Yep, TDR, I knew there was a proper name for it. Although when I first started as a apprentice they didn't look like that! It was an analogue bit of kit with a retro scope on it, worked like a dream though.

There were various different units in use, but they all came under the same title for us. I found with all these testers that it was just repeated use that got me results rather that reading the manual and understanding how they worked. It was always useful to have a basic idea in your head what was going on, but I can remember boffins from the labs coming out with us one day and them not being able to understand what we were doing and why.

My most used tool was my old analogue meter. After using the thing for almost 10 years everyday I could pretty much connect it to a disconnected line and give you an approximate distance to the disconnection point just by reading the cap discharge when flipping the meter from AB to BA back and forth on the meter. I always preferred taking that £80 meter up a pole with me rather than the £1,000+ moles.

Ahhhh them were the days! If I could have just stayed your bog standard line engineer as we were pre-broadband I think I would be quite happy doing that again now. Shame BT are now screwing all the engineers into the ground, I wouldn't go back for all the tea in China now!!!

Cheers

Cris.