Satellite or Coaxial cable

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Guys,

Wonder if you'd be able to offer me some advice?

I've just got sky tv and want to distribute it around my house. I have purchased a loftdistribution box that will enable me to send the signal to 4 TVs in my house.

I'd like to know if I'll notice a difference in using coax cable over sat cable? The reason being is that I have 100m of co-ax cable spare.

The runs of cable will not be more then about 10m, going to LCD tvs.

Looking through Screwfix andtoolstation I noticed there are different qualities of sat cable. Is it overkill goin for the more expensive cable or will I notice a difference??? I'm looking to get it sorted without the need to remove the cable in future because it is to be laid under a solid floor,


Yours,

Terry
 
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You want a cable that is benchmarked by the CAI: http://www.cai.org.uk/asp/bmcables.asp , such as CT100, QF100, PF100, etc

F connectors are installed like this: http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/htfcrimpfplugct100cc.htm

The reason you should use benchmarked cable and not cheap coax is immediatly apparent from these pictures: http://www.megalithia.com/elect/cable/index.html

Oh, and a main bond from the met to the 'head-end' is a good idea to stop the aerial system floating upto whatever potential it chooses
 
Cheers guys all your hepl is appreciated,

I've ordered the cable from Screwfix rather then use the standard Coax that I had!


Terry
 
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Adam_151 said:
Oh, and a main bond from the met to the 'head-end' is a good idea to stop the aerial system floating upto whatever potential it chooses

Found this comment on a search I think you have said it on another forum as well (not sure it was you :) )

how do I do this please?
 
just out of curiostity which splitter did you use? im looking at trying to provide sky tv to 2 bedrooms and wondered on the best approach
 
ch427 said:
just out of curiostity which splitter did you use? im looking at trying to provide sky tv to 2 bedrooms and wondered on the best approach

What do you want to do, have one decoder showing on two tvs? or have two decoders?

If the former than you just need a basic (ish) aerial distrubution system, if the latter you are getting into the realm of muliple LNBs (or muli LNBs) or special LNBs and multiswitches
 
one main box downstairs only,maybe with the use of the sky magic eye kits to enable channels to be changed,not sure if its possible on 2 tvs though
 
I have a 'loft box' distribution system It allows you to send terestrial tv, FM, sky, DAB radio and CCTV (via an RF modulator) With the addition of 'magic eyes' to the tvs you can change the sky channel from each tv.

It is good for distribution of upto 8 tvs. The longest run on mine is about 70 meters (from the loft to the garage (it has to go underground to get there))

See Here
 
cookoid_0 said:
Adam_151 said:
Oh, and a main bond from the met to the 'head-end' is a good idea to stop the aerial system floating upto whatever potential it chooses

Found this comment on a search I think you have said it on another forum as well (not sure it was you :) )

how do I do this please?

Yes it was me, 4mm² minimum green/yellow (I think... its an aerial dist regs thing, not BS7671) from you main earthing terminal (which is probably the earth bar in your CU, but might be separate) to these: http://www.blake-uk.com/prod_products_proception_probar.aspx mounted on your headend board

Hope this helps :)
 
With SKY , its fairly easy to do multipoint remote control, you can easily get products that do it, the antiference kit is meant to be quite good. (look here: http://www.allaboutelectrics.co.uk/?doc=11&cid=72)

With control of non sky kit, you need an aerial system that'll pass standard (well most of the 'non-weird' remote signals between points, blake do a system for their starbox for this, but I haven't seen any others)


@RF, 70m :eek: You use decent benchmarked cable?, and did you have to boast the signal beyond normal levels at the start of the run at all? and did you bond the screen of the cable as per BS7671 within 600mm of where it exits the equip. zone? :)
 
Adam_151 said:
@RF, 70m :eek: You use decent benchmarked cable?, and did you have to boast the signal beyond normal levels at the start of the run at all? and did you bond the screen of the cable as per BS7671 within 600mm of where it exits the equip. zone? :)

I have a cheap standard booster for the terrestrial signal before it is fed into the loftbox, but other than that no boosters. It is run in CT 100? (the foam insulated sattelite cable) Picture is very good but you can see just a little bit of graining if you are on the sky tv guide pages, so i would guess any longer run would need an additional booster (which would need to allow remote control signals to pass back to the sky box)

What is this bonding you speak of. I've not heard of that before ;)

(No but really does it need bonding? The garage is fed by a 16mm² armoured connected the main CU in the house.)
 
RF Lighting said:
(No but really does it need bonding? The garage is fed by a 16mm² armoured connected the main CU in the house.)
[/quote]

Its kinda tricky, its effectively a plastic coated pipe (with foam and wire inside :LOL: ), but the ends are accesable, I would argue that it counts as an ECP ('other metal service pipes' under 413-02-02) unless the garage and the house are the same Equip. zone.

Is it PME and you have exported the equip. zone via a core in the SWA?, if thats the case then I don't think there is any need to bond (because it stays within the zone), but if the house is PME and the garage TT then the aerial could introduce an potential from outside the equip zone. (as it now just covers the garage) and should be bonded where it passed through the boundries of both zones)
 
The supply to the house is TN-S. The feed to the garage is a 3 core SWA using one core as the earth, so I can't foresee and problems arising from this setup.
 
Particularly with the advent of digital television, these days no one should be using "Low Loss" CoAx cable. Satellite quality cable (preferably copper/copper screened) should be used for all RF applications including TV reception. The price difference is small, particularly between the cheaper brands of satellite cable and Low Loss, so there`s no excuse not to use satellite cable.
Some research has been done on the subject of interference rejection (Low Loss CoAx v Satellite cable) and can be found by Googling :
Mains interference on Low Loss CoAx.

I haven`t put the actual link onto the research because apparently someone thinks that would be "SPAM" (which is interesting because the second post on this very thread links to a sales page, not even information....) so you`ll have to waste a bit of time finding it yourself.
 

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