Cable tv amplifiers boosters

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Somewhere in the last 30 years, the house had picked up about a 500' of coaxial cable. You probably think I am exaggerating, but it was 7 layers deep in some places and the house is over 70' long. There were splitters everywhere. As the point of entry changed at least twice, the techs were just adding cable rather than removing anything.

I fished all the coaxial out of the walls and ceiling joists and threw it all away and replaced it with RG-6 cable. There is only one place where RG-59 still exists as the cable guys had put on new F-connectors after fishing it through a tiny hole in the floor. To replace it I would have to cut off the connectors and buy a tool to add new ones. I just figured it wasn't worth it.

But I simplified it to a single 30' run to a 4 way splitter. I run one leg to the modem, and the other 3 to televisions. I removed all amplifiers as they were no longer necessary.

If you can get rid of splitters, that will take care of a lot of problems. Also try to tie off open connections by buying splitters with fewer legs. Cleaning the connections with DeoxIT Contact Cleaner is also a good idea.

If one had analog before it was probably fine and the mini-box can't run with. If that's the case an amp just amplifies the noise so to speak. Splitters are usually the problem.

Usually Cox won't charge you for equipment if you go the front counter and pick it up.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by tatanka01

Those passive splitters have HUGE insertion losses and you just can't split a cable 4-6 ways without amplification (and expect it to work).

The newest cable equipment has all 6 tuners in one box with a DVR and a CableCARD. The secondary televisions use "client" boxes and borrow one of the tuners on the primary box. Instead of 8 way splitters, you only need to split the coaxial to the modem and to the DVR with coaxial, as the clients only require Cat5e or Cat6 and a run to a common router.

It is possible to use coaxial and MoCA, but then you need all the splits.

[Tek_Freek]

If I understand what the OP is looking for we used one of these at our last house and it did an excellent job.

RCA DT140M Coax Amplifiers | eBay

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

If I understand what the OP is looking for we used one of these at our last house and it did an excellent job.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

If you have a lot of interference on the signal it's not going to help and will actually make it worse because it adds it's own noise. Apparently they are only useful if you already have a clean signal and need to boost it for splitting into multiple lines.

Without knowing anything about the individual problem, there is no way to know if the amplifier will help or hurt a problem.
Amplifiers make both signal and noise louder. Generally you are looking for the ratio of signal to noise to get better.

Eliminating extra splits helps quite a bit. So does keeping most of the signal going to the modem. Sometimes you want to use a "tap" or an "unbalanced split" instead of a "balanced split".