I just installed my OTA for my TV signal. I'm running the RG6 coaxial cable into my home. In doing so, I hid most of it out of sight and one particular run will lie parallel with a brief part of the electrical feed, about 4 to 5 feet, which exits the meter into the house. It's hidden under a lip at the base of the house/top of foundation. The electrical feed uses most of that space, since my meter is mounted on the side of the house but enters in the back, thus, it was hidden under that lip. It's the best spot to hide another unsightly cable or wire. Therefore, my concern is interference and if I will experience any with the cable being next to it on that short run.
No sweat at all. There is 100s of miles of coax running next to the power lines before it gets to your house. The TV tuner/cable box is going to reject all of the signal that is not the particular channel you are watching anyway.
Agreed. I have had the same sort of setup in my house for over 20 years without a problem (cable running alongside powerline).
While many people scoff at it, I use quad shield cable because it offers better durability and resistance to physical damage. It's a little stiffer and harder to handle, but since they make so much of it you can get it for $20-40 over 1000' of tri-shield and even less on sale.
I use it for CCTV, too, simply because that way I can keep the strippers and crimpers all set up for the same size wire and commector. I can't believe when I started I was using the cheaper, thinner RG-59 cable with *twist* on connectors. I think Mark Lloyd was the one to convince me that was insane. Bought some Snap'n'Seals and a compression fitting tool and each cable end looks factory-crimped.
It probably would be against the electrical code, but you could tape the coax to the power wiring for a good number of feet without problems. In rare cases some items in the house can generate electrical noise and cause problems. Usually it would be picked up off the antenna and not the coax.
I expect it will be fine, but if it's not, you can move it then.
You can color the cable with da-glow colors so it won't be unsightly.
Your friends will want some too.
BTW, in another thread I mention how turning the lights on or off causes a one-second interruptions in my TV sound.
All of those wires are co-axial. For an antenna, I used to use just a plain one-strand wire, pushed into the center hole in the input co-axial connector on the DVDR, but since 2 or 3 years ago I have an antenna in the attic connected by co-ax to an amplifer, with co-ax to the DVDR, and nothing has changed. From the DVDR, I have co-ax to the adapter (modulater) and coax to the splitter, and co-ax to the bedroom TV and up to the attic and down to the living room, to other TVs (none of them digital.)
Everything co-ax, and yet merely turning the lights on or off causes a
1-second interruption in the sound (though no effect on the picture.)
I usually have tvs in other rooms off when I'm in the bedroom, but I think on one occasion I had the bedroom tv off and the kitchen TV on,
95 feet of co-ax away from the DVDR, and I heard the one-second interruption from the kitchen TV. That certainly makes sense. I'm sure the 95 feet don't matter because the signal interruption occurs within 3 to 10 feet of the DVDR.
Turning the lights on or off in the kitchen does not cause this interruption. The kitchen is about 65 feet line-of-sight from the DVDR, (30 feet less than the co-ax because the co-ax zig-zags down to the basement and then back up again.
And it's been doing this for 7 years, when i bought the dvdr (a little before or after the analog to digtal conversion)
Oops. The test I shoudl be doing is turning the lights on and off while playing a recording. Thereby eliminating the antenna as a source of trouble. I'll do that tonight.
The only possible serious problem would be a lightning strike to the power lines that could (possibly) jump onto the coaxial canble and then enter int o your electronics. But the electronics are connected to the power lines i n almost all cases anyway, so chances of a problem are not really increased .
You should be using a protector that is connected to the service ground as closely as possible and that would shunt out most transients.. Having them both entering together is really a good thing.
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