Sat/Co-axial Cabling

[FreddyFr0g]

Hi all,

I thought they were basically the same but I think I might have been confused with the fact that cable and sat were pretty much the same (I used sat cable for cable cabling for example without any problems!)... I noticed my mistake when I thought that a black sat cable would be nicer than my white co-axial cable for my bedroom.... except that it didn't carry the signal!

Anyway, my problem is as follows:
I have co-axial cabling in my walls and I thought I could use one of them to link my satellite dish neatly to my receiver... without having to tack sat cable everywhere on the wall or drill anything.
So basically I have "proper" sat cable from the dish to my attic and then I joined this sat cable to the co-axial cable going down in my walls - and that (I suppose it was obvious!) didn't work! Is there anyway to "make" them compatible? I tried to join them with an inline booster but that didn't do anything either. Are they totally not compatible and is that my only chance of not having ugly cable everywhere to try to somehow replace the co-axial cable with a sat cable in the walls?
Thanks!

[hotbaws11]

strange mate as I've joined arial/sat cables and even arial/vm cables in the past! I didn't have any problems with sat or vm????

The only thing I can suggest is to check that there is actually a signal going down the connection (no matter how weak)

[PaphosAL]

Freddy- when the guys came to fit my wideband roof aerial 2 years ago, using external black sat cable that I supplied, they tried hard to convince me to let them use the original brown tv co-ax drop from the chimney down into the lounge.

They said that the tv co-ax of 30 years vintage was of far superior quality to the shite sold these days. But I insisted on them using my cable, and I was more than happy with the resulting DVB-T signal to my telly freeview tuner, and also to my DVD-R freeview tuner, via an rf patch cable.

How did you 'join' the two cables, m8? I hope you used a proper screw-on F socket on each cable end, with a good earth bond to the outer screen braid, then joined them with a Male to Male F plug adaptor?

Cheers- AL

[FreddyFr0g]

thanks guys - Grrrr, so it should have worked then right?

I joined them with something like that: Philex Satellite F Type Back To Back Connector, 19015HS/04
but then because I thought the problem was the signal, it's currently joined with this: In-line LNB Satellite Signal Amplifier / Booster from Aerial Shack

I cut the cables myself and crudely tried to use one those CrimpOn F Plugs : Aerial Connectors : Maplin on both ends so that it screws properly in the in between bit... I didn't use any tools for that.

I have 3 cables running down the walls and I tried all 3 cables, they're fine with the signal from the aerial, but no signal seems to be there when I connect them to dish

It still puzzles me that (the other problem I'm having then) in my bedroom the white (advertised co-axial) cable works fine with the aerial and but that the black (advertised sat) cable doesn't!

[Magnu420]

have you made sure that theres no strands off wire touching the outer
and the inner wires ????

[PaphosAL]

...and that the outer screen braid has earth continuity from one cable to the other?

[hotbaws11]

I've cut my own cable before and used the cheap f-plugs as well with no issues. If the cable you cut yourself works on its own, its a good sign

You might need to check that the wire itself comes out an extra few mm at the end of the cable as that's what I did to make sure of the connection.

After that I simply joined it with one of the male-male couplers that are pretty standard and then to the other cable.

[FreddyFr0g]

@Magnu
I think I did a good job i.e cut the outer black sleeve and foil, then from that cut one half of the plastic thingy so that it reveals the inner cable... so I don't think the outer foil is touching anything

@Al
What do you mean by earth continuity? Do I need to make sure of something else?

@hotbaws
Shame I can't test the cable in the wall (I checked the cable from the dish to where the cut was and it was fine). I really thought it was going to be as easy as you wrote in your post!

Sorry to repeat myself but do you all reckon it should have worked then...

[PaphosAL]

Freddy- earth continuity on screen braid: That when you screw on the F end, it makes solid contact with the screen braid that you unravelled and twisted around the inner insulating sleeve, where the plastic outer sheath starts.

And as Magnu says, that no odd strands of screen braid are contacting the copper central conductor. Do you have a Multi-Meter, m8?

[FreddyFr0g]

Al, I'm going to believe the rumours you are 120 years old, that's the only explanation for you to know so much about everything!

OK, I think I start to get it but I'm still struggling with your vocabulary Al (!) so the screen braid is that sort of foil layer just after the sleeve, is it? And you are telling me that this bit needs to touch the F end (aka the thingy you need to shove at the end of the cable which never stays there properly) so that somehow there's a proper connection with the cable inside and this outer layer BUT without them ever inter-connecting? Jesus, I never bothered to do anything like that I thought only the cable inside was important... I should take a couple of pictures to show you...

I don't have a multi-meter, can this be used to test the connection?

Do you know if there are some tools to properly insert F ends?

Thanks, I appreciate you guys helping with that "trivial" matter!