Best brand coax and F connector for HD cable?

How can you get better than 100% shielding? The only time *heavier* shielding would be of help is when there is *substantial* current flowing in the shield. OTOH if there is substantial current flowing in the receiving antenna shield something else is seriously wrong.

That certainly has not been my experience.

In reverse order: Part measured with an HP spectrum analyzer, observing measured data rates, and listening with very sensitive receivers. In addition I've seen no observable interference on the TV or heard any on the radio during checks.

As to practice: They are all signal leads (with the exception of the rotator and remote antenna switch control leads and both are low voltage) and are according to code. All shields are grounded at the base of the tower and they are grounded to the tower at the top, or where the cable starts down the tower in the case of the TV, Dish, and side mounted antennas. Those shields are again grounded at a bulkhead where the cables enter the house. Also at that point are a number of Polyphasers So to recap, the coax shields are grounded at the top of the tower, bottom of the tower, and where they enter the house. All leads are the same length from the tower to the house which minimizes the likelihood of a voltage build up between them during a lightning strike.

One additional note: All of the radio station coax is 100% foil shield plus braid as well. All runs are either Times Wire LMR 400 or LMR 600

This is the antenna setup.

TV antennas do not show in this photo, but are about where you see the plate in the tower below my feet. That is shown in the following photo. The bottom antenna at 100 feet runs about 15,000 watts effective radiated power on 14, 21, and 28 MHz. Those bands have harmonics in the low and high VHF TV channels. The long antenna above that one at 115 feet is for 50 through 54 MHZ which is directly adjacent to channel 2 with the second harmonic in the 100 to 108 MHz range. At the top, which is 130 feet are two sets of antennas. The longer, outside pair run 144 to 148 MHz which is between the low and high band VHF TV channels. The shorter pair inside those runs on the

440 MHz band. The flexible pig-tails to all these antennas have their shields grounded about 8 to 10 inches below the top of the tower.

two TV antennas can be seen under the large ham antenna in this shot. (The one to the NW stands out, you have to really look to see the one pointed South) Both have remote preamps within about 2 feet of the antennas. These antennas, with 20 db preamps are in the near field of all of the ham antennas. This does necessitate filtering the 144 to

148 MHz range as those signals can saturate the preamps when the antennas are pointed in the same direction as TV antenna pointing to the left. The white vertical that is side mounted on the tower (South side) runs both the 144 and 440 MHz bands. That antenna runs about 6 db gain or an effective radiated power on the 144 MHz band of about 200 watts. The top of said antenna is about 20 feet below the TV antennas. Another vertical like the one shown is going to be mounted, upside down directly under the one in the photo. They will be end to end with the second one being used for data and a link through the Internet to other ham gateways.

The satellite dish does not show in either photo, but is on the same side of the tower as the white vertical and about level with the roof line. I'll eventually get this photo updated.

Behind the black C-band dish is a smaller tower with a 7 through 50 MHz vertical on the West end of the shop. There is a crossed, folded dipole (which doesn't show) right at the base of the vertical for the HD TV tuner in the shop computer.

This station, computer, and amplifier have been completely reorganized since the photo was shot. All of the cables with the exception of the CAT5e run through the conduit shown. The CAT5e runs through the wall behind the equipment at floor level and then underground through conduit.

The old antique station has been rebuilt with the exception of the transmitter. It is capable of running the legal power limit. There is a much smaller transceiver that drives an old Henry 2K4 amp (not shown) that I normally use.

Although the station sounds elaborate, most of the equipment was purchased used (some like the 2K4 had to be rebuilt to work) and I did all of the tower work myself.

There is a substantial buried ground system that has 32 or 33 (lost count) ground rods CadWelded(TM) to the cables tying everything together into what is called a single point ground system or as near so as possible. .

It meets code and works well. Besides to get that 130 foot run from the house to the shop leaves little in the way of alternatives. My only real concern for the Gigabit network is lightning as the tower has taken an average of 3 visually confirmed direct hits a year since it was installed. It took five hits this past summer I'd go wireless but it's just too slow for the amount of traffic I put on the network. I was operating this computer when the last strike occurred (Wireless keyboard and mouse). All 4 computers on the network were up and running and I had a large file transfer going between the computer to my right and the one in the shop. When the lightning hit the lights blinked, the UPSs squealed, the network went down, right back up, and continued the file transfer.

BTW with that many visually confirmed hits I wonder how many times it actually gets hit.

The point behind all of his is: Proper termination and grounding along with good coax allow this system to work well in an environment far more severe/hostile than most will ever experience.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)

Thanks for the boost and fortunately channel 2 is not used around here. The problem with operating on the 50 to 54 MHz band, which I do, is TV sets are poorly shielded and the front ends are highly susceptible to overload. Hence 50 to 54 is not heavily used in channel

2 fringe areas

As I said in another post, my cables (receiving and transmitting) are grounded at the top of the tower, the base of the tower, and where they enter the house. The ground system consists of either 32 or 33 eight foot ground rods, CadWelded (TM) to over 600 feet of cable that ties the whole works together.

73

Roger wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You must be the god of w_tom !!!! (Some of you may know.)

Eh??

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)

Don't get w_tom started!!!

CIAO!

Ed N.

DanS wrote:

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a big Belden fan. Largely for the reason you touched on in your last sentence. They want too much for their product which, according to spec sheets on cables I deal with the most, is no better than other major manufacturers. In some cases, worse.

Their standard RG 6 compared with Genesis, for example; At the low end, Genesis loses more than Belden. At about 70MHz, they even out, and above that Genesis has Belden beat. However, the capacitance is greater and the VP is lower.

CIAO!

Ed N.

Robert L Bass wrote:

do have a large portion of a niche -- premade audio

others, most of whom make excellent cable and few of whom

Exactly. Nothing special, but experience here shows quad is better. Even the incredibly cheap cable company was forced to use it

Your opinion. And that would be an expensive mistake here. Just ask the electrical contractors who used the wrong cable. And do a little research about cable companies that are fined for leakage by the FCC.

At my the shop we have a wall of shame, and it has both types. My point is neither is perfect, and both can be badly installed by dweebs. Since the new rage is snap n seal connectors installed by the untrained, they are usually defective. When you do this for a living, you learn what will save time.

And snap and seals are not inherently water proof.

So you recommend doing this, and everybody who reads this on the internet should follow his methods? I don't.

Again, he is lucky, and use of those cables here (and elsewhere) WILL result in VISIBLE leakage.

I don't care who you believe.

Yeah, I've only been doing installs for 30 years, so what do I know? I know what I have been trained on and what are best practices. Lots of things will work, but that is not what I will recommend.

O.K.

Let's have a part number with manufacturer for the cable and a cable company name. I have yet to see documentation of a major cable company using quad for standard installs. There have been newsgroup myths to that effect however.

Not just my opinion.

Most major cable companies use foil and braid cables, not quad shield. The reason? Quad is a waste of time and money.

There is cheap low spec cable that will leak. I dare say there is even some cheap quad that does not preform as well as quality foil and braid. Don't use cheap low spec cable.

For CATV/DBS usage I look for 100% foil and at least 90% braid coverage. For RG6 the attenuation per 100' at 1000 MHz should be less than 7 Db and return loss 5-1000 MHz at least 20 Db.

If you follow these specs, properly install SNS connectors, use good quality passive/active components (splitters, amps, etc) and ground properly you shouldn't have problems with signal leakage as defined in FCC part 76.

A decent discussion of Part 76 Multichannel Video and Cable Television Service leakage can be found here:

If instead you are talking about leakage into the system you must realize that the difference in signal attenuation between the cable I specified above and the most shielded cable available will be meaningless when connected to any consumer grade TV, VCR or DVR. The input stages of these devices are quite poorly shielded and may exhibit interference problems before the cable is attached.

Additionally realize that consumer electronics (TV/VCR/DVD/Computers etc) connected to the cabling system leak RF. Even on a well designed and installed system either poorly designed devices or a large number of connected devices could result in unwanted attention from the cable company concerning signal leakage.

This is where you blow your credibility.

WHAT MAKES SNAP-N-SEAL CONNECTORS UNIQUE? ? 100% waterproof - superior environmental seal prevents any moisture from entering the connection ? 15 year industry track record - more than 1 billion sold with no recorded performance degradation ? True 360° compression onto cable ensures superior RF shielding performance, -95 dB effective shielding (typical on

60% bonded foil cable). ? Simple and quick to install requiring the industry?s lowest hand compression force on the installation tool

Anyone that would "I automatically cut them off and reterminate" all SNS connectors with hex is not someone I would want on a job.

No. He isn't lucky, he did the engineering and his system preforms as designed.

Knee-jerk "you must use quad shield or bad things will happen" is not engineering. It is relying on prejudice, myth and word of mouth from questionable sources such as yourself.

Same here. I have been doing installs for 30+ years but I threw away the hex crimp stuff 10 years ago. You appear to be living in the past.

We agree!

Ed Nielsen wrote in news:Pv6dneO69L2psAbYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I wouldn't worry, I didn't use the dreaded 's**ge s*pp*ress*r' term !!

Did somebody call?

Well, if you are in the business, you should know who TVC is. Call them and ask them what they sell to Time Warner Houston.

Radio Shack has sold both RG-59 and RG-6. Very different cables, both "75 ohm CATV cable" according to most of the staff. Any idea which you used?

sdb

I'd have to dig into things to see for sure, but it was RG59 or some sort. I did have to place F connectors on it, so I would have seen what quality the coax was. Was decent coax, not the really crappy stuff.

Of course. It was a short run, and we get a huge OTA signal strength here. Once was measured, 27000 microvolts of New York City channel 4. This gets split several times thru the house. My brother bought the biggest Radio Shack VHF antenna they had (a big mother) back in the days when we had a vacuum tube color TV that turned out to have a few dead tubes in the IF strip. We have line of sight of the Empire State Building 14 miles away.

Haven't been doing crimping for 30+ but I can attest that a SNS connection made by an rank amateur like me is better than any hex crimp I can perform. Part of the reason is that a good SNS connection looks good - you can see pretty quickly if it's not done right. Not so evident with hex crimps. I've seen more than one pro crimp pull out over time, especially if the cable has aged a bit and lost some of its plasticity

On the issue of QS, maybe it's overkill from a signal leakage POV, but it seems the thicker the overall shielding, the more resistance it has to physical damage from nicks, cuts, scrapes, rodents and other mishaps.

Part of the reason I bought a compression crimper for the small amount of cabling I do is to gain a slight edge on reliability. It seems most people believe SNS delivers. That "reliability edge" is also why I use QS for outside and "trunk" cabling - it's heftier, but not very much more expensive.

I'll readily admit whatever extra protection I believe I gain is physical and not electrical, and maybe not even physical, but only psychological, but that's good enough for me!

I think there's an added benefit for tyros like me. There's so damn much braid and foil on QS that it's nearly impossible for even an amateur to accidentally remove too much from the end of the cable before pushing the connector in. I'm sure someone's managed it, but not me. At least not yet.

Removing too much braid accidentally is something I seem to do quite often with the thinner RG-59 for CCTV use, especially, the 80% braid that's done like an open basket weave. (-:

The only thing I don't like about the SNS connectors, aside from price, is that my Ideal connector wrench (screwdriver handle with an open hex wrench on the end) won't fit on them - the SNS connectors are too big so I end up tightening them by hand. If anyone knows of a good wrench to tighten RG6QS SNS connectors, I'd love to hear about it!

-- Bobby G.

That is actually a good thing. There is no reason to tighten the fittings more than "finger tight." The electrical connection is not made any more or less gas-tight. Tightening them with a wrench only stresses the connection between the cabinet and the fitting -- definitely not a good thing.