[Pasteycakes]

Hello,

I recently purchased a vintage condo and I'm starting to find some interesting construction throughout. Please see the photos I have attached.

In the photo titled "living room" you'll see a coax cable which I have split 3 ways with the two white wires going to TV cable boxes and and one black cable going back into the wall. On the other side of this wall is my office, and I have that cable going to my modem. In the "living room" picture I am holding another coax cable which I have no idea what it does. I've tried to hook it up to a cable box but it gets no signal.

If you look at the "office" photo you can see the black coax cable which I referenced earlier, this is going to my modem. I am holding a CAT 5 cable which I do not use. Perhaps the building is wired for DSL internet?

I want to clean up this wiring as I have ugly holes in the wall and wires going every which way. I'm considering doing the following.

1) Putting a cable 2 way cable splitter in the wall, and putting a coax wall plate in the living room and then splitting that again on the outside of the wall to go to the 2 TV cable boxes. In the office, I would put a wall plate with Coax and a CAT 5 connection.

OR

1) Putting a cable 3 way cable splitter in the wall, and putting a dual coax wall plate in the living room and then I would hook up each TV cable box up to this wall plate. In the office I would do the same setup as above, putting a wall plate with Coax and a CAT 5 connection.

Do either of these setups seem advisable? Any issue with putting a splitter in the wall? Do I have to worry about signal loss with splitting the cable? There is also that mystery coax in the living room. If I just put this in the wall connected to nothing would that be safe?

Thank you.

 

[AllanJ]

Coax cable fittings may be buried in the wall but that practice is not recommended. If something goes wrong and a cable goes dead, you would have to break open the wall to fix it.

The mystery cable may be safely stuffed into the wall and forgotten about.

There will always be signal loss in a splitter even if the other leg is not being used. For a 2 way splitter, each leg will get slightly less than half the incoming signal strength.

You can use orange backless low voltage junction boxes so the splitter is not buried. .

 

[Pasteycakes]

Thanks for the insight. A backless box would work well for my purposes so I could get back in there if I need to.

Regarding signal loss, as you state: "For a 2 way splitter, each leg will get slightly less than half the incoming signal strength" it would seem for my situation, using a 3 way splitter in the wall would give me the least amount of signal loss. Follow that logic, if I was to put a 2 way splitter in the wall and then split that again for my 2 cable boxes outside of the wall, then those two would receive approximately 1/4 of the original signal strength (100% split = 50%, split again = 25%) whereas with the 3 way split, each receives approximately 1/3 of the original signal strength. Is this correct?

 

[AllanJ]

Your calculations are theoretically correct. But double check the specific brand and model of splitter to see that the legs get equal treatment.

Minus 3 dB stands for one half. Minus 6 dB stands for one quarter. Minus 9 dB stands for one eighth. You can buy an antenna booster to make up for signal loss; you cannot put that in the wall. Plus 3 dB from a booster output port means double the strength of what went in. Generally, if you don't use some of the booster ports, you don't get more signal strength out of the ports you do use.

 

[Pasteycakes]

Thanks much AllanJ. I'll check the brand and model but I'll probably just use the 3 way splitter that I'm using now outside of the wall as I have no issue with the 3 devices that I'm using today. If need be I'll get a booster outside of the wall in the living room but I don't anticipate that being necessary.

 

[gregzoll]

That is typical of someone doing DIY wiring. You will usually find the Coax Splitters in the wall behind a outlet blank cover. As for the Cat-5e wiring. It should be point to point for Ethernet. If telephone, they will run it from jack to jack. So if you lose one jack, you lose everything downstream.

 

[gregzoll]

Thanks much AllanJ. I'll check the brand and model but I'll probably just use the 3 way splitter that I'm using now outside of the wall as I have no issue with the 3 devices that I'm using today. If need be I'll get a booster outside of the wall in the living room but I don't anticipate that being necessary.

You only need a signal amp if your CATV provider deems that the lines are causing low signal. You never want to put in a Amp with your setup, because it will cause more problems then solving them. Especially with Digital QAM, which all providers now use, since Analog is no longer used for CATV.

Call your CATV company that you are going with and let them fix that mess and test to make sure everything is good. They will not swap out any coax, unless you pay extra for that. Otherwise they will just replace the ends before testing, replace that splitter if not one for CATV.

 

[rcicatello]

easy way to calculate loss is 3.5db for every 2 ports you have. 2 way -3.5 db. 4 way -7db, and 8 way -11db. 3 ways can be balanced or ubalanced meaning unbalanced has 2 legs(Down Legs) lose 7 and 1 leg (Hot Leg) loses 3.5. Unbalanced is used usually to compensate for longer distance runs in a house. as greg stated a service call to your cable provider they will give you an amplifier if need at no charge. The ones you buy in Big Box stores have poor isolation and cause Noise and Feed back possibly affecting your siganl and your neighbors as well.

 

[joed]

Two year old post. I think the issue is resolved by now.