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https://www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl DIY Forum >> Alarms, Phones, Aerials, CCTV & Datacomms >> Help with Coax job https://www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1210799263 Message started by sparky415 on May 14^th, 2008, 10:07pm

Title: Help with Coax job
Post by sparky415 on May 14^th, 2008, 10:07pm

I have a little PJ to do for a mate

I have wired TVs in the past, Iv just put in what’s been specified
The ‘cable guys’ then do the terminations in the loft etc and every ones happy

I want to wire my mates house and make it a bit future proof without spending too much
I have a load of Satellite Coax and cat5 lying about

What have I missed out/forgotten?
Any suggestions?

Thanks Chaps :)

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by plugwash on May 14^th, 2008, 11:55pm

I would have a quad coax from the dish to the loft position in case he wants more sattalite kit in future (freesat maybe).

other than that you seem to have allowed enough coax to allow for most likely permutations of TV kit. I presume you will be wiring all runs using sat grade coax.

If it were my house I would want network points in all the rooms too wired back to wherever the dsl router lives.

What equipment does he want to use? In general I don't see much point in theese "loftboxes"

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by CWatters on May 15^th, 2008, 7:52am

We fitted a quad LNB and 4 coax from sat dish. You could consider running the two spare ones via the loft to the master bedroom. That would allow an second sky box and HD TV in there as well as the living room. Will also need a phone connection.

(Aside: It's not yet clear how people will distribute HDTV around a house. The UHF output from a Skybox isn't and can't ever be HD. I suspect the only option will be to put a Freeview HD box in each room when it becomes available).

Loftbox is the best way to distribute TV in my view but it does depend on what you want to do and how tight the budget is.

I guess you could consider a coax from the front door to the loft box for security camera? or perhaps from a bird box if they are into that sort of thing.

What about a wired computer network? Two CAT 5 from a common point (somewhere near where the phone comes into the house) to each bedroom and office. Perhaps also a pair to the living room TV area for the X box.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by sparky415 on May 15^th, 2008, 6:50pm

Thanks chaps! :)

The phone/data points will be done,
Iv not mentioned them here, as most of them will be away from the TV’s

Plug,

I will be using sat coax throughout

What’s a quad coax? Single cable with 4 coax’s molded in?
I’ve seen (I think it was) a coax with a cat 5

He’s not sure what he wants at the min but he likes the idea of sky,
As Im rewiring his house we thought it would be a good idea to upgrade everything
Im quite happy to run a load of extra cables now

CW,

The budget isn’t tight as such but I don’t want to suggest too much stuff that will never get used
But we are still open to suggestions

Heres my revised plan (no 2) ;)

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by plugwash on May 16^th, 2008, 12:22am

seems reasonable.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by CWatters on May 16^th, 2008, 8:32am

> What’s a quad coax? Single cable with 4 coax’s molded in?

I'd just use 4 seperate coax cables.

I suspect the type with 4 coax cables in one wrapper may not fit F-Type connectors correctly.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by sparky415 on May 16^th, 2008, 6:35pm

Thanks for the advice lads! :)

The job will start in a few weeks time so any more ideas are welcome

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 17^th, 2008, 11:59am

4 coax to lounge and bedroom is overkill.

Id do 3 and 2 repectivly.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by sparky415 on May 18^th, 2008, 9:06am

Lec,

Im happy to put them in now rather than not be able to do something with sky in the future

Still open to suggestions :)

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 18^th, 2008, 9:52am

In large houses, it is becoming common to put a pair of twin screened cable (not coax) between the main location and the master suite. This allows you to send audio and S-Video from the sky box to the bedroom for improved pic quality - many larger homes are having larger LCD's in the master bed these days.

Still run the coax too, as it is used for the magic eye in anycase.

This is particularly the case with sky+ boxes, as it is rare to want two sky plus boxes in the home - if you record something downstairs, you want to be able to watch it upstairs etc.

Click the pic for link to maplin.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by scotspark on May 18^th, 2008, 12:13pm

last couple of larger house I have wired have been set up for a sky+ box in 2 lounges downstairs with one having the RF2 feeding the master suite(parents bedroom) and the other feeding the kids bedrooms

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by sparky415 on May 18^th, 2008, 1:00pm

Thanks for that Lec,

Im hoping that, as the house is small and Im careful with my runs that the signal quality will be good

I will also be wiring some speakers back to the stereo as a separate system

Scot,
I did a house last year with 4 (not trying to out bid you), :)
1 for the TV room 1 for the kids ‘play room’ 2 for the staff quarters
(The owner didn’t want TV in any of the bedrooms)
But I didn’t have anything to do with the design; we put in the specified cables, some power to the loft cupboard and let the cable guys get on with it
I should have had a chat with them to find out what did what :-[
I think there were 6 coaxes and a 6mm earth out to the chimney (Iv no idea what was on that end)

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 18^th, 2008, 1:19pm

You will never match or get near to the quality with an RF coax. You will also only have mono audio.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Zambezi on May 19^th, 2008, 9:45pm

I am working on a job at the moment which has quite a flash bit of kit going in.
I am doing the work and getting "instructed" by a custom installer so I am learning on the fly...

Right now I have to run 2 x Cat 5e + 2 x coax cables from each tv location to a "server room" . The Cat 5e is used to distribute the HD tv signal and the coax cables are for either Sky or Freeview (and terrestrial tv for now).

I then also have to run another Cat 5e to each room from the server room, which is for the computer network, phones etc. It uses the equivalent to a quadriplexer, it sends all the info down 1 x Cat 5e and then splits it all up again in the room.

There are 8 x coax cables going from the 2 x Sky dishes to the server room. This gives them the option of 1 x Sky HD (uses 2 x coax), 1 x Sky + (uses 2 x coax) and 4 x single Sky boxes. There are also common DVD players, audio distribution, NAS units with their music and movies stored on it. This is also linked to CCTV and access control,

There is a coax going from the TV aerial, FM aerial and DAB aerial to the server room and there may also be a couple for Freesat.

If you want more in depth info regarding AV distribution buy a book called "Smart Homes For Dummies" or look on AVForums.com
There is a lot to AV distribution and future proofing a house! The quote for the AV install and associated TVs and distribution equipment was over £150k!!!!! Unfortunately I won't see a penny of that :(

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 20^th, 2008, 6:24am

Two dishes and eight coax's is a rather nasty and unproffesional eyesaw.

A single dish (slightly larger than normal), and a QUATTRO LNB (not quad), connected to a proffesional multi-switch is a far better design and install to supply 4 or more boxes.

The quattro LNB gives the four possible combinations of high/low vert/hori to the multi-switch, and the multi-switch uses these four combinations to supply an unlimited amount of sky and sky+ boxes. This is how all blocks of flats etc are done.

Two dishes and eight coax's id just a dirty way of doin what you describe, although possibly a tad cheaper if it is only for 8 points.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Zambezi on May 20^th, 2008, 8:36pm

Lectrician wrote on May 20^th, 2008, 6:24am:

The customer already has 2 dishes feeding Sky boxes dotted all over the house. The dishes can't be seen from the road or garden, so not an issue. As for the 8 coax cables being an eyesore, you can see about 1/2 a meter of the coax (if you get on a ladder and climb up onto the flat roof that is hidden by a parapet wall) before it disappears into the wall and is not seen again until it gets to the "server room" which has about 500 cables going into it.

Do you have any details about the system/kit you are talking about Lec? As I said the kit is existing but it would be handy to know what other options there are if I were ever to work on a project like this again.

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 20^th, 2008, 9:08pm

Top of this forum (Alarms, Phones etc) - See the Satcure affiliate link. They supply the required kit.

Search for multi-switces.

It was the two dishes I was saying would be an eyesore - Not so much the cabling ;)

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Zambezi on May 21^st, 2008, 9:27pm

Cheers, I will have a look...

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by CWatters on May 28^th, 2008, 8:11pm

wrote on May 19^th, 2008, 9:45pm:

Right now I have to run 2 x Cat 5e + 2 x coax cables from each tv location to a "server room" . The Cat 5e is used to distribute the HD tv signal and the coax cables are for either Sky or Freeview (and terrestrial tv for now).(

I'd be interested to know what he's using to distribute HD over Cat 5?

My guess is he's distributing the HDMI output of a SkyHD box or DVD player using something like this...

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/New-Products/HDMI-Over-CAT5-Gets-Affordable.html

Do any of these support an IR back channel or do you still need to use a Sky link over coax?

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Zambezi on May 28^th, 2008, 9:18pm

Hi CWaters,
I am still getting into it and I don't know which kit is going to be specified (yet). There was talk of using a matrix of some sort but not sure which one yet. I have seen the baluns that you mention being specified for a different job but I am not sure they will be used on this job.
As soon as I know more I will post the details...

Title: Re: Help with Coax job
Post by Lectrician on May 29^th, 2008, 6:45am

Used similar Baluns in a bar to feed several plasmas from a DVD, SKY and a touch screen video jukebox.