This is absolutely essential if you are a network technician. It is by no means perfect but it works better than anything else. The digital signal can go through a switch which can sometimes be problematic. You just need to find which cable has the strongest signal and isolate it. So far it is the fastest way to trace the cable in a messy environment. I did have some difficulty with one of these and send a replacement right away.

I purschased from the Warehouse seeing it saved me $40 bucks but I'm not convinced the tip on the probe is working properly. I needed a digital and analog Toner/Probe or I would of bought the analog Fluke probe. It's much cheaper but only does RJ11. I need RJ11 and RJ45.
The packaging had one staple and looked like it was brand new. I thought about returning it or exchanging it but the only option I get is a return. Should I of just bought a new one? Will I regret this after return period is over? I guess a good word for the product I paid $170 for as of right now is "intermittent"...

The product itself gets 5 starts because it's a great product. The product I owe gets 2.5 stars because I'm not convinced it even works properly. I'm new to these but I get the idea how they work. When I plug in a RJ11 or 45 cable into the toner and take the probe by it, it won't make any noises. It seems like the probe needs to be setup digital and toner on analog to make a connection. It's just wacky. I just want a new one sent to me and I'll gladly send my old one back....

As of now and ordering from Amazon Warehouse, i would of just ratcheted ordered new instead of saving the few bucks... if I could go backwards I'd order a new unit...

I've been an IT guy for 30+ years. I can do some basic wiring (Cat-5 punchdowns, crimps, etc), but most of my daily tasks involve connecting things to ports that are already wired for me.

However, from time to time a situation occurs where I have to trace a wire. I'm looking at one end of a wire, and WAAAAAYYY down on a different floor the other end is somewhere in that un-labeled bundle of 200+ identical-looking Cat-5 cables, all nicely and tightly tied together.

Sure, I could use a Cat-5 cable tester and one-by-one, plug that baby into port after port through the roughly 250 ports on the patch panels (of course disconnecting each potentially "live" station one at a time) trying to hunt down where that cable ends up or...

Fluke to the rescue.

In 30 years, I've never needed a tone tool. Until that day last month when a ceiling-mounted wireless access point was offline, and I needed to find out where it was connected at the other end. Of course, the cable wasn't labeled--no, that would have been too easy.

What could and likely would (with a plug-in cable tester) have been HOURS of agonizing, repetitive plug-and-unplug hunting for the correct port took me less than 5 minutes to isolate the one cable and its panel jack. 288 ports down to "the one" in 5 minutes. Boom.

At my billable rate, this tool paid for itself the first time I used it. Even for a first-timer like me, it performed flawlessly. I probably won't use it again for another year or two because the need arises so rarely. But my tool kit will never be without one again.

Hi,

This is the only one that I can truly say that it works on live data cable . Other fox & hound should work fine on non live data but it will not do once the cable is patched in a switch . The tone just faded away even with the Fluke pro 3000 ( analog ) , which is very good on telephone wire tracing.
In my telecom tool kit, I always carry both the pro 3000 for analog and the intellitone 200 for digital/Cat5 tracing chore.
The analog function in the intellitone 200 is very weak while the digital is great but slow . The wiring mapping is there, but it is so basic so I don't use it much since there are may other tools that can do a much better job . The old Microscanner or the great Linkrunner AT 200 are two of my favorite for wire mapping/fault finding thingy . If you have a good budget, just go with the Linkrunner AT200 ,add the digital probe and you can breeze thru most of the wiring problem instead of spending hours if the IDFs in question are nothing but a snake pit , spaghetti mess.

I have a few different testers similar to this one, but this one is the best. It tones well and I love the fact that the setting for tone is the same as cable map on the sender. That way you don't have to run back to the sender to switch from tone to cable map, if you are trying to locate and test at the same time.