Wiring Question

bahaisamurai

Hi all,

This isn't so much an electrical wiring question as it is a wiring question in general. (Please forgive me if I post in the wrong place...)

So, here's the situation. I've got a house that was built about 20 years ago. The house is built with the cable coming in to the house in the crawl space. My signal strength has been iffy at best. So, the cable company said that the problem might be that I have RJ45 coaxial cable and that I should upgrade to RJ60.

Doing a bit of poking around, I've found out that the cables have been run through the 2X4 (or whatever the house is built from) and is only wide enough to accommodate the RJ45. So, my initial plan of just attaching the RJ60 to one end of the RJ45 and pulling it all through didn't really work. I have also tried to get a flexible drill bit head, so that I could get behind the wall without damaging it, but the way that the housing for the coaxial is, I can't get a good angle to get the bit head in there.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get the cables run from the second floor all the way down into the crawl space? I'd prefer not to cut a hole in the drywall if possible since I've got 4 rooms that I'm going to start the coaxial drop on the second floor. However, I'm willing to do what needs to be done.

Thanks in advance!

dynamo

You may want to upgrade to RG6 coaxial cable. It has the bandwidth capacity for cable and satellite, so you are kind of future-proofing your installation.

Why not run them outside under a window sill to a high quality weather resistant splitter in the crawlspace?
There are now flat cables for such purposes.

You could always add a small Nema 4 rated J-Box to house the splitter and possibly a powered signal amplifier (not really necessary unless you're going to load it with more than 6 to 8 devices, such as TV's, cable or Satellite Set Top Boxes).

The original one in your crawlspace has probably dry rotted, therefore causing the iffy reception.

joed

RJ45 is not a cable type. It is a connector type. It is the 8 pin connector used for ethernet cables.
I have not idea what rj60 is. RG6 is a coax cable.

dynamo

Exactly, I was half asleep still and missed that part.
I meant to say RG11, not RG6 coaxial cable, as well.
RG11 has less ohms/ft. drop so longer runs are attainable before requiring any inline amplifiers.