Possible to split a upc cable outside the house?

joconnell

Hi Folks,

My parents just upgraded to digital in their house and I did a self install for them. There's two feeds coming from a box just at the fascia of the house. One of them goes through the wall into the main bedroom of the house, the second feed goes over the roof, down the back of the house and into the house at floor level to feed the 2 sitting rooms. The problem I've found is that the signal downstairs is using pretty old and ugly looking cabling and when I set up the digital box in the sitting room, it installed fine but couldn't view any of the UK stations. I tried the box upstairs on the feed coming in through the bedroom and it picked up all of the uk stations fine which indicates that the cabling running into the ground level of the house is far weaker. The problem is that the cabling was run before the house was extended so it's not particularly easy to access. Would it be possible to take a "spur" off the cable running into the bedroom and run it down the front of the house and into the front sitting room to get a "purer" signal on to a fresh UPC box to feed the single digital box? (there's only going to be the one digital box in the house)

Or from what I'm reading can upc boost the signal going into the house to try and push through the shoddy connection and solve it without any kind of surgery?

Cheers!

John

icdg

Its illegal to tamper with a mains cable, but more than that, for your own safety I would not touch it.

joconnell

Oh Sorry! I definitely wouldn't touch it myself, it was more to see if there was a really simple direct way of taking a new feed from the box rather than trying to do a nasty and invasive recable which would be running through awkward to get to places and involve lifting of carpets / floorboards and so on.

FoxT

joconnell wrote: »

Oh Sorry! I definitely wouldn't touch it myself, it was more to see if there was a really simple direct way of taking a new feed from the box rather than trying to do a nasty and invasive recable which would be running through awkward to get to places and involve lifting of carpets / floorboards and so on.

Yes, it sounds like it would be a simple job for a technician to do.
I suggest you call UPC, they should send somebody out in a few days with the correct cable & connectors etc.

Timfy

Casting no aspersions on the OPs technical ability but this reminds me of an "electronics man" who lived in my town when I lived in the UK. We had fiber to the cabinet and then short coaxial runs to the premises. He was found by NTL engineers investigating a huge outage with the fibre side cut in two and him trying to take an extension using choccy block connectors!!!

zg3409

Yes this will be no problem for a UPC technician to do.

If you are paying for two connections they will provide two connections in the house with a good signal. If you are only paying for one connection they will only supply one good signal. Two downleads suggests you are paying for two connections and UPC guarantee a good signal at each of them.

Ask UPC to send a technician to fix a weak signal problem.

joconnell

That's great for the feedback folks - was just hoping there was a non invasive version, my mum's veeeeery particular about the house so any option that doesn't involve any mucking around is going to be great. Engineer booked for tuesday.