invaluable for those houses /businesses that seem to have endless coax cables going everywhere.

So far it's been good. Tones out aos well. Only problem I've had with it is the blue toner isn't recognized anymore by the toner. So now I can only use 3 out of the 4. I've tried resetting the batteries. Nothing still. The other 3 still work