I misunderstood just what this was when I bought it. I have used the wand type toners where you hook up a tone generator on one side and use the wand on the other side to find the cable wirelessly. This requires you actually screw the other end of the cable into the tone emitter. In the end, it did what I needed it to do, but it did take a lot longer than I expected because I had to check more than 40 cables before finding the one I was looking for. A wand type toner would have saved me from having to disconnect and reconnect 40 cables. As an occasional use product, it's great. If you need to tone out lots of cables frequently, this is not what you're looking for.

It works! Yeah! ... I like how the battery is included, and an adapter is included in case you don't have the male/female end just right (from the cables you are testing).

Two things to remember though -
1) Once you connect the toner (the removable end), make sure you just wiggle it a bit - I had a cable that is connected, and without "wiggle" or "nudge", the tone does not sound - but with a slight wiggle, the tone is there.

2) This does not work if somewhere in your cable connection there is a spliter (which splits one signal into two or more). Connector is okay, splitter is not. As soon as the line splits, the tone is gone. I guess there's not enough power? ... I am not expert. So just because the tone does not sound does not always mean you don't have a connection - you might have a splitter somewhere in the walls.

Even if I never use it again it was worth the money. I have a rats nest of disconnected coax in my basement, all fished up to different rooms in the house. I decided to move my cable modem to another room on another floor but had no idea which cable I had to plug in to the splitter in order to get a signal up there. I put the big end on the connection upstairs, and first try found the right one in the basement as signaled by the beeping sound. This saved me loads of time and frustration. Mine's not broken or anything, but I doubt I'll be using it again in the near future. In any case, money well spent!

I purchased a home that was already pre-wired for coax yet looking at the demarc in the basement there were no labels to say which run went to which room. I built a craftroom for my wife and had coax added as well so she could have TV in the room. Again the new cables had not been labeled by the electrician, my bad for not specifying this. Now I needed to know which cable I was going to hook-up and I needed to remove one from the runs to rooms where I know a TV would not be used. I did my research and came across the Steren Coax Cable Continuity Tester. It was so easy to use, put the battery in, attach the tester to the end in the room I wanted to know which cable fed it and then in the basement unhook the cables one by one placing the toner on each until I located the run I wanted to swap out for the run to the craftroom, took me all of five minutes. It's well worth the expense and can be shared with friends or family should a similar need arise. I also tested out the rest of the cables and have labeled all cables for easy location, if needed, in the future. And someday when I sell the next owner will not have to go through the hassle of not knowing where coax cables go.

When we had our house built in the early 1990s we had the electricians "home-run" a TV cable from a common location to each jack in each room where they terminated each in a wall box where ever we could envision having a TV sometime in the future. "The future is now". Over the years the electricians numbered labels fell off the un-terminnated ends, plus my list of his numbers telling the locations of the teminated ends conveniently disappeared. After multiple attempts with an ohm meter and a traveler wire, I gave up. Saw this gaget and ordered it. Using it I was able to establish the identity of each of the cables. To do the 14 cables took some leg work, but only around 1 - 2 hours. I then used my computer to print labels for the loose ends with the destination. I was able to wrap the label about 2 turns around each cable.
To use this tool, put the battery into the compartment, attach the unscrewed end to the unterminated cable end (this in the end with the tiny speaker built into the case end) . Take the ell end with the coax fitting and try it in each room outlet. When the red light lights, you have the cable with the speaker attached to the other end. At the speaker end you will hear it squeal when you hit the terminated end. It is a lot of walking up and down stairs, etc. but it is easy, though, repetitious. It is a positive test and can't be beat for the price. NOTE: Remove the battery when you are not using it / storing it.