Quick HD TV Cable question

Fore Iron

Hi there,

Getting SKY+HD soon but I would prefer to avoid having cables all over the outside of my house! Two cables are required for Sky+ and there are apparently fancy options for combining units and splitters which can use the single cable running through my attic but I have been told that my existing cable might not be up to the task.

I am pondering having a go at running two cables from the attic to the sitting room myself in place of my existing single cable. I'm not sure how easy or difficult it will be but it seems worth a go. I would like to think I can tie new cable to the exisiting cable and pull it up into the attic but I'm sure it won't be that simple!

But what I really want to know is will I need to use any particular fancy cable or will plain old satellite TV Cable do the job?

Thanks!

seanw7

SKY HD and SKY + need 2 cables, so if you have 1 cable running to the dish at the minute.. sky will have to run a second cable. or you can do it yourself, its very easy...

Fore Iron

Thanks for the quick reply Sean. Is it fancy pants cable I would need or just plain old normal cable?

watty

There are three main kinds of cable for sale:
1) So called TV cable. Often brown. But black or white available. Has cobweb of braid. Do not buy. It's useless for anything. Standard install by builders.

2) Generic satellite cable often called CT100 or RG6. It rarely is. Plastic metalised foil and poor braid.Do not buy.

3) TX100 or PF100 or similar satellite IF grade cable. solid metal foil not visible through the heavy briad. Ideally all copper. Only buy this. Use for FM radio, DAB, TV, Cable Broadband, Cable TV and Satellite. The excellent screening stops interference getting in and the strong Satellite IF or cable TV/Broadband signals leaking out. It's not fancy cable. It's a minimum for domestic use.

I have "Fancy Pants" cables (PF125, RG213, LMR400, Heliax, hardline).

seanw7

if you know an electrician they prob have lots of this cable.. ask for a few yards of it for free (or 50)

watty

No, they likely have cable #1, which is useless.

There may be electricians that install cable #3. I've not met them. They can be relied to install correct spec of T&E mains wiring though. Only ask electrician for mains wire. Tell him what it's for and he will give you correct gauge.

seanw7

most new houses these days are pre wired for sky by electricians . are you saying they use lesser quality cable that does not work ?

Fore Iron

Watty, thanks for the info, that's exactly what I was after. Where would be the best place to get cable #3? I'd say I likely need a good 80 to 100 feet or 25 or 30 meters of cable so I'm sure it won't be cheap!!

watty

See the stickie of suppliers in the Forum.

It's cheap. Cooker cable or Moble phone mast cable is expensive.

John mac

have a look here

will give you a guide . delivery will add to the price though.

steveon

It is not always easy to pull a cable up tugh a wall, it all depends on the original run of the cable, some house are straight up but some run down or across the floors..the only through way of knowing if you can pull it up is to send someone to the attic and tug it gently and see if it moves at the other end..

If it isnt in conduit that is big enough to take two cables then it probably would snap half way up the wall.

As watty says if you can use PF100, cable however RG6 cable would be fine if its for a short run. Most electricians or tv enginners supply RG6 as at the end of the day as the customer will not pay for the cost of anything better. Also it is worth bearing in mind that some manufacturers grade of cabling are much better than other despite it being of the same grade it isnt in the real world...

watty

As long as it's actually RG6, Not spiderwebs on hose pipe mis-sold as RG6. If it's real RG6 it has Belden and RG6 printed repeatedly all along the cable. If it's not made by Beleden it may not really be RG6. Belden make a great many varieties of "RG6 like" cables.

A great many shops sell cable they claim is RG6, CT100 or whatever and it's nothing of the sort and not made by Belden.

Fore Iron

Well, feck it anyway. In typical me fashion I bought two 30m rolls of PF100 this morning and then got up into the attic this afternoon to fiddle with the existing cable.

Of course it was only then that I discovered that it comes up into the attic alongside two mains socket cables and all three appear to be stapled to the wood not far below the level of the attic floor and will not budge a mm. They all go through the same single hole in the attic floor. Is it just me that I find having sensitive TV recption cable wired in contact with mains cable not to be very good practice???

The odd thing is one mains cable heads across the attic floor and heads for the same place all cables take to the circuit board. The other cable heads towards the main bathroom. There is a double mains socket right next to the tv outlet in the sitting room but I find it hard to believe these would go up to the attic then down to the hall, so one must be a socket from the front bedroom and the other??? Dunno??

Any other ideas anyone can think of to get my nice shiny new cables from the attic to the sitting room??

Since I'm going down two floors from the attic, I can't get away with drilling a new fishing hole I think....

watty

holes in attic and upstairs floor feeding
Stick on neat rectangular PVC trunking in corner with clip on cover.

I have cables going from attic to kitchen via hotpress cabinet upstairs and then hole from kitchen to living room in bottom corner of room behind Radiator and angled TV cabinet.

Fore Iron

Thanks Watty. Interesting idea actually. I could run the cables through the ceiling in the corner of the front bedroom (directly above the TV down below) and then through the bedroom floor into the sitting room straight down to the TV. Trunking can be quite neat if done properly.

How easy is it to get from the first floor the ceiling below? Is there likely to be much in between the two? Particularly at the corner of a room?

I assume I could get triangular shaped corner trunking to hide it a little better?

Fore Iron

Well watty thanks for the idea. I've drilled a few holes and it'll work fine. I can easily run the cables through the soffit at the back of the house, across the attic, down through the front bedroom ceiling and sitting room ceiling and to the telly. The cables can be hidden nicely I think in a trunking in the corner of the two rooms.

My plan is that when Mr engineer dude arrives, the cables will all be sitting there waiting for him so he will not need (an therefore refuse) to get into the attic space at all. Simply plug one end of each into the dish and the others to the skybox.

All this of course assumes that I am correct in thinking that that will be all he needs? Two uninterrupted PF100 cables running from dish mount to TV????

Please God tell me I'm right!

Now to hunt for a wireless telephone socket extension.....

steveon

If your going to the bother of pulling new cables down why not install an extra 1 or 2 to give you a feed back to the bedroom perhaps, you could connect a magic eye to this and enable you to change channels when you goto bed.

Also you dont need any phone-unit connected unless you are going multiroom...

Fore Iron

Thanks steve, I was thinking exactly the same thing. That kind of "what else can I do while I'm up here" kind of thing! Looks like I'll have oodles of cable left over so I'll do just that.

I thought I would need a telephone line even for single room. Required for activation or movie purchases, etc, etc?

steveon

It is quicker for enginner to activate the card via a telephone line, but simply run a temporary one and remove it when hes done....

Do the same when or if you ever want to order a box office movie.

I would recommend running a minimum of 4 cables down to the room..

2. Sky HD box

1. Return Feed, for additional rooms.

1. Terrestrial aerial perhaps at later stage

Fore Iron

Thanks Steve.

I already have a terrestrial cable running from an antenna on the roof. I had hoped to run the new cable in it's place (hence the thread) but just couldn't get the old cable to budge, so all I need is three cables in the new position I think.