Coaxial Cable: RG6 or Quad Shielded RG6?

[highfigh]

Kind of but to elaborate more, the main reason isj ust simple, less work less cable...


None of this matters much though, even with your grounding. You can ground to any water line or if need be put in a ground rod to ground to.

Heres what you want to do (imo)
1) Like I said b4, run 2 dedicated lines from your panel to each room leaving slack at both points (about 3 ft) That way if you ever want DVR's you have both lines (they require two independent lines.

2) As far as lines going from the panel room out to the dish, you can ground it in there if you want, since its bare walls, you can run a ground wire into the wall plugs ground, its your best bet. They make ground blocks with 4 barrels on them.

3) as far as placement and where to run these lines, your Sate needs a clear shot of the Southwestern sky @ a 37 degree angle (not that steep) Hows your SW view? any trees? If not then put it as close to your AV panel room you can, run them down the side of your house, I guess if you want to use conduit you can.. no reason though, they will be protected from UV and last forever. I think they are called "Jakes"?? The 90 degree elbows to go into your house, also, that gray pvc is for electrical.

The grounding is for protection against a lightning strike, not to keep ground loops from happening. That's why you want as little cable inside of the structure before the point where it's grounded. Using one of the receptacles isn't hte best way since the breaker panel is what the ground stake is connected to and that cable will carry a lot more voltage and current.

I like to run at least two coax and one Cat5e to each location, but if the basement ceiling will be finished (not suspended, that's easy to work around), I like to also leave a conduit of some kind so additional cabling can be run if needed.

Re: "Like I said b4, run 4 lines out to the dish. HD Satellites have 4 lines that come off the L and B."

The new equipment has the multi-switch mounted on the dish and in some cases, more than 4 cables are needed, especially if terrestrial antenna is mounted outside. BTW- it's not an L and B, it's an LNB. In C-band, they called it an LNA, which stood for Low Noise Amplifier. Apparently, this was too confusing so they changed it.

 

[businessjeff]

hahah lol woops, i forgot LNB... DOH!

whats this your saying about new sates running the multi switch off the dish???? If thats what you're meaning, thats the dumbest idea ever. First off its far superior to have the switch indoors. Secondly, that would call for running 8 wires off the dish as apposed to 4 or even 1 if you use SMW... I dont see the point in any of this, and who uses an off air anyways? lol

About the grounding... Im going to have to disagree, sure putting it as close to the power panel has some marrit (sp?!?) to it, but not enough to call for relocating his whole av room just for grounding reasons. If his lines are grounded to anything thats a proper ground, and the dish gets hit, his house will NOT burn down. Sure having it closer is better, but both ways work, where as only one way calls for simply installing a ground block a few feet from a preexisting ground and tapping in.

 

[Phil Taylor]

... and who uses an off air anyways? lol

I do - it's a better HD signal than satellite and way better than cable. My Dish HD PVR also records OTA signals. Perhaps you were being sarcastic?

PS - it was briefly mentioned earlier but RF cable cannot be kinked at all and any bends in the cable need to very gradual. The signal in an RF cable travels as a wave between the center conductor and the outer foil - unlike analog video or audio signals which travel in a linear fashion. Any kinks will cause reflected signal - too tight of a bend will cause degradation.

Also - when installing a connector - take extra care to remove any "plastic" that may cling to the center conductor and also make sure there are no stray braids wrapped around the conductor from stripping. Push the connector onto the cable with the center plastic flush with the inner bottom of the connector and the center conductor should be just slightly longer than flush with the outer/front edge of the connector.

 

[Phil Taylor]

In C-band, they called it an LNA, which stood for Low Noise Amplifier. Apparently, this was too confusing so they changed it.

Actually those are two different but very similar types of C-Band signal reception devices. LNA and LNB. LNB is a Low Noise Block downconverter. LNA was the earliest of devices with a separate noise block - LNB came along later and was a more efficient reception device. Today's DBS or "LSD" (Little Small Dish vs "BUD" - Big Ugly Dish) satellite signals use what is technically called an LNBF (LNB + integrated Feedhorn) - though most folks just call them LNBs.

 

[businessjeff]

WHY DO YOU KNOW THIS!!! lol

 

[highfigh]

hahah lol woops, i forgot LNB... DOH!

whats this your saying about new sates running the multi switch off the dish???? If thats what you're meaning, thats the dumbest idea ever. First off its far superior to have the switch indoors. Secondly, that would call for running 8 wires off the dish as apposed to 4 or even 1 if you use SMW... I dont see the point in any of this, and who uses an off air anyways? lol

About the grounding... Im going to have to disagree, sure putting it as close to the power panel has some marrit (sp?!?) to it, but not enough to call for relocating his whole av room just for grounding reasons. If his lines are grounded to anything thats a proper ground, and the dish gets hit, his house will NOT burn down. Sure having it closer is better, but both ways work, where as only one way calls for simply installing a ground block a few feet from a preexisting ground and tapping in.

You & I both know it's better (and mush more serviceable) to have the switch inside but the way they pay installers, they don't have time to make the installation all pretty and correct. That's one thing I have a major problem with when it comes to cable and satellite companies- they don't pay well enough to do it right, they just want it done fast. They sent a trainee when mine was installed and I ended up doing a lot of it so they could finish on one trip. Then, the trainee told me that I should apply with DirecTV to be an installer. I still had to have them come back to ground the feed outside. I don't want it sparking inside my house.

You can disagree but it is code. It's even more strict in commercial/institutional buildings.

The feed needs to be grounded at the demarc point, not the AV room. The feed comes in, is grounded and continues on to the AV closet. Assuming the electrical wiring is done well, not back stabbed, everything is tight and the right gauge, there should be no grounding issues. The panel's ground cable going to the stake is the ground reference- there is no other.

As far as "the house will NOT burn down"- have you ever though about the volts and amps in a lightning bolt? Did you know that code calls for at least 16" between lightning suppression cabling and ANY electrical service wiring? That's because a strike can induce enough voltage in adjacent cables that just being close to the suppression cabling can cause a fire in the electrical wiring. The code didn't stop an electrician from strapping his bundle of wires to the suppression cables in a house I worked on, though. He must have had 20 wires coming up from the basement, up the wall and into the second floor with everything right next to the big braided cable. The inspector stopped their work immediately and made them rewire the whole electrical drop since the suppression was already there.

 

[highfigh]

I do - it's a better HD signal than satellite and way better than cable. My Dish HD PVR also records OTA signals. Perhaps you were being sarcastic?

PS - it was briefly mentioned earlier but RF cable cannot be kinked at all and any bends in the cable need to very gradual. The signal in an RF cable travels as a wave between the center conductor and the outer foil - unlike analog video or audio signals which travel in a linear fashion. Any kinks will cause reflected signal - too tight of a bend will cause degradation.

Also - when installing a connector - take extra care to remove any "plastic" that may cling to the center conductor and also make sure there are no stray braids wrapped around the conductor from stripping. Push the connector onto the cable with the center plastic flush with the inner bottom of the connector and the center conductor should be just slightly longer than flush with the outer/front edge of the connector.

I'm not sure my OTA digital signal can be compared to satellite HD fairly- I'm less than a mile from the tower. I was listening to a radio station through my guitar amp a couple of nights ago because the signal is so strong.

The dielectric being compressed when cable is bent makes me wonder why copper clad steel is even allowed. Plus, it ruins perfectly good wire cutters. I bought one box of that stuff without realizing it wasn't solid copper and fortunately, it wasn't a problem but I did mess up some cutters. It's amazing how many people (installers) don't bother with termination caps on unused cable jacks. Must be some incredibly tight budgets out there.

Might as well mention that the minimum bend radius is 4x the cable diameter, eh?

 

[highfigh]

Actually those are two different but very similar types of C-Band signal reception devices. LNA and LNB. LNB is a Low Noise Block downconverter. LNA was the earliest of devices with a separate noise block - LNB came along later and was a more efficient reception device. Today's DBS or "LSD" (Little Small Dish vs "BUD" - Big Ugly Dish) satellite signals use what is technically called an LNBF (LNB + integrated Feedhorn) - though most folks just call them LNBs.

When I mentioned LNA, it's because a friend of mine used to sell and install C-band satellite equipment close to 30 years ago. I did a few too, but it was for a contractor that did a lot of LDS facilities and they were pretty straight forward plus, once the dishes were aimed, they pretty much did the rest of the setup on their own. Those old ones were pretty funky looking compared with the new LNB, eh? I have seen a few old, unused dishes made into all kinds of things, none suitable for TV reception.

 

[Phil Taylor]

When I mentioned LNA, it's because a friend of mine used to sell and install C-band satellite equipment close to 30 years ago. I did a few too, but it was for a contractor that did a lot of LDS facilities and they were pretty straight forward plus, once the dishes were aimed, they pretty much did the rest of the setup on their own. Those old ones were pretty funky looking compared with the new LNB, eh? I have seen a few old, unused dishes made into all kinds of things, none suitable for TV reception.

I only go back about 20 years with C-band ... learned my chops from a guy who worked with Coop (early c-band pioneer). Yep - those LNAs were indeed ugly... amazing how they even worked - but the house I lived in a couple of years ago had neighbors with an ancient LNA on an old solid fiberglass dish in their backyard and it STILL worked amazingly enough.

After moving 3 times in five years around back around 2001, I finally gave in to the LSD movement. I hated to trade the quality of the BUD for the convenience of LSD but moving the dish and setting the pole became too much of a hassle. But I still fondly remember the days of watching backhaul feeds from sporting events with remarkable quality - straight from the event to the bird to my dish - it rivaled today's HD (well at least it was as close as we could get back in the day) and no commercials as an added bonus. And catching a syndication feed block with "blacks drawn up" was the absolute best way to watch Seinfeld re-runs - a week's worth of episodes with no commercials - just a dip to black and then back to the show. Damn how I miss those dayzzz.

/nostalgic rant

 

[highfigh]

I only go back about 20 years with C-band ... learned my chops from a guy who worked with Coop (early c-band pioneer). Yep - those LNAs were indeed ugly... amazing how they even worked - but the house I lived in a couple of years ago had neighbors with an ancient LNA on an old solid fiberglass dish in their backyard and it STILL worked amazingly enough.

After moving 3 times in five years around back around 2001, I finally gave in to the LSD movement. I hated to trade the quality of the BUD for the convenience of LSD but moving the dish and setting the pole became too much of a hassle. But I still fondly remember the days of watching backhaul feeds from sporting events with remarkable quality - straight from the event to the bird to my dish - it rivaled today's HD (well at least it was as close as we could get back in the day) and no commercials as an added bonus. And catching a syndication feed block with "blacks drawn up" was the absolute best way to watch Seinfeld re-runs - a week's worth of episodes with no commercials - just a dip to black and then back to the show. Damn how I miss those dayzzz.

/nostalgic rant

We had a 12' dish on our back yard, on a trailer for when they needed to do a demo. The neighbor to the East hated it so much he called the police and Alderman. The cops were sitting in their cruiser and when my friend went out to find out what they were doing, the first thing they did was ask how many channels we got. The alderman called and hte first thing he said was "I want you to know that what you're doing is totally legal", which was met with "I know". The alderman then went on to ask a lot of questions about the viability of Milwaukee setting up their own cable system (it was before we had one). They had a meeting at the house and we tweaked the dish for best picture, but a couple of the most influential aldermen only said NO to any possibility of it happening, basically because they had already been paid off by Warner-Amex.

We used to watch all kinds of great shows that weren't available any other way and one night, we had a news feed with the camera aimed at the floor showing a half-filled cup of coffee with cigarette butts in it, the legs of a stool, a pair of feet on the rail and Peter Jennings telling dirty jokes in French.