R-6 Best quality

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Does anyone here have any experience or knowledge as to what is the best
brand of RG6 lead-in cable for HDTV. e.i. the cable coming in from the dish
or local antennae to the receiver box. I seriously doubt that the
installers are using the best quality cable.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Richard" <rfeirste@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:uhNzc.337690$M3.142176@twister.nyroc.rr.com:

>
> "Arnie" <alazarus@speakeasy.org> wrote in message
> news:Z_-dnUVp9KYr4FLd3czS-g@speakeasy.net...
>> Does anyone here have any experience or knowledge as to what is the
>> best brand of RG6 lead-in cable for HDTV. e.i. the cable coming in
>> from the
> dish
>> or local antennae to the receiver box. I seriously doubt that the
>> installers are using the best quality cable.
>>
> It's not a brand thing at all. If you looked at the cable venders
> order sheets you would find that the venders offer many different
> cables under the generic RG-6 designation. Different shielding, quad
> shielding, different type of conductors, etc. For dish installs, just
> about any RG-6 or RG-11 would work. Far more important is the quality
> of the connectors, their waterproofing and the general quality of the
> install. If you have to run a very long distance or underground
> consider RG-11,

The thing is, if you are not having connection problems and your
satellite signal is adequate, changing cable there will make no real
difference. Now on an analog antenna, especially a rooftop one, there
can be a LARGE difference, depending on the quality of the cable.
Believe it or not, most 300 ohm wires offer lower loss by a good margin
than any RG-6 (though you'd need a 300 ohm antenna and a balun at the TV
end of things). The problem is that 300 ohm wires are not usually
shielded and they pick up interference really easily unless dressed away
from all metal objects and brought away from the antenna at right angles.
Coax of good quality is a decent compromise and a good waterproof head-
end pre-amp at the antenna is also a good bet if signals are marginal.
These considerations will apply to both analog and digital OTA signals,
but with digital you will either have a decodable signal or you won't.
With analog, weaker signals sort of just peek out at you from the
snowstorm!



--
Dave Oldridge
ICQ 1800667

Paradoxically, most real events are highly improbable.