home addition, antenna, cabling, etc

[johndoe]

Hi everybody,
My wife and I are in the middle of building a 2nd floor to our house, we'll eventually gut the first floor too, all this while living in the house with two young kids (2 and 5)... but that is a whole different story.
My first question concerning DIY is in regards to cabling. I'm planning on installing a large outdoor antenna in the attic, and use it for local channels and FM. Also, I will have the directv cable splitter in the attic. Is there a way to "combine" the signals in a single coax cable or do I need to run a double cable to each TV outlet? also, is there a particular type of coax cable I should use, or one that I should avoid? finally, what about the FM signal? what kind of cable do I need to use?
That would be the first phase of my pet sub-project. Phase two will be running in-wall speaker cable, installing 5.1 wall jacks, and in-wall speakers in the master bedroom and family room.
I have a room in the basement already spoken for that will be HT, that is a long term project.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Hi everybody,
My wife and I are in the middle of building a 2nd floor to our house, we'll eventually gut the first floor too, all this while living in the house with two young kids (2 and 5)... but that is a whole different story.
My first question concerning DIY is in regards to cabling. I'm planning on installing a large outdoor antenna in the attic, and use it for local channels and FM. Also, I will have the directv cable splitter in the attic. Is there a way to "combine" the signals in a single coax cable or do I need to run a double cable to each TV outlet? also, is there a particular type of coax cable I should use, or one that I should avoid? finally, what about the FM signal? what kind of cable do I need to use?
That would be the first phase of my pet sub-project. Phase two will be running in-wall speaker cable, installing 5.1 wall jacks, and in-wall speakers in the master bedroom and family room.
I have a room in the basement already spoken for that will be HT, that is a long term project.

I have a few suggestions. Use the RG-6 type cable, maybe the one with quad shielding. It has less loss than the RG59 types but it will need its own plugs as the wire is a bit different size.

I would run the FM, same type of cable, but separately to the receiver. You will need an impedance matching device for the FM antenna and the RG cable, 300Ohms to 75 Ohms. Radio Shack has these, inexpensive. I am sure the same will apply to the over the air TV antenna as well.
Not sure if you can or want to combine the over the air digital and cable. May want to ask the Direct Tv folks.

ps. I thought johndoe knew it all, what happened, amnesia?

 

[MDS]

I agree with mtrycrafts on RG6 Quad Shield. All new homes uses RG6QS.

I don't know the answer to whether you can combine FM and over the air TV signals but I'd suggest anyway that you DO run multiple cables to the wall jacks in each room. It's no harm if you end up not needing them and too much is always better than not enough (you don't want to have to tear up the wall to run new cables later).

My house was 'pre-wired' but was not quite sufficient for my needs. They ran two RG6QS cables to the master bedroom but ZERO CAT5 to that room. So I guess the original owner really wanted multiple TVs but didn't think they'd ever want a phone or network connection in the master bedroom. My office had one CAT5 when I really need at least two. It costs about $150 per hour to have someone else come and retro-fit things. Mine is now the way I need it but it cost more than a few bucks to get it right.

If you are doing it all from scratch, don't shortchange yourself. IMO you should have a minimum of two EACH of CAT5 and RG6 to each room. The CAT5 can be used for phone, network, control pads, literally anything and the RG6 can be used for cable, satellite, subwoofer, and other things. The minimal cost upfront is well worth not having to deal with retrofit issues later.

Just my two cents but backed by experience.

 

[Rickster71]

Good advice so far.
If I may add, the two signals can not be combined.
If you really want to future proof your installation, use CAT6.
In the past few years, lots of commercial plans I've seen, call for CAT6 and in time it will filter down to residential work.
The max frequency of CAT5 = 100MHz The max of Cat6 = 250MHz

Cat5 is to CAT6, what RG-59 is to RG-6
As an example, my house was new, 15 years ago.
Unbeknownst to me every room has two wall jacks wired with RG-59
All that wire is pretty much useless to me.
I have satellite and the RG-59 can't handle it's high frequency.
It's not even a good bet for over the air FM

 

[MDS]

CAT5e is sufficient for gigabit ethernet. CAT6 would give you a little future-proofing but not all that much.

 

[Rickster71]

From a future proofing perspective, it is always better to install the best cabling available. This is because it is so difficult to replace cabling inside walls, in ducts under floors and other difficult places to access. If future equipment running at much higher data rates requires better cabling, it will be very expensive to pull out CAT 5e cabling at a later time to install CAT 6 cabling. So why not do it for a premium of about 20 percent over CAT 5e on an installed basis?
Also, the growth of streaming media applications to the home will increase the need for higher data rates, which are supported more easily and efficiently by CAT 6 cabling.

 

[annunaki]

CAT6 is a fair bit more expensive than cat5e as well.