Just realized I was coiling coax the wrong way for 5 years

I've been doing residential installs around Phoenix for a while now, and I always thought the trick was to coil the cable real tight so it fits in the service loop hook. Last Tuesday I was on a job and the homeowner's kid, maybe 12 years old, watched me run a drop to the living room and said, 'why do you wrap it like a garden hose?' I laughed it off, but then I looked at the coil and noticed the twists were putting stress on the jacket right near the connector. So I tried the opposite direction, like the natural lay of the spool, and that sucker lay flat with zero kinks. I had been fighting with those tight coils on every install, blaming the weather or the cheap cable, and it was just my own habit. Has anyone else had a moment where a customer or a kid pointed out something so obvious you felt like an idiot for a week straight?

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henry_hernandez13d ago

...and the kid probably saved you years of back pain too. Ngl, I did the same thing with extension cords for way too long. The natural lay is always the answer, but nobody tells you that when you're starting out. Once you see it, you can't unsee it, and you start noticing it everywhere. Honestly, screw the tight coil, that's just fighting physics.