splicing a spliced cable line

[mm]

I ran my cable tv to every room, including 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, the attic, living room, basement room, laundry room, and kitchen. That's 8. But I couldn't use an 8-way splitter because I only wanted one cable going up from the closet to the attic, or down from the closet to the living room. Every two splitters in sequence, I had to by a power amplifier. Sometimes I used 4-way splitters, but when you have unused terminals, you need to screw a cable terminator on the the threads. They are less than a dollar.

I don't have cable tv anymore but I split the signal coming out of the VCR. So x Cable Terminator 1 Continue to Bathroom 2 Continue to bedroom/office. x UP-Power Amp - 3 Attic tv 4 Bedroom TV VCR-- x DOWN -- 5 Living room TV Down to basement -- 6 Basement TV X Power Amp -- 7 Laundry Room TV 8 Continue to kitchen TV

Well, I know there is a second power amp in there somewhere. I forget where. (Probably in the closet right after "UP".) I plugged it in more than 10 years ago, and I haven't worried about it since. Radio Shack, i think. I don't buy one until the TV picture isn't good enough. Now even the farthest tv from the VCR has a perfect picture.

When High Def comes out, I'm not buying 8 high def tvs. I'm buying one convertor that will convert high def to something my tvs will use, which will go on the input of the VCR and continue to send the same signal to all 8 tv's.

Once I had a party with 70 people during the course of the day, 40 of whom stayed for the movie. 20 watched in the living room, 13 in the basement, and 7 in the kitchen. Same picture and sound everywhere. (I didn't let anyone watch in the bathroom.)

When I first had cable installed, I asked the cable guy if he could put the box in the closet, about 3 feet from the tv. He wasn't sure if it was close enough, but he did it and it worked . When I was in the middle of running cable through the ceiling of my basement, the cable went 30 feet down, 30 feet back, and 30 feet down again, plus 8 feet up from the basement floor and 5 feet up from the basement ceiling to the outlet in the kitchen, over 100 feet. And the picture was just fine. Distance does not weaken the signal much, but splitters do. But splitters are necessary if you want to run more than one tv.

[Mark Lloyd]

And when I call for help they never accept that I've already tried all those obvious things. They keep asking these stupid questions EVERY TIME.

[Mark Lloyd]

When there was a cable installer out here a few years ago, he gave me a splitter. Maybe that was the reason.

BTW, soon after that cable internet became available here.

[Mark Lloyd]

I know the frequencies used for different channels (maybe not exactly, but close enough) and would consider that when buying a splitter.

[Mark Lloyd]

That's not the universal solution some may think it is. A signal that's too strong gives you a bad picture (overload distortion) like a signal that's too weak does.

[Mark Lloyd]

Or if the signal is already strong, a signal overload in the amplifier itself.

[MLD]

Had the same setup. Got a 4-way splitter. Worked fine, no noticeable loss in picture quality or performance. MLD

[Pete C.]

Remember, there are more than just "channels" on the cable system. There is also data traffic for cable modems, the digital music channels, pay per view, etc. Find out what frequency the system is running up to and make sure the splitters are rated for that. 1 GHz would be typical these days.

Pete C.

[Mark Lloyd]

Apparently, you've got a too-specific idea of what a "channel" is.

I do have cable internet. The downstream channel is on 99 (FM band, just below 14). The upstream channel is around T12 (3 channels below

2).

I don't have digital cable now, and might ask if I was getting that (although they do have too many relatively knowledge-free "customer service" people).

[mm]

My smaller amp has only one output (or two?)

The next size bigger has 2 outputs plus a adjustment for output strength.

I think I have it set all the way up, but you're definitlely right about a too-strong signal. In order to get DC stations in Baltimore, I have an amplified (RAdio Shack) antenna in the attic. Once in a while for a Baltimore station (11 I think is the only one) the signal is too strong, so I put in an A-B switch to switch from the amplified antenna to nothing. The one foot cable from the VCR to the A-B switch functions as the antenna, and even though it is coaxial and shielded, it gives a good picture for channel 11, the only one I use it for.

I may have to get a remote-controlled A-B switch if I get in the habit of changing to and from channel 11 from the other room. (Although this is only a problem sometimes.)

[Mark Lloyd]

Most likely, any amp will have one and only one output. If you see more, the amp is followed by a splitter.

[David Combs]

Unless the other 5 outs are functioning as antennas(!) -- and they cannot be, since the wavelength is much longer than they are, you divide by 3 -- ie, only 3 loads.

David

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, Ideally you have to terminate the unused connector with terminating plug (50 Ohm non-inductive resistor). You can buy them from RS for minimal cost. I won't go into detailed theory for that.

[spud2004]

No way Thats like saying since I have three 120v outlets on one line so each outlet is now 40v singal loss yes 1/2 or 1/3 no way does not work that way I have a two way splitter sitting right here one outlet is marked 7db the other is 3.5 db So even each outlet may not have the same loss My OTA singal went from 90 to 88-89 Spud

[Bob F]

It is no way like that.

A typical 2 way splitter has 3db or more loss on each output from the input. A 3db loss means that the power at the output is 1/2 the power at the input. Every 3db loss cuts the resulting power in half again.

Bob