Signal boosters?

My first fix would be to look carefully at the splitters used by the previous owners. Most often these are Rat Shack quality with very impressive losses aka PURE CRAP.

Second would be to look at the cable used. Again as most DIY buy on price and not performance.

Even cable with the same specs does not perform the same as the quality of the manufacture is as important as the specifications.

A young friend works on high end Class A RV ($500K+) he is the go to guy for TV and sat systems on these machines. His fixed polity is to replace ALL cables, splitters, connectors etc from the get go. He rarely has a call back and even then it typically has zero to do with his work.

short answer.... probably not.

You need to *MEASURE* your signal level to determine if you need a boost. Incoming CATV signal levels are usually about +6 to +10 dBm. There's no such thing as a 5 way CATV splitter. It's probably a 4 way (which has 5 ports including the input). That will drop your signal

-6dB to about 0dBm, which is more than adequate for running your TV and cable modem. If your neighbor has the same problem, it's likely that the signal level from Cablevision is much lower than typical. The internal diagnostics in the cable modem should be sufficient to get a rough idea of the signal level.

As for coax and connector quality, it varies. In general, every port should have either a coax cable with some device installed, or a 75 ohm terminator installed. Connectors should be the compression fit variety, not the crimp ring variety, which tends to fall apart. CATV splitters vary in quality but are cheap enough to replace instead of test.

If you insist on a cable amplifier, be sure to get one that's bi-directional, so that the cable modem will work through it. However, I don't think you'll need to get to that point as it's more likely the wiring or the line level.

Incidentally, this has nothing to do with wireless internet. You might get better answers if you found (and read) the appropriate CATV, cable internet, or Cablevision forum, newsgroup, or mailing list.

two suggestions (or maybe 3), do you need cable boxes/cards/etc? The regular cable works pretty well for channels under 100, and you don't have a box for control (bidirectional like on demand, premiums etc)... you may be able to keep the old rg54 coax on most outlets, instead of needing the quad sheilded rg6

they have the splitters for digital and sat pass thru stuff at 1ghz/2ghz/etc instead of the existing ones (consider replacing the old splitters with new ones)

and a biggie, make sure whatever amp you get is BI directional (cable internet, voip, and on demand, require two way communication, not the old one way) i have one (actually three) of these

This bidirectional cable TV amplifier is ideal for distributing a cable signal to a remote location. The amplifier boosts your cable TV output signal up to 10dB, while minimizing interference. Allows bidirectional communication so you can enjoy pay-per-view and interactive TV and Internet. Ready for HDTV and cable modem. Distributes antenna signals, too. Mount on wall or table.

doubtfull you will find them in a RS store, but you can order it online and have it shipped to a local store for free.... (oh yeah, $32.99)

note that that is for inside use, if you want one for outside look at a bidirectional pre-amp (weatherproof, made to go outside, but about $70)...

i have one cable coming in that i put the newer cable/amp on, and only change splitters other cables where needed...

Hi Peter,

Digital cable works OK in some rooms with occasional break up. This doesn't really matter because I watch most TV in bed before I go to sleep so I put the TV converter in my bedroom.

In the living room where I used to watch TV, only some of the channels work. At the same time broadband Internet became unreliable in the office.

The house is ranch style with the bedrooms at one end, with the working and living part of the house at the other.

Cable enters the house in the basement at the bedroom end, which is where the main 4 out, 1 in splitter is. There is a single cable to the living end of the house which goes into the attic where there is a splitter in an extremely inaccessible place, which comes down to the office outlet and a TV outlet.

There are other cables with inaccessible splitters to the finished part of the basement, where the previous owners had a home gym and an extra room. The splitters I replaced said 600mhz

The cable to the bedrooms is accessible and these aren't the problem apart from the occasional signal glitch.

As a temporary get around I have put the wireless router in one of the bedrooms and use a wireless adaptor on the desktop PC. But this means it accesses the networked storage at up to 270 mbps instead of the original gigabit ethernet connection. Which is a pain.

I replaced the 4+1 splitter with a new one, gold plated contacts and a wider bandwidth.

But like I said the problem ones are either behind finished panelling in the basement or the most important one where I can't reach it in an inaccessible location in the attic. So I'm stuck with these.

The old splitters I changed were 600ghz, but they worked OK for digital cable TV in the bedroom and cable modem in the spare bedroom.

Yes, I read that. So far I'm not using skype but I will do.

Most of the reviews seem good but a few didn't like it.

You seem happy with these, which is what I wanted to know.

I checked the link and apparently they're in stock at my local one so I'll be there tomorrow,

Radio Shack ain't what it used to be - I got all sorts of stuff there once, the most recent stuff being meters, relays, switches, LEDs etc for a model train setup some time back. But they're not after that market any more. I couldn't even get an antistatic wristband.

Thanks for all the help.

It will be inside before the 4+1 splitter.

Thanks...Chris

I recently discovered a site with a comprehensive CATV plant equipment catalog which also includes some network theory, calculation and planning guides, nomographs, etc. It's a bit long in the tooth but if you don't have hardcopy reference data on the shelf, could be useful. It downloads in parts corresponding to each section in the book, start with:

You can view data on amps, directional couplers, splitters, test and measurement, etc.

There is a short list of systems that used the mercury tanks, which one was it (Univac I)?

Michael

They used 600ghz splitters which were OK for analog TV but worked for cable Internet until recently although I did have the occasional net.glitch.

I've already replaced the splitters with 1100ghz that have gold plated contacts - the ones I could get to. There is one in the path to the cable modem that is in the roof space - which is full of unlabeled wiring much of which is no longer used. This particular one is also extremely inaccessible.

Thanks. I bookmarked this and I'll digest it over the next few days.

English Electric DEUCE.

The mercury was in U-tubes of different lengths giving different timing, in a large grey mushroom shaped structure. Next to the main processor.

It was obsolete when we got it but we were proud to have it. In those days the big universities had computers but the local colleges didn't. We got the DEUCE second hand from Liverpool University when they replaced it with a KDF9.

There were other kinds of delay lines. Early Elliot computers used AFAIR a spiral spring.

But they all had circuitry to re-create the original square wave. The higher frequencies that form the corners of the square wave got lost by the time the signal came out of the delay line giving a rather curved signal that needed to be cleaned up because the logic circuitry needed a square wave.

My local Radio Shack had them in stock.

First time round I put it on the incoming cable. It cleaned up the TV problems but not the broadband, so I moved it after the 4-way splitter into the line to the cable modem and it seems to have fixed the problem.

They also stocked a 4-way booster. which I might consider as a replacement for the 4-way splitter.

Thanks for your help.

that's how I ended up with a few of em... upgraded my toys and Single tuner stuff went to dual tuners, cable internet, cable phone/voip, more and more dvr's etc.... just a note, hang on to the splitter, chances are that as soon as you get the 4 output one, you will get a 5th thing that needs an input too....