Is there a preferred coaxial cable to get the best results?

electriczipper

Hi all, This newb(me) was wondering if there is a preferred coaxial cable to use to get the best results?
Thank you,
EZ

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Jane & Joe Public, neither pachyderm nor jack-ss, but Manipulated into choosing one of two evils if their vote is to count at all.

Rick-F

Your question is a bit vague. You need to include some specifics for a specific answer.

But in general: YES, there is.

electriczipper

Thank you, I guess it should say something more like: Is there something better than RG-6 coaxial cable to run from the antenna to the house, and if so is there a preferred brand? and what is the specific item called?
I hope that is better.
EZ

__________________
Jane & Joe Public, neither pachyderm nor jack-ss, but Manipulated into choosing one of two evils if their vote is to count at all.

NonMcTubber

To electriczipper,

If you have a very long run of coax, Rg-11 will offer less line loss than RG-6 because the the center conductor is a larger diameter wire.

The second thing to look at is the coax grade, outdoor is meant to be placed in the elements or buried in the ground, and indoor grade, has to be run indoors. Then I have heard some mumbling about quad shielded but I understand little of that. And I have also head that black is the best color for outdoor grade coax. The other thing I have head is the coax line losses increase with the frequency of the signal, so if you have many high UHF stations its far more import than if you have mainly VHF.

In terms of my real world practical experience, the antenna hooked up to my house when I bought it was wired with decidedly inferior Rg-59. When I made my upgrades for digital, my set up became 35' of hard to retrofit with RG-6, RG-59, that gets into my basement, then to a splitter, one side of the splitter feeds one TV connected with 50' of indoor Rg-6, the other side of the splitter feeds my other TV that is connected by 75' of RG-59. Until I added a distribution amp ahead of the splitter, the TV fed with RG-6 got 2 channels more than the TV fed by RG-59. And the distribution amp not only gained 2 more channels, it also equalized reception for both TV's. I could easily replace my indoor RG-59, but why bother?

__________________
High definition is not the definition of my life.
But knowledge is power and HD does have some potential to increase content variety and choices.

electriczipper

Thanks again NonMcTubber, I'll check it out.

__________________
Jane & Joe Public, neither pachyderm nor jack-ss, but Manipulated into choosing one of two evils if their vote is to count at all.

JB Antennaman

Sorry I missed your post, and I hope that you return to get a direct answer.

The answer is - the best wire you can buy for any UHF / VHF installation would be a good Quad Shield wire with as low of loss as possible.

Communications wire - is all COPPER. The price is probably 4 times as much as regular RG 6 Quad Shield with a copper center wire and a braid outer ground.

As per your request, the most recommended wire - is Belden 1829 AC wire.

If you cannot find it in your local stores, don't dispare - you can buy it from solid signal in any length you wish.

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_disp...D=1829AC10UBLK

http://manuals.solidsignal.com/1829AC.pdf

All cable has loss and the higher up that you go in frequency (VHF to UHF) the more loss that the cable has.
If you start with a low level signal at the antenna and then butt it into
coax cable you are going to have less come out at the end than went into it from the antenna.

The amount of loss depends upon a number of factors, cable type and cable length are the two most important.
Cable is rated in db loss per 100' at X MHz (frequency).

RG-6 cable is the cable most used in TV use.

Like all things there is good RG6 and not so good.

Belden 1829AC Coax - Series 6 has a loss of 4db/100 feet at 500 MHz (TV Channel 18)

Channel 32 is 580 MHz

Channel 52 is 700 MHz

A 5 db loss at TV channel 2 the cable would have a loss of 1.4db.

So at channel 18 you loose more than 1/2 the power in 100' of cable between the antenna and the TV.

Here is the Quad Shield wire that is sold in Lowes

Signal Electronic Cable

RG 6 QUAD 18 CCS 75C

Part number # 92041M508

Only 3db/100' @ 400MHz & 6db @700 MHz (Channel 52).

4.48 DB loss at 500 Mhz.

http://www.colemancable.com/CatalogPDFs/92041-blk.pdf

3 dB = gain factor of 2 (actually 1.995)

-3 dB = a 50% loss of signal

Stay away from RG 59 and all other old style cables, they will only cause you problems in the long run. It's too much information for me to type this late at night.

One thing you need to know is that you want to use Quad Shield wire and not regular RG 6 wire, not only because of the lower loss rate but also due to the fact that the shielding keeps out most of the noise.

That is especially important if you wish to receive a good signal or if you need to use a pre amplifier.

If the signal you amplify is crap, all you will end up with is more crap coming out the other end.

JB Antennaman

Read my antenna post - to get a good laugh.

Do not use twist on connectors on the ends of the wire.

Either beg, borrow or steal a crimping tool and use the best quality F terminals you can get.

Forget the push on type, anything that is easy to push on will be just as easy for it to fall off.

Loves2Watch

Hate to disagree with you here because of all of your great, informative and helpful posts but recent testing proved that there is absolutely no advantage to quad shield vs. standard RG6.

__________________
Theater 1 - Panasonic PT-AE4000U, Draper Premier 119" 16:9 Projector Screen, Panasonic TH-85PF12U Plasma TV, 6 Conrad Johnson LP275M Amps, Anthem Statement D-2 Pre/Pro, 6 Thiel SCS4 Speakers, 2 REL T-1 Subs, Infinity Interlude 120S Sub, Simaudio MOON Orbiter Universal Disc Player, ELP Laser Turntable, 2 Dish Network ViP 622 DVR's, Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Player, Onkyo DV-HD805 HD DVD Player.
Friends don't let friends buy Korean brand TV's or Sony audio equipment.

JB Antennaman

Unfortunately - opinions on the internet is like butt holes, everybody has one and occasionally they stink.

read this;

http://www.mitcables.com/pdf/RG-6.pdf

Are there differences?
Is there really a difference between one RG-6 and another? Why should I buy
a cable for $0.60/ft when I can get one for $0.09/ft.Should I buy quad-shielded
cable instead of dual or single-shielded? I’ve heard terms like VP, bandwidth, and capacitance used when describing coax cables.
What do these terms mean?
Do the materials used to construct the cable really effect the
performance,and are they worth the extra cost?

The differences– All cables are not created equal.
The better the materials,construction techniques and technology—the better the performance.

Understanding this is extremely critical,since you can’t easily upgrade your cable once it’s in the wall.
Make sure you get it right the first time, install a cable that provides the best performance.
Wiring with the correct product will ensure all of the performance possible and will not limit future system upgrades.
This is especially true, once you consider the extreme bandwidth
demands of modern High-Definition and Digital TV signals.

There are just a few determining factors when it comes to coaxial cable design. But if the proper specifications are not followed, the performance of the cable will suffer.

Here is some background technology information on
those determining factors and how they effect performance:

conductors- Copper is the best choice due to its high conductivity, affordability and workability. The purer the better, with the standard at, at least 99.99%pure.

In less expensive cables, copper-clad steel is often used.

Steel cables are undesirable due to the increased resistance/impedance created by thesteel conductor.

Silver is often used,in some more expensive “upgrade”
cables (due to its very low resistance/impedance at higher frequencies),but the cost can be prohibitive.

For high performance,high bandwidth systems, a
great alternative to solid silver is silver-clad copper which provides excellent performance at a fraction of the price of pure silver.

Shielding -

The shielding is what protects the signal from outside
interference such as EMI and RFI, while also providing a return for
the negative signal back to the source.

So, shield materials can have a large effect on performance.

dual-shield vs. quad-shield —

It’s really not the number of shields, but how well they cover that really matters.

Coverage, and resistance is everything when we consider shielding.

The rule is at least 95% coverage copper braid (for low frequency protection) and at least 20° to 30° overlap on the foil shield (for high-frequency protection).

Shielding is not cumulative

Two braided shields that are 60% and 40% coverage will not give you 100% coverage.
The combination can actually only end up to be about 80%, leaving 20% uncovered.

Also,more is not necessarily better.

Anything more than 100% shielding can be overkill, just creating more capacitance, which reduces the bandwidth of the cable, and in turn system performance.

Quite often, quad-shielded cables will tend to increase capacitance to such high levels,they will actually reduce the systems overall performance.
So,in most cases, a well designed dual shielded
cable will work best. This is why most manufacturers top level cables are dual-shielded.

Dielectric material-

The primary dielectric is the insulating material that separates the center conductor from the shield, the more air in the dielectric material , the lower the capacitance , and the higher the velocity of propagation (VP).

Foamed or gas-injected dielectrics are more costly to manufacture, but are necessary for low capacitance and high velocity of propagation .

VP - is the speed that the signal travels through the wire and its value is expressed as a percentage of the speed of light.
Low capacitance and high velocity of propagation
are key for wide bandwidth high-quality video transmission.

Loves2Watch

For all intents and purposes it will make no difference to the OP.

Watch the insults...

__________________
Theater 1 - Panasonic PT-AE4000U, Draper Premier 119" 16:9 Projector Screen, Panasonic TH-85PF12U Plasma TV, 6 Conrad Johnson LP275M Amps, Anthem Statement D-2 Pre/Pro, 6 Thiel SCS4 Speakers, 2 REL T-1 Subs, Infinity Interlude 120S Sub, Simaudio MOON Orbiter Universal Disc Player, ELP Laser Turntable, 2 Dish Network ViP 622 DVR's, Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Player, Onkyo DV-HD805 HD DVD Player.
Friends don't let friends buy Korean brand TV's or Sony audio equipment.

electriczipper

Hi, and thanks for the info it definitely helps . EZ

__________________
Jane & Joe Public, neither pachyderm nor jack-ss, but Manipulated into choosing one of two evils if their vote is to count at all.

Tower Guy

I use 75 ohm 3/4" hardline. It has one shield. It works fine for me. The run to my antenna is 400'.

NonMcTubber

Its seems to me that this question of what coax is better than another is not going to be an easy question to answer from a practical new installation standpoint.

But in my case it was a super easy question as a retrofit problem. And it requires some basic information about antennas, coax characteristics, and most importantly the addition of another absolutely free tool, namely a TV fool report.

And when I am later disappointed to learn that the antenna and coax cabling that came with my house is not the best for digital, I still have to ask how much money it will take to do better. Which is where TV fool comes in. It does not take much knowledge to learn to read such a report, and after spending less than $50.00 on no more than step ladder inside upgrades, I found that I was getting 100% of the channels I could realistically expect to get. Not all TV fool reports are as simple as mine, others will have a want to get marginal channels they really want, but are south of the digital cliff, and they will always wonder if better coax might make that needed difference.

But might be advised to bring Mohammed to the mountain since the mountain will not come to Mohammed. And do that by slupping a light weight LCD set close to the antenna, hooking in a short length of coax, and see if that marginal channel is still a bridge too far.

__________________
High definition is not the definition of my life.
But knowledge is power and HD does have some potential to increase content variety and choices.

electriczipper

That is a long run Tower Guy. Mine is approximately 115'.

NonMcTubber I'm putting together a list of things to get if needed, and if they are affordable.

Thanks Loves2Watch for the different take(I think that is the way I mean to express it?).

JB Antennaman I greatly appreciate your time. The info is exactly what I wanted.

__________________
Jane & Joe Public, neither pachyderm nor jack-ss, but Manipulated into choosing one of two evils if their vote is to count at all.

Tower Guy

At 115' RG-6 is marginal unless you have the highest gain preamp. I'll second the vote for RG-11.