Here’s the deal; I don’t have cable or any type of pay-for-signal television. Furthermore I don’t want that.
However I would like the free broadcast stations to come in clearer.
Here are the facts. [ul]
[li]I currently use rabbit ears on my televisions, which of course is usually snowy on some channels, plus the antennas have to be adjusted as you switch staitions.[/li]
[li]I discovered I have an aerial antenna in the attic of my house.[list]As far as I know the house is (was?) wired with flat (not co-ax) twin lead wiring [/ul][/li]
[li] There is an infrastructure for using existing co-ax cable, however it comes in through the basement (not the roof where the antenna is).[/li]
[/list]
So what are my options?
What do you recommend?
Would it be worth it to hook co-ax to my antenna in the attic, then run it down to the basement to feed to the rest of the house? (i.e. would a broadcast signal travel OK through all that co-ax?)
Are all aerial pretty much the same or is there a chance that the tv antenna in my attic can’t be hooked to co-ax?
It doesn’t seem like a good idea to convert to the co-ax lead at the tv end, especially judging on how old the flat wiring looks. I think it’s a whole new set of problems waiting to happen.
Start by doing the simplest thing possible. Get a brand new roll of flat twin lead and attach one end to the antenna. Unroll the flat lead through the attic door, down the stairs, along the outside or whatever the shortest way to your TV takes it. Then get a flat lead to coax converter (300 ohm>75 ohm) and connect that to the TV.
Is the signal any better? If not, then you’ve answered every other question.
If the signal does improve, then you can move to the next step – hooking up coax. Be advised that splitting the signal of an old-fashioned antenna to more than one TV is most likely going to result in a terrible picture on all the TVs. You may be able to improve it with a signal amplifier, but it’s a roll of the dice.
A word of caution. If you want to receive UHF stations the twin lead will probaably not be satisfactory. You might try getting an antenna preamplifier from Radio SHack or some such place.
An antenna amplifier may help or it oddly enough, may make things worse. If the antenna’s not aimed right, an amp will just make the ghosting worse.
If you do decide to replace the twin-lead with coax, spring for RG-6. The old-school RG-59 doesn’t have a complete shield, so it can pick up interference.
Huh? The difference between RG-6 and RG-59 is in the size of the wires. How good the shielding is depends entirely on the quality of the cable. You can get good or bad shielding in either RG-6 or RG-59. The lighter gauge of RG-59 does result in greater signal loss on long runs, but good quality RG-59 is no more susceptible to interference than equivalent RG-6.
In response to kunilou’s suggestion, I’d put the 300/75 ohm balun at the antenna and run the coax down to the tv. Flat twin wire IS susceptible to interference.
Good old impatient me. I took (part of) kunilou’s advice before I read it.
When I got home tonight I went up to the attic and gave the current antenna a close visual. I saw that it had a built in connector for both coax and flat wire. I unscrewed and removed the existing flat wire, and adjusted it for coax. I had a 25 foot roll of coax in the closet so I hooked it up, ran it down the attic stairs into the hall and hooked it up to my bedroom tv. All the channels come in better! woo hoo!
OK, I had to look those up. It looks like a Yagi antenna.
So, Gorsnak, what is the likelyhood that I’ll be able to feed several (2 or 3?) televisions with one antenna? Which of the cable types above should I plan on buying for the best distribution of a quality signal?
Try it and see. Really, it’s to impossible to say as there are many, many variables.
RG-6 is your best bet for distributing video around a house. RG-59 is ideal when you have short runs and want more flexible cable (like in a rack of equipment), but for running between rooms the heavier gauge RG-6 is nominally better. Though frankly if you could see the difference I’d be surprised. The ideal would be to get some bulk cable, ends, and crimpers, but the cost effectiveness of terminating your own wire is pretty low if you aren’t going to use the tools with some frequency.
As Gorsnak said, try it and see. The TV will have automatic gain control in the amplifiers. If your signal is well above a certain level determined by the design of the TV set you will notice little difference.
A Yagi is in the attic? Those are very directional. If you want to receive from multiple broadcast antennas, and those antennas are far apart (angularly speaking), you’ll need to put the Yagi on a rotor. Or you’ll need to install an omni-directional antenna. (The Yagi on a rotor is the highest performance.)
Very true… while flat twin cable is (usually) less lossy than coax, it is much more susceptible to interference. It is also more susceptible to localized impedance changes when the cable is run adjacent to metal surfaces.
Stick with RG-6 coax. If a long coax run attenuates the signal too much, use a higher gain antenna (like a Yagi on a rotor) and/or mount the antenna on a tower. As a last resort, try sticking a high-quality LNA at the antenna.
Dunno where you are, but the SF area is so saturated with RF, (our TV/radio transmitters are closer and lower to humans than in most metro areas) that you’re a fool to use anything but RG6 with its foil shield.
RG59 almost always has a braid shield that’s far from perfect - typically, the coverage is around 60% which leaves a lot of holes for signals to leak in (or out) through. RG6 is almost always multiple (usually four) layers of foil and braid, for a durable 100% shield that nothing will sneak past.
The bandwidth matters as well - if you’re trying to push high UHF channels through more than 50-100 feet of cable, you’ll want RG6’s better performance at those frequencies.
As an aside, I was once told by a cable TV tech that they will automatically disconnect any RG59 they encounter as it’s 100% guaranteed to be an illegal connection, and guaranteed to be re-radiating signal.
I’m north of Atlanta in a town called Roswell. Tonight or tomorrow I’ll take a picture of the antenna so that you guys can confirm that it’s a Yagi.
So, regarding a Yagi antenna. Mine is mounted on a vertice pipe in that attic. It can rotate more or less freely. Am I understanding that once cable is hooked up, that the SOP is to rotate the antenna until I get the best reception?
Due to my ignorance of how antennas receive signals, it has always seemed odd to me that you would have to adjust antennas at all. It’s like a brodcast signal will hit the antenna in one position, but not two inches over?
What on earth are you talking about? Quad-shield RG-59 is readily available if you want it (here you go, $31 for 500’, knock yourself out), and bog standard RG-6 is typically foil + 60% braid, nothing special really. As for bandwidth and signal loss, well, yes. Haven’t I said that RG-6 is superior for long runs?