[rabbit73]

Originally Posted by BigBean

Now, follow me for a sec. One thing I've always tried to use to teach myself electricity is to think of it as a river. Now, when testing components such as coax, I get stuck on the terminology: Capping, shorting, terminating a component – all the same thing – is tantamount to attaching an alligator clip to one end, biting the copper wire ( the "conductor" ) while touching the negative ( here, the threading ) so it effectively creates a circuit once the multimeter is connected at the opposite end, so one can test that component?

Making a water analogy is often useful when following current flow in a circuit. Your description of a test sounds like my Step 5 when testing coax with an ohmmeter when the far end of the coax isn't near the meter. DO NOT make any resistance measurements when there is voltage on the coax. Here are all the steps: