What type coax cable for cable tv

An RG6 coaxial cable is best used for connecting a TV set or set top box to a TV aerial, satellite dish or satellite receiver.

It is also used for the internet and digital video. RG-6 cables are made with a different kind of shielding and have a ohm impedance , making them more effective for carrying GHz signals. It provides more air space for signals to transfer, making it adept at transferring strong HD signals at high speed. Using a low loss RG cable could mean better overall signal quality. This cable works best for CCTV systems as it is extremely convenient to work with.

Following the notion that more shielding is equal to better TV signal quality, it is logical to prioritize shielding in the list of things you should consider in determining the best coaxial cable for digital TV.

The shielding resists all kinds of external interference. There are two common kinds of shielding varieties for coax cables. The braid shielding and the foil shielding. Most RG-6 cables, which are most commonly used for digital television, typically have both. The foil shielding protects the centre conductor from high-frequency electromagnetic interference or EMF, while the braided part blocks out low-frequency interference.

A coaxial cabling with both means having a pretty powerful shielding system around your cable. While a signal loss is pretty much unavoidable, having a much shorter coaxial cable makes way for less of it. To put it simply, the shorter your cabling is, the less chance you have of having degraded incoming antenna signals.

If keeping your coaxial cabling short is not on option, you may want to consider investing in a TV signal booster. Impedance is the term used to express the ratio of voltage to current within a cable of infinite length.

To put it simply, it is the amount of resistance the waves encounter within the coaxial cable. However, as impedance would require a whole discussion in itself, it is best for you to know that a coaxial cable with ohm impedance is best for TV aerials, internet connection and digital video signals. The copper-clad-steel type has high tensile strength and should be used when terminating the cable with F-Type connectors. It features a copper-clad-steel inner conductor.

The copper-clad-steel inner conductor of the cable forms the inner "pin" of the connector. Although "twist-on" type connectors are available, they do not produce a reliable connection in comparison to a crimp-type connector that has been terminated with a good-quality ratchet crimping tool.

F-type connectors are named according to the type of cable or the application that they have been designed for as shown in the table below. PAL Belling Lee connectors are a push-on connector that have been traditionally used for TV antenna wall plates and connections. Should you get RG or RG-6? Do you need Quad shielding? What about braiding? Do you need to get Plenum Rated cable?

Or Direct Burial? There is a seemingly endless list of options and picking the wrong type of coax could result in spending a lot more money than what you were planning. In this comprehensive article we'll go through a few basics of coaxial cable so you should know what you need. Coaxial cables use RG ratings to distinguish between the different kinds of cables. Literally dozens of coaxial cables have been made over the years, but the only ones that most people need to worry about are RG 6 cable and RG 59 cable, so those are the two types we are going to focus on here.

What you really need to consider are the frequency ratings your equipment uses. RG59 cable has been around for a long time. This cable used to be what most people used for their cable TV connection and is very commonly installed in older homes and commercial buildings. However, many modern signal requirements have made this cable less popular in the last few years. The braided shielding in RG 59 was designed around relatively long waveforms of megahertz interference.

That makes it good for lower frequency signals anything under about 50 MHz. It is commonly used for composite or component video signals often in the mini-coax variety. That also makes it a good choice for a closed circuit television CCTV video surveillance system. By using this type of cable, you can run the power and video for your security cameras simultaneously, effectively cutting your install time in half. Satellite and internet signals run at higher frequencies than traditional analog video, and when TV broadcasts changed from analog to digital, and cable companies started switching to digital, the higher freuqencies made it necessary to find a more effective coaxial cable.

RG6 cable was designed to fulfill these requirements. It has a larger conductor, which gives you much better signal quality. The dielectric insulation was made thicker as well. RG 6 is also made with a different kind of shielding, which allows it to more effectively handle Ghz level signals.

While many RG 59 cables uses a foil shield in addition to the braid, RG 6 made it mandatory.