NTL outside box

biologikal

Hope someone here can help...

Outside my house there is a cable connection box (NTL moulding cover), and inside there are the end of two cables with connections on them. The connections are the same type (female type) but the cables are different (one normal, the other looks much better insulation). Are both of these cables going into my house, or is it likely that one is a feed from a cable supplier, who would connect the two cables in the event of a subscription being paid?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to determine where the TV point in my living room originates. I found a cable in the attic that runs up the front of the house, across the attic, and down the back of the house to an upstairs bedroom. I cut this cable in the attic, attached a TV aerial to both ends but only get reception in the upstairs bedroom, nothing in the living room downstairs. I checked the whole attic, but there is only the one TV cable run through it.

If only one of the cables in the NTL box goes into the house, how would I be expected to get a signal into the living room? Maybe someone here knows how contractors usually wire up the TV cables in new house these days.

Thanks for any helpful replies.

PauloMN

I would imagine that the cable for your TV point in your living room is one of the wires you are seeing in the junction box outside. The other larger cable in is probably UPC/NTL in.

What are you trying to do exactly? Feed the bedroom and living room off a UHF antenna?

biologikal

Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

I had another look at the cables in the outside box, and using the longest circuit tester setup I've ever used, found out that the lighter cable was the one going up through the attic to the bedroom upstairs. I pulled the box out of the wall (it was only siliconed in), and found the one that is going to the living room point. So I've connected the two points in the outside box together, connected the two leads I now have in the attic to the ariel, and have a signal going to both living room and bedroom.

The analogue signal in the bedroom is great, but the one in the living room is very snowy. I connected a DTT box to the living room and even though the signal quality is below half-way (maybe about 40%), there must be enough signal getting through that error correction can compensate for; the picture is perfect. The DTT box in the bedroom gets maybe 70% quality, and is also perfect.

I guessing that the reduced quality downstairs is due to the extra length and several connections I've had to put in to join up from aerial to living room point (from aerial to TV there are 5 different cables with male/female coax connectors - this could be reduced to 3 or 4).

To this end, with this situation, what would be the best way to maximise the signal getting to the living room, as in bad weather conditions, the digital signal may deteriorate to the point where it starts to break up? I'd like to avoid using signal boosters.

And what's the best way to patch two lengths of cable together? At the moment at the point outside I have two male coax connecters joined together with a short connecter with female types on both ends (gender-changer?).

I tested the signals with only one downlead connected at a time, but results were the same as if both were connected. I'm using a Yagi aerial with 6 elements on the horizontal, and 4 on the vertical.

This thread is probably more appropriate for the terrestrial forum at this point.

I should probably also add that my connections are the older style coax connectors. Would I see a big difference in what I'm trying to do using connectors like in this picture?

http://www.stevelarkins.freeuk.com/images/coaxial_cable_join.jpg

PauloMN

From what you have described, I'd imagine that one of the joins in the cable going to the living room might be dodgy, maybe the braid of the coax isn't connected on one of the joins.

The joins themselves should be no problem assuming they are all properly connected. Better to have less or no joins on a long cable run, but you won't see any real difference in picture quality so long as the joins are good.

If you have a long run of thin coax to the living room, that could cause the snowy picture also. If you can replace it with a single piece of decent quality coax, all the better.

The newer joins you have a picture of look like N type connectors - changing the connector type won't improve the picture in the slightest.

I'd avoid boosters if possible, probably won't resolve your problem which is definitely cable related.

biologikal

Thanks for the reply.

I'll go through each of the joins again, and make sure that they're all good (one or two were done in bad light, so there may be a bit of dodginess there somewhere). Hopefully the problem isn't with the original coax going to the living room, as it was put in when the house was being built, and I don't know how many corners it goes around, so it may not be possible.

If it came down it it, I could probably run a new downlead directly to the living room from the attic, but I'd prefer to avoid this if possible, see what I can get with what is already there.