endover Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 With our first new youngin coming along in a few weeks, we decided to close in our patio and make a play room out of it (until junior gets old enough and then maybe daddy's new HT room). Until then, it's just a basic room. Here's my deal though. The contractor has everything gutted right now and I have clean access to my attic. I'm running my TV cable to two different locations in the room. My first question... I believe most of my house is already wired with RG6 coax but just in case some of it is RG59, will I have any compatibility problems? #2 - Also, I need to split off the cable from up inside my attic (it's already been split once to go to my 5 different rooms). How many splits can I put in before I start to notice a quality difference in my picture(I have "regular TV now but will eventually be going "HDTV"? #3 - (Within reason $$$$) What are the best type of splitters that will give me the least noise in the lines 'cause I'd like to split it one more time and leave a cable connection outside my house so when I add a pool, I can hook a TV up out there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 Endover, I think the practical limit on power spliters is a 3-way. There is only so much power and dividing it up will reduce your singal-to-noise ratio which will give you a showey picture. You should consider a distribution amplifier. One tip though, if you use power splitters, you should put a 75 Ohm termination at the end of any cable that is not connected to a TV set. This keeps reflections from bouncing around the system. That causes "ghosts". The two different cables you mention are compatible. One simply has lower loss for a given length. You can use any coaxial cable as long as it is 75 Ohms. The cable company uses stuff that is even lower loss and is much larger in diameter. Generally, the smaller the diameter the higher the loss. A power splitter will give you a lot more loss than any cable though. BTW: The cable doesn't know if it high definition or standard definition. It's just radio frequency energy. Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott0527 Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 While you're all gutted out, you ought to think about running some speaker wire now for the potential home theater. Left, Right, sides, rears, subs? Nothing worse for the WAF than a bunch of wires running all over the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 First law of wiring: Install as many wires as you can afford, all types even if you do not need them at the time. This will make you very happy in the future. (12 gauge speaker wires, HDMI cables, analog cables, etc. A typical three way spliter has a 3 db loss at 900mghz. Thats why you want to go electronic if possible. It's better to have way too much signal then pad it down as this will eliminate all VSWR problems. This is standard industry practice for the big boy's that are serious. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 When I wanted to add more rooms to my cable TV, Cox came in and added a second feed for me. They frown on more that two lines per feed. Scott's suggestion to put in speaker wires is a good one. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 you ca buy amplified splitters for about 50 bucks for a good one, i have one in my house and it works great! there will be no compatability issues at all, the only difference between the two is the type of insulation that is used and the grade of metal in them. they both will do the same thing. Splitting your cable that many times will kill your hdtv on local stuff, you have to have a strong signal with the local stuff, so what i reccomend is that if you are near a big city is to buy a new over the air hdtv antenna terk makes them for i believe 100 bucks (long and skinny about 4 feet long by 6' thick) and throw that in your attic now and run a dedicated line to your potential placement of your hdtv (or at least run the cabble for it. This will then solve all local programming channels that you will be receiving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raypenn Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 I suggest that you do not use copper shielded cable! I previously had copper braided cable in my former house, and it worked fine for regular cable TV. I recently moved, and my new house (about ten years old) has copper braided cable running through the walls to each room. I thought this is great until I tried to activate Comcast digital cable TV and internet service. I found that most of the basic channels 1-99 worked fine, but the digital channels and internet would not work at all! I found out that the copper is the problem (not the copper center conductor, but the copper shielding). I ran new cable with aluminum braided shielding up the stairs to the rooms I need most, and everything works fine. Now I just need to figure our how to run the wires up into the attic and down the walls to hide the cable. The existing wires are apparently stapled to the studs, so I can't simply attach the new cable to the old cable and pull it through. Anybody else have this problem? Ray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 the secret to that is to drop it down next to your hvac ducts and because that will be a straight drop down when you get to the desired level you can then run it to the desired location, preety easy, just use some fishing line and an egg sinker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
endover Posted February 17, 2005 Author Share Posted February 17, 2005 This is excellent! I can always count on this forum to help me out when I need info! You guys are great! You can bet that I have already run speaker wire for when that day comes! My living room will always be the best place for home theater since it's much bigger(and I need room for my Chorus II's) but the added room may need a smaller system when the time comes. The new room is only 10 by 14 and it's surrounded by 120 square feet of double paned glass windows (I live in FL). I've got to go check on hurricane shutter pricing now. I think I'll stop off at the Rat Shack and check out some of their signal splitter/boosters to start with. I'll mount the booster where it's easily accessible in the attic so I can go change it if I ever need to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 The thing to find out is how much of a PITA your insurance Company is. Codes vary but the Main electrical code does call for wires rated for in-wall use. Even though they carry little current. To have a nice pictiure all around, I brought the drop from the cable company hooked it to a signal amplifier with vartable output, then ran 3 televisions, and when I had bale , 2 vcrs. To minimze signal leaking or interferenc, I taped the connections to each, took a small piece of aluminum foil wrapped that around and added an additional layer of electrical tape. If you have a problem with ingress, you can buy ferrite chokes and attach them to the cable ends. dodger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 endover: If you have digital cable, I would advise against attempting to use RG-59 cable. The reason is bandwidth limitations. Standard cable channels will pass through RG-59, but things like digital cable, broadband and HDTV will not. They require a bandwidth that exceeds 900MHz. They also require additional sheilding. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I recommend you consider using only RG6 Quad-Shield Coax, which is rated for use with signals up to 2 GHz. You'll also need to purchase a splitter that will pass 1 GHz bandwidth. I do not recommend using a line amplifier because along with the signal, they also amplify the noise. The only reason I know this is because I ran into the same situation in my own home. I am currently running 6 sets (one is an HDTV) and a broadband connection from my one cable feed. I am using RG6 Quad on everything and no line amplifier. Best of luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
endover Posted February 17, 2005 Author Share Posted February 17, 2005 Thanks Picky....that's good advice. I bought 100 feet of RG6 from Lowes because that's basically all they carried (which ended up being good for my sake). I'm going to put the splitter in my attic where its easily accessible and can be changed out when the time comes. I don't plan on switching to HDTV or digital cable in the near term. New youngin is creating other financial priorities. I don't plan on splitting the signal to my main HT system anyway. All of the other "offshoots" will be more apt to have a disturbed signal. I was also told that if I used the amplifier, to put it in the line as far upstream as possible to keep the signal to noise as high as possible. I've got a few things to play with this weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 Heck I have a spool of RG6 in my attic...probably has 700 feet left on it... EBAY deal...years ago.... Also have interior & exterior connectors, strippers and crimpers.... could have made ya a deal..hehehehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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