Best brand coax and F connector for HD cable?

Hi, It's not the coax problem. Your signal strength readhing your home is too low(marginal). This is job for your cable service provider. How could you expect improvement with better cable. You can try line amp. but again finger is pointed at your cable company. In my area, our problem is cable signal being way too strong.... Tony

I won't call the cable company yet because two years when the cable internet connectivity was so bad the "broadband" was about as fast as 56K, the cable company said "it's your internal wiring. not our problem. goodbye." OK, fine. So I hooked the modem up directly to the coax where it enters the house, thereby bypassing the internal wiring. 6 months and about 12 service appts later, including a crew chief and a plant engineer, they could not solve the problem. They seemed to find it easier to show up at each appt and just say they could find no problem and close the ticket. It was like they were just trying to wait me out, figuring eventually I would just stop complaining and no longer be an open ticket for them to deal with. The strategy worked, I switched to DSL and stopped calling them to complain about the horrible internet service.

I hope to do whatever I can on my end to reduce any problems the internal wiring might be causing, such as removing splits and re-wiring so I have a homerun with good cable and connectors. Because I know they will only say the problem is the internal wiring (a leopard does not change its spots). If they replace the internal wiring, they won't fish it through fish the walls, they staple it to the baseboard and around the door moulding.

Although I suppose I could have them do the internal wiring and let it drape across the floor. Then later on run it though the wall myself. Technically, it's still their wiring, just moved a little.

Hi,

I think the best (easiest) way to test the connection would be directly connecting your box to the incoming cable. Test it for some time; if you still have the same problem, call the cable company and tell them to fix it. As someone else noted, the company people blame inside wiring for everything. You are telling that your wiring worked fine before, and your service is new. The most probable problem is the new service.

One problem I had in the past was that the grounds of the TV and the Cable were different, so a ground loop was causing horizontal lines across the screen. You can get a surge protector with Coax in and out. Also the incoming service might have a short with AC.

I hope it helps,

Baris

Hi Tony, It's not so much the coax itself I'm worried about, as the connections. For High Definition the connections, number of splits and unterminated outlets can make a difference (or so I'm learning).

I'm just a layperson, but check out the post earlier in this thread by egrumling1. He is a cable guy, or so he says ;) ;)

True, the signal has not been measured by the cable company recently. But 2 years ago it was measured when I had horrrible cable internet connectivity and the signal was right smack in the middle of the range. They said it was perfect, not too weak and not too strong. Yeah, that was 2 years ago, and the signal could now be bad. But my money is on the HD signal being more sensitive to noise and impedence because the problems started exactly when I got an HD cable box (actually have gone through 2 of them, both had same problem, so don't think it's the box itself).

One more thing I would try,

If you have a voltmeter, test the cable to see if you read any AC (60Hz) Voltage. If you have any neighbors who are sharing the same aerial cable ask them if they have any problems,

Baris

First of all, on the signal loss every once in a while - - that's the station that's doing that. It could be coming from the main network feed. It is irritating and often happens at the worst possible time, but there's nothing that can be done about it. We all feel your pain.

The T&B Snap-N-Seal connectors are excellent. Buy the SNSIT tool for $49.90 and be happy. You'll use it over and over again to extend runs to other rooms or move signal outlets as furniture layouts change. Use that and the HT302 stripper that Cable Guy posted links to on 2/24 at 7:12pm - - all good stuff - - makes a professional job out of it. I threw away all the crimp sleeve connectors I bought after I found the SNS type, and I replace the crimps whenever I have to use cable that was put together in the old days.

The only problem that remains is cleaning the shield face in each connector before screwing it on tight. I made a small circular wire brush out of brass tubing and the V-shaped wires you can pull out of a big wire brush, you know, the kind with a wood handle. It makes it easier to get those wires out if you saw away the wood at one corner to get to a group. I drilled six

5/64" holes 5/8" from the end of a 3" length of 9/32" OD tubing. Then I poked the V-shaped wires through those holes until I got 5 wires in each hole so they all came out the end, half inside, half outside the brass tube. Then I bound the outside wires tightly to the OD of the tube with dental floss and jammed the inside wires against the ID of the tube with a round, tapered piece of wood - - actually I used a part of a handle from a small paint brush. You might want to trim all the wires to about 3/8 " beyond the tube end, but watch out, the wires are pretty hard springy steel, and might put notches in your cutter, if it isn't made for hard steel. The use of the circular brush is obvious - - just twirl it in the connector a few seconds, and it's clean.

Good luck,

Chuck

HI, Then before you embark on a cable upgrade within your house, how about trying a quality line amp.? I have HD cable box as well with Internet hook up. No problem here. Good luck, Tony, VE6CGX

Not just noise, but also reflections caused by those unterminated outlets.

You could also get some cables at . CommSc> Hey Eric,

And that's all that they should. I don't want a cable guy cutting into my walls, making a mess and crawling through my attic. Get a professional installer to set up your wiring if you are concerned about appearances. They can suggest and provide quality cable and connectors and fully test their work to insure that it was done properly. Most of these guys rely on word of mouth for business and can't afford to do anything but an excellent job. All that the cable company needs to do is to activate a box and deliver it to you.

Bob Walker

even if you get a professional installer to run the internal wiring the cable company will latch onto the internal wiring as a scapegoat and blame any difficult to solve problem on the wiring, whether a contractor or homeowner installed. I know, because the cable company did this to me when I had terrible intermittant cable internet performance.

They couldn't solve the problem and blamed it on internal wiring even though everything had been fine for more than a year. Even after I hooked everything up directly to their feed coming into the house the problem existed and they still couldn't solve it. Yet, for the first 6 appointments they would just walk away saying the problem was the internal wiring. Well, it wasn't. But they blamed it anyway.

You can't win for losing with the cable company around here.

Yes you can.........switch to satellite.

I don't know the details of your problems with the cable company but I've had different results from different techs and what one guy claimed as gospel was dispelled by another. The guys that come to your house are generally trouble shooters with rudimentary skills and it's sheer luck to get someone who is actually knowledgeable beyond his work boundaries. I had a problem with my internet connection as well and the first two techs did exactly what you said and walked away. However, the third guy switched out the splitter that I was using at the wall and unhooked another splitter and a cable that I was using to run a TV signal into the comouter. He said that the TV and internet video signals were not compatible and that I would need a switch and use one or the other. He didn't have a technical explanation but it's worked perfectly since.

I had techs to my house at least four times last year because my TV signal was deteriorating. They would see it and agree and then run tests and tweak stuff. It was always a lot better before they left but it would deteriorate within a week. The last guy that came out went immediately to the outside box and changed the connector when I told him what was happening. Apparently it had some crap built up and although the other guys had unhooked it and attached it to their equipment they never bothered to look at it. However, the handling would get it slightly cleaned resulting in the improved picture but it wasn't enough to keep it clear for more than a week or so. If he had never come by I would be hooked up to satellite by now.

Bob Walker

Your story points out that even cable systems need maintenance. Exterior connectors - even the "gold" ones are not impervious to the elements and certainly not air and water tight. Not only do the connectors themselves go bad but the copper center conductor can tarnish and build up an insulating patina that will compromise signal quality. It's not a bad idea to change any outdoor connectors every year or so. It's an even better idea to house all connections in a raintight enclosure. The thing about TV and cable modem signals not being compatible is nonsense. However, too many splitters will provide too weak a signal to the modem. A good quality cable amp with two way capability can solve a lot of problems. You can get the Electroline 2100 series (and several other good brands like PCI & SVI) on ebay for about $30.

Yes you can.........switch to satellite.>

You may be right about the TV/Internet cable thing but it solved the immediate problem, which was the internet signal. It was more than likely just bad wiring that had been removed but you're backing up my point that these guys are not experts by any means, even though they may think so, and that quite often it's just a fluke when they get things working. It's like asking the Quick Lube guy about an engine problem. In my case the TV to the computer was pointless and it hasn't been missed. However, thanks for the cable amp advice and I'll keep it for the future.

Bob Walker

He didn't have a technical explanation because he was wrong. Most cable internet connectivity failures occur because the upstream channel fails and the head end doesn't "hear" your modem's requests. Splitters attenuate the signal in both directions and, in your case, probably dropped the upstream channel levels too low.

I have one splitter where the cable enters the house. One leg feeds the cable modem only and the other leg is amplified and split several times before terminating.

Actually, compression fittings (T&B snap-n-seal and Digicon) are watertight if the cable installer uses the rubber seals on the connections. I've seen fittings over 5 years old that look like new. I've also seen 6 month old fittings that look like crap. It all depends on how careful/careless the installer was.

The channel display on a digital cable box doesn't relate to a tuned frequency like the one on your TV. It is "mapped" to a frequency/"virtual channel" on the cable system that may be far away from the analog equivalant.

Eric

That's the best advice so far. And if the tech won't troubleshoot and throws it back on "inside wiring," ask them for proof, such as levels at the following test points:

High (ch 116) and low (ch 3) signal levels at the following locations:

1) tap - should usually be about 10-15dB or better, depending on the cable system design 2) Ground block (house end of the drop) - on low channel, should loose about 1dB/100', high end ~5dB/100' of drop. 3) output of splitters - 2-way -4dB, 4-way -7dB, 8-way -11dB 4) outlet going to TV - follow signal loss calcs for drop. With decent RG-6, should not see much difference from splitter output.

Make the installer write the levels on the work order. His supervisor usually sees a copy of the order and may take the time to look.

Now, the point of all this demanding of seeing signal losses is NOT to call in and bash the guy after he leaves. The point is to make sure that the tech is DOING HIS JOB. I get so pissed off at my fellow techs when I hear them complain that they've tried EVERYTHING to get a customer's problem resolved, but if I ask them what levels they had at the tap were, they have no idea because they didn't bother to check. Later, when I get the repeat call, I usually find something out of whack in the house, even though they swear that they checked the whole house out.

This stuff isn't rocket science, just adding up the losses and making sure they are right. If the numbers he sees with his meter aren't close to what they should be, something is wrong and he should be able to fix it. Cable in walls generally doesn't go bad unless there was a staple or nail driven into it, but that would have been noticed right away, or it wouldn't have worked ever. The only time I see inside cables go bad is when they are resting on an electric baseboard heater and the dialectric melts out. Otherwise, it's all about replacing connectors and splitters.

Aw man, I wish you were the Cable Guy in my neighborhood! Thanks for the signal ranges. Very helpful.