Over the years I have needed to trace a whole lot of wires test ethernet 
connections and through the house.
Eerytihing from stereo speaker, telephone, and CAT5,6,7 etc. 
Many many years ago, I bought a tone & probe, and a little later an ethernet
tester.
These were manufactured by Progressive Electronics (Mesa Arizona), acquired by 
Textron (Providence Ri.) in 1999.
Progressive changed it's name to Tempo-Mesa.  I could not connect to 
www.tempo.textron.com on 03/18/2024.

I even used this to track irrigation system wires to a broken valve, underground.



Tone & Probe






Its been so long ago, I don't remember how much I paid for them, but it was way
less than todays going rate.








A little closer look at the tone generator.
Note the little toggle switch handle inside the protective shield.  To the left
is a continuous tone, to the right is a warbling tone, and center is off. 

This little guy has a standard 9V battery.

I like the shield around the switch, you can put this thing in your pocket and 
not worry about it being turned on and running down the battery.






Close look at the tone generator.






The probe, again it has a 9V standard battery.









Closer look at the probe.  Note the volume control (top left), the square black
button, turns the device on.









If you are tracing non-twisted pair, connect the transmitter alligators to each 
wire.
When you trace twisted-pair, connect one lead (black) to ground and the other to
any conductor in the CAT-x cable.



This is a standard power cable with a three wire plug. I cut it to about 8"
, put heat shrink on hot and return, and left the green (ground) wire available. 
Just plug it into any electrical outlet and if you house is wired correctly 
(since the 1960s), you have a ground.




Ethernet Tester






Again Progressive Electronics. receiver and transmitter.  The transmitter uses
a standard 9V battery.
Note the three RJ-45s on top, I always use the T568B which works with everything
in our network. 






When you connect an ethernet cable, the LEDs blink, in a sequence, left to right. 
The time between the blinks is about 1 second, except 1 and 2 which is about 
half a second so you see: blinkblink,  blink,  blink. 






The receiver, blinks in the sam sequence as the transmitter when the CAT-x 
is wired correctly.  
Note it has two rows of lights, the bottom row only blinks if there is a 
problem, like reversed wires.






In action, sorry, I didn't have a bad cable to demonstrate.






The TEMPO (was Progressive Electronics) on on Amazon







Similar Device on Amazon

A receptical Tester from Amazon