Help me get rid of my cable

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: wrcsixeight
Lots of the RG-6 cabling, the central conductor is copper clad steel.

Not sure how much better solid copper would be, but some cables are advertised with solid copper conductors and I presume there would be less signal loss. All cables are shielded, some are just better than others. If there is little interference from nearby wiring or devices than the quad shielding might not be needed, but it does not seem to be much more $$, so why not.

Without getting into too much technical detail, the center conductor doesn't need to be solid copper due to the skin effect at high frequencies. Coax is not just 'wire', but transmission line. More like a waveguide.

The "QS" isn't to keep outside interference out but more to keep the signal "in", i.e. to contain it within the transmission line.

This is also why microwave circuits use waveguides, resonant cavities, feedhorns, etc. They wouldn't work with just regular 'wire' as we think of it.

So when receiving TV OTA RG-58 or 59 is way too lossy and splitters, amps, taps, etc. designed for it don't have sufficient bandwidth. You need RG-6QS preferably, smooth bends in the cable, no shield showing at terminations, splitters, amps & taps have to be designed for higher frequencies, have the correct impedances, etc. for optimal signal transmission and minimal loss.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Update on our OTA signal. I was mowing a friend's lawn last weekend and noticed that they had an old Dish dish on the side of the house. Cables cut, unused. So I asked if I could have it; I wanted it for the nice aluminum mast. "Sure". Nice...I planned to use this nice mast to mount my bow-tie antenna on the outside of our house if I needed to.

But I made one last effort in the attic this weekend. I replaced my ABS DWV mast with this aluminum mast from the Dish dish. I also used my phone's compass to aim the antenna exactly 35 degrees east of north, which is where my preferred affiliate is from me (WRAL which broadcasts from Garner, NC).

Result: I watched the Travelers Championship yesterday afternoon with perfect reception, despite fairly hot temperatures and early evening thunderstorms/downpours. I'll keep a keen eye to the TV in the evenings, which is when WRAL reception would typically get spotty. So far, though, it's been excellent since slightly re-aiming the antenna. Antenna Direct says that this is not a directional antenna, but it still seems to have made a difference.

Also: I took the cover off the little 'transformer' box in the middle of the antenna, where the coax connection is. The customer service rep on the phone said that there is a little computer chip in there, so I thought that there may be something in that box that was sensitive to our attic temperatures. There's nothing in there. It's simply a very small printed circuit board with two tracks on it. One goes to one side of the bow-ties and one side goes to the other side of the bow-ties, and the coax connector is soldered between those.

Here's hoping. Still 100% satisified with no cable (except for broadband access).

And still waiting for cable companies to start tiered broadband plans, as they probably recognize the trend to get off traditional piped cable plans and go to streaming through their cable modems.

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Update on our OTA signal. I was mowing a friend's lawn last weekend and noticed that they had an old Dish dish on the side of the house. Cables cut, unused. So I asked if I could have it; I wanted it for the nice aluminum mast. "Sure". Nice...I planned to use this nice mast to mount my bow-tie antenna on the outside of our house if I needed to.

But I made one last effort in the attic this weekend. I replaced my ABS DWV mast with this aluminum mast from the Dish dish. I also used my phone's compass to aim the antenna exactly 35 degrees east of north, which is where my preferred affiliate is from me (WRAL which broadcasts from Garner, NC).

Result: I watched the Travelers Championship yesterday afternoon with perfect reception, despite fairly hot temperatures and early evening thunderstorms/downpours. I'll keep a keen eye to the TV in the evenings, which is when WRAL reception would typically get spotty. So far, though, it's been excellent since slightly re-aiming the antenna. Antenna Direct says that this is not a directional antenna, but it still seems to have made a difference.

Also: I took the cover off the little 'transformer' box in the middle of the antenna, where the coax connection is. The customer service rep on the phone said that there is a little computer chip in there, so I thought that there may be something in that box that was sensitive to our attic temperatures. There's nothing in there. It's simply a very small printed circuit board with two tracks on it. One goes to one side of the bow-ties and one side goes to the other side of the bow-ties, and the coax connector is soldered between those.

Here's hoping. Still 100% satisified with no cable (except for broadband access).

And still waiting for cable companies to start tiered broadband plans, as they probably recognize the trend to get off traditional piped cable plans and go to streaming through their cable modems.


Explain what you mean by tiered broadband plans exactly?

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
Explain what you mean by tiered broadband plans exactly?


Right now, I have no bandwidth limit on my broadband. I can download and use as much as I want. As you know, cell phone companies have gone the way of tiered plans, where you can buy a 10 GB/mo plan or a 20 GB/mo plan. Cell phone companies realize that they're not so much "phone service providers" anymore as "data service providers". I think the time is coming when cable companies will begin to follow the same model.

And why wouldn't they? A normal user with video and broadband might pay $40/month for broadband and use 50 GB. Someone like me who streams everything pays the same $40/month but might use 3x or 4x the amount of data. So the cable company has lost my video service revenue, AND I'm using more broadband as others for the same price.

I know they've said that they have no plans to move to tiered broadband plans. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised...

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: Nick R
Explain what you mean by tiered broadband plans exactly?


Right now, I have no bandwidth limit on my broadband. I can download and use as much as I want. As you know, cell phone companies have gone the way of tiered plans, where you can buy a 10 GB/mo plan or a 20 GB/mo plan. Cell phone companies realize that they're not so much "phone service providers" anymore as "data service providers". I think the time is coming when cable companies will begin to follow the same model.

And why wouldn't they? A normal user with video and broadband might pay $40/month for broadband and use 50 GB. Someone like me who streams everything pays the same $40/month but might use 3x or 4x the amount of data. So the cable company has lost my video service revenue, AND I'm using more broadband as others for the same price.

I know they've said that they have no plans to move to tiered broadband plans. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised...

The internet hates tiered bandwith plans. Because they are lucrative. Here's the thing, they lost your revenue sure, but they aren't really spending more on data. Once infrastructure is in place, data is pretty much free. TWC tried to implement this in the past and got burned, because people despised the bandwith caps. The NYS Government got involved at one point. Lets be truthful, on a high capacity established infrastructure such as the cable companies have, data doesn't cost much. 10GB or 10,000GB the cost stays the same.

Especially for someone like me who uses 600GB+ on a monthly basis, I don't want ridiculously limiting plans imposed upon me either. :>

 

[Vikas]

well, the same logic applies to the cellphone data limit but they managed to make the caps permanent. We won't talk about their collusion among themselves