Will RG6 do for Sky

Yes and no, usually not

There are many kinds of RG6. There is no longer and hasn't been for maybe 15 years any such cable as "RG6" alone. They are all RG6- something.

1) Some are rubbish (Copper plated Steel core, loose aluminium braid and metallised plastic as the foil screen, indoor only insulation).

2) Others are thick full coverage copper braid, solid copper foil, solid copper inner core wire and Outdoor grade plastic for UV or underground.

So it's impossible to say. Unless your so called "RG6" is the second kind, I'd not use it.

note you must not twist or kink the cable or have too tight a bend or the RF properties can be permanently degraded and even specific frequencies blocked.

Seeing as you already have the cable, give it a go because it may well work fine. I've mangled cables with the garden strimmer before and still get Freesat.

All I'm saying is that I've had about 40 metres of cheap RG6 cable buried in a boggy garden for about five years and I have twice mangled it with the strimmer and yet it still works perfectly for Freesat. There are even holes where the rain has been getting in, yet the box hasn't dipped from 90% signal strength and quality since day one.

Funny how the only times I've had picture breakup has been when the grass has overgrown the dish!

I admit that if you were buying new cable to do it from scratch you might invest in something better, but he already has the RG6.

its foam filled? wouldnt this be as good as the WF100 foam filled or is it completly different
perhaps watty can you give us a laymans translation of the terms used on the cable -
"1.0 ccs + 4.6F PE +AL Foil +AL Braiding"
thanks

Al foil and braid = Cheap poor quality.
You need copper foil and braid. Also you must not be able to see the inner foil (or insulation if foil cracked and pulled out) AT ALL thorough the braid.

There are many types of Foam.
WF100 foam is crush resistant, low loss dielectric at 2GHz and Hydrophobic (repels moisture).

Cheaper foams can be any mix of bad properties:
Delectric good only for 150MHz, 600MHz
Easily crushed and doesn't spring back
Even Hydrophilic (wicks up moisture and performance degrades badly over a year or so)

Aluminium braid / foil sets up an electrochemical reaction with Copper to accelerate corrosion. The Braid also rots as unlike Alloy sheet it's too fine to get a stabilising film of oxide. It turns into a ceramic powder.

Aluminium is much poorer than Gold as a conductor which is poorer than copper. Only pure real Silver beats copper among "normal" materials.

Aluminium (Al) is for cheapness of indoor only TV cable up to 600MHz or 700MHz or very short indoor runs up to 850MHz. Satellite feed is 950MHz to 2100MHz.

Hi watty, my satellite cable has had a few holes in it for the last two winters. I'm sure the inside of the cable is pretty damp if the corrosion around the holes is anything to go by, yet it still works.

In fairness, no I haven't checked every transponder, but there isn't a channel on the Freesat box that doesn't work.

When it does finally break, I'll replace it with some WF100 in a duct. I'm actually as surprised as you are that it does work. I only put it in because I had the cable lying about and I didn't want to wait on new cable coming from ebay, so I just sort of cut a groove in the grass with a spade and poked the cable in with a stick.

I've also got about 50 metres of 8-core burglar alarm wire running outside the house carrying Gigabit LAN (tested for curiosity, gets about 800 Mbps throughput).

Does the conductivity of aluminium / copper matter much at satellite IF frequencies? From what I've read, the difference in attenuation is about 20 dB/100m for WF100 and 21.5 db/100m for RG6. Not really much of a difference.

bulbs2010 wrote: »

Some people try to make a science out of a simple sat install,

Must disagree theres lots of science involved and to say a sat install is simple tells me a lot about your experience of doing same. How exactly do you know about "half the country's installs" ?

moro_original wrote: »

In fairness, bulbs2010 has a point.

Again I must disagree, this is nothing but a half baked assumption (by bulbs) with no evidence to back it up

bulbs2010 wrote: »

.Half the countrys installs are connected onto existing cableing in attics whith no problems

Since the OP already has the cable then it makes sense to try it out assuming A. The run is not over 20 to 25m and is not too difficult

B. The RG6 is of decent quality with low enough loss and decent shielding.

Tony wrote: »

Must disagree theres lots of science involved and to say a sat install is simple tells me a lot about your experience of doing same. How exactly do you know about "half the country's installs" ?

I am an electrician who served my time in irish cable and wire ,then I worked as a service engineer whith cmi cable tv,then chorus and upc for 15 years ,for the past 4 years I install sky and tv repair in a tv shop

Or that the worst parts of UPC's network are the ex-chorus / CMI parts. A lot of MMDS downleads even done with generic so called "RG59". I get VHF band interference from next door's MMDS downlead as it's some kind of Rubbish version of "RG6". But I suspect UPC doesn't know and didn't install it.

Cable TV in the past barely used above 470MHz. UPC has brought Cable TV into the UHF band. Satellite IF on coax is 950MHz to 2100MHz.

Maybe half the Country's Installs are poor.

It would seem that no one here is actually a professor of high frequency electronics.

Bunch of amateurs. :P

MYOB wrote: »

If your unprofessional over cables, what other corners get cut?

He probably doesn't use oxygen free copper.

How about RG6U High Performance 2.25 GHz Digital Cable 013M? Have that myself. How does that rate?