Sky cabling

A.Penny.Saved

almillar wrote: »

A.Penny.Saved - we're talking about the coax digital from the sky dish to the box. In this case, signal loss is indeed a factor to be considered. I'd be interested to know if scheming_gypsy knows his signal strength before and after the move, and how many metres, and connections, he added to the system.
I really hope you're not telling me that digital signals don't degrade? What's error correction for then?!

We all seem to be misunderstanding one another. I was talking about Spdif coaxial and not Satellite coaxial cable. For any reasonable run between two points in a house, a spdif coaxial isn't likely to be affected by cable length.

For Satellite it does make a difference because the signal levels are much lower. I have fitted two Sat dishes so know the difference that increasing cable length makes to signal strength.

I hadn't realised that he had gone to the trouble of moving the sky box and changing the Satellite cables. I thought that there was an easier way of doing it by using a Coax Spdif around the room from the Sky box.

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

It's a 16mtr extension and the signal strength hasn't dropped too much. Strength and quality are both quite high and there's only one joining block, but i'll have a proper check when I'm at home and report back,

You say that now, but if you only have a Sky minidish, wait until there is heavy rain and then see how well it works! Judging by a bar graph on a Sky box doesn't really give any true indication of signal strength or show how much it has changed. Only a digital satellite meter would show that with any accuracy.

It sounds like he has added a join rather than changing the cable back to the LNB. A join will cause further signal loss, more than simply lengthening the cable. Ideally there would be no joins and the shortest cable runs as possible.

I hope you have sealed the cable joins with self amalgamating tape. If you get any water into the joint it will ruin the cable and worsen the signal.

Was using a Coax spdif not an option and keeping the sky box where it was?

scheming_gypsy

if there's heavy rain it never works anyway.
The join is inside rather than outside so there's no issue of it getting wet.


it could have been an option but it didn't come along before i went shopping.. lol

A.Penny.Saved

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

if there's heavy rain it never works anyway.

I've heard that a lot about sky minidishes. That's why I replaced the one that was on my home when I moved in, with one with a slightly larger surface area which gives a better signal and doesn't fail when it rains heavily. Replacing the LNB with a higher quality one than a sky lnb probably helped too.

I have my doubts about sky installers and the job they do. Working with cheap 2nd rate gear, minidishes and Lnb's doesn't help and neither does getting the job done as quickly as possible. It's no wonder that so many people have issues with reception. My Aunt did, she eventually stopped Sky and settled for freeview.

This is the UK.......it rains quite a bit.

The join is inside rather than outside so there's no issue of it getting wet.

No kids?:rotfl:

it could have been an option but it didn't come along before i went shopping.. lol

Sorry I was so slow

scheming_gypsy

i've got two dog who could pee on it.... and would given half the chanc (little feckers they are)

almillar

A.Penny.Saved - yep, my point was a general one, ANY signal degrades more slowly over optical than copper, and over copper more slowly than aluminium, for example. You were being very specific as you say, talking about a nice strong signal over only a few metres.
gypsy - if you lost the signal in heavy rain, you've brought down the threshold for how hard the rain has to be for you to lose signal.