Satellite cable through wall with XS bending

Drill the hole at an angle (sloping down to the outside unless you like damp carpet).

Thanks Andy, but even, say, a 45deg angle would give a sharp-ish kink wouldn't it? I've read that tight bends and kinks must be avoided as they can cause a signal reflection which reduces the signal passed to the receiver.

However, you've given me an idea for improving my 'slot approach'- the slot can be shallow at one end and deep at the other, which saves drilling/chiselling.

Cheers

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I took the cable through an airbrick below floor level, then up through the floor into the lounge (which is presumably similar to your intention). The radius of the bend where the cable enters the house is taken care of by allowing the cable to loop away from the wall immediately before passing through the aperture. That might be a bit of a vulnerability in some situations, but not in ours.

Thanks. Unfortunately I'd be uncomfortable allowing the cable to loop away from the wall because the area is accessible (eg kids) and I don't want to create a hazard.

If you bring the cable down about a foot from the hole, then loop the cable around to enter the hole, the radius will be quite large so you shouldn't have any problems with kinks etc. Same if you want a cable to go around a 90degree corner: start a loop a distance out, then ust "twist" it around the corner and straighten up the loop on the other side.

There's also a lot of myths and legends about satellite cable. Unless you have a marginal signal, a dB or two loss from sharp bends (even if a bend

Steve expressed precisely :

Go down, back up and allow it to come out away from the wall to form some of the radius plus a small amount as it enters the hole in the wall. Another way would be to make the hole in the horizontal brick seam, but with a vertical seam directly below the hole - so you can chase out some of the mortar in the vertical seam, always supposing the mortar seams are wide enough for the cable.

You could mount a little box over it.

Robert

A while ago we tried a Freeview aerial (it was fitted then removed, without payment, as it did not work well enough). The satellite cable they used was left behind. What had been pushed through the wall was dreadfully damage by its treatment. The copper sheath was severely cracked. Can't prove it was done by bending through the wall (though that was too tight a radius), but I saw brand new cable coming off the reel and saw nothing else that I could blame.

(Yes - it really was brand new from the reel. They left that as well. That cable was in perfect condition.)

So I too was wondering how to get a cable through without damage - either at time of fitting or afterwards. Decided the only answer was the type of thing you are talking about.

If you drill inside outwards, the blowout should smooth the radius as well.

P.

Good idea Paul. Also, I could deliberately enlarge the blowout a bit to provide a more turning space.

You can get away with bending the cable more tightly than that. I have a loop inside a normal square electical metal countersuck wall box.

You could use a rounded piece of wood on the outside of the wall if you are that concerned. Also try uk.tech.digital-tv

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Rod saying something like:

Pex pipe.

Thanks everyone. I've ended up using a deep-ish slot leading to an upwardly sloping hole. Cheers.