Originally Posted by Rcaman
Depends on what kind of service work you do.

^^^^^ This is the key.

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We have a huge copper plant in western PA, and a lot of independent telcos who still have a lot of POTS lines serving customers. The Dynatel will perform all the basic tests automatically and it is reliable, however, 3M does not support it and if you need service and can't repair it on your own, you have a nifty boat anchor.

Honestly, unless one works for a telco, a Dynatel is an overkill. A great tool nevertheless.

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I have had the Triplett for 25 years and it is my go to tester. It's light, does all the relevant tests and it uses components that are easily replaced. I use the Sidekick when I'm working at the coal mines. The copper lines are long and a sidekick will give a quick and dirty line test. You can also blow apart wet bridges and some cable faults to allow time to repair the problem properly. Of all three, the Triplett is my favorite.

I've never used a Triplett, but for work on "private" side of the fence, if I had to pick and choose one (reasonably priced) meter, that would be a Sidekick.

In my world, I've retired most of my old test equipment once I was issued a JDSU HST-3000. However, most of the folks around here will never need something that expensive to troubleshoot the messes that we leave behind for them...

My $0.02 only...

"...Time moves slowly and it goes so fast..."

(Sandy Denny)