Recently Extended Cable - Now having problems

J

JNM1

Member
My Satellite Setup
SKY+
Thinkpad
My Location
Bristol
Hi All,

I have a long cable run from my dish to receiver approx 200 feet, I posted here before and was advised to use a couple of amplifiers, this worked a treat. I have recently moved my receiver and have had to extend the cable a further approx 25 feet, after extending I get no signal. I have added another two amplifiers, and now have over 3 quarter signal strength and near perfect signal quality, this is better than I was originally getting, yet I can only get certain channels now, and some channels are very judderey. I have re-ended all the cables numerous times but it seems to make no difference.

Any help would be really appreciated, getting very frustrated with it now!

Thanks
Jamie
 
Hello JNM1

Welcome to the forum.

I would be surprised if anyone here advised you to use two amplifiers for a 65mtr run, but then I am not a satellite cabling expert however each time you introduce a joint you are introducing a signal loss so having 4 amplifiers in-line I am surprised you can receive anything at all. For such a length of cable run from all advice I have seen over many years one amplifier would be more than sufficient but the place where you put that in the line would be critical to avoid standing waves. Also what cable are you using? is it the same quality thoughout?

Another aspect to realise is that you are amplifying any noise that is inherent in the system X 4 and with compound interest as well
 
Hi Topper,

I have to be honest I'm not sure, how do I tell? When the dish was installed the guy from SKY said that SKY would not support that distance cable run, but he said he would be happy to do it privately. The cable would be whatever SKY use as standard, if there is such a thing. I think its called shotgun cable. After the installer left I was getting poor picture quality, that's when I added the amplifiers one to each cable. This worked great for 6 months, then I moved the receiver again and was getting no signal, I added the additional two amplifiers. So nobody advised me to add the second set of amplifiers, I just done this as it worked last time! As you can tell, I’m no satellite expert. But you could probably tell that already.
Jamie
 
I think the time has come to replace the cabling with something higher spec.

The shotgun could be one of two different types. The less good type will be labelled WF63 (or 65), or similar - the 63/65 is the important bit. The better will be WF100 - again the 100 is the important bit.

Basically if you're on 63/65 upgrade to 100. If you're on 100 already then you need to think about upgrading to a WF/CT125. I don't think this is available as shotgun so you would need two separate lengths. 125 will need different plugs as it's larger.

It's expensive but might be worth it in the long run (no pun intended!). You laso might not need any amplifiers.
 
Hi,

Have just checked the cable, it has the following on it.

CAR63 CCS DUAL250-BLK CARACAL 170 METER

I suppose the best bet would be to go for the WF/CT125, can you suggest were to but it, cheap as possible!

Many Thanks
Jamie
 
There will come a point where the number of amplifiers in line with the LNB will cause a drop of voltage that the LNB cannot work with. Additionally the current consumption will go up and it is highly probable the box will just give up supplying voltages to the tuner.

I have installed one or two runs of around 200ft before now, but I would have used CT167 (in the analogue days though)

To keep costs down have you thought of putting the receiver down the line and running mains to it, using the RF back to the TV (and the remote control link) ?
 
If you want it to work properly no messing about, you could do it in fibre, you would need to change the dish though. It is a bit costly though, a couple of hundred.
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the advice, the cable is costly! Is it true CT63 is good for 63 meters, CT100, 100 meters, CT164 164 meters?

Tool Station is selling CT100 cable for £38 for 100 meters, as my run is under 100m will this do?

Thanks to all for the advice.

Jamie
 
As a rough guide you could use that. But you would be looking at CT233 or larger for your install, which is then getting to mortgage type pricing.
 
LOL, no. The 63, 100 and 125 refer to the diameter of the centre wire. 63 is .63mm, 100 is 1mm etc. From the diameter of the centre, in order to maintain the 50ohm impedance, the insulation has to be progressively larger in diameter and therefore also the outer shield.

As you were using shotgun this implies that you have (at least) a dual LNB to feed your $ly+ so therefore you will need two runs of single cable to replace the shotgun. Is there any chance of contacting the $ly installer to get him to run some WF100 for you?

Incidentally, I thought that CT100 wasn't made any more. CT100 has a semi-airspaced insulator (like a long honeycomb). There's nothing wrong with this, it's just a bit difficult to make a bend withouth kinking. Nowadays people use WF100 or PF100 (the F indicates foam filled) as it's easier to handle.
 
CH, don't forget the distances are in feet. 225 ft is about 70m so CT125 is surely the max you need to go. Brand new WF100 may just do the job in an unbroken run.
 
wf100 might work with a bigger dish. I once joined all my left over pieces together to about 70m and connected to my 1m dish, seemed to work ok on 28E.


Incidentally, What is the outside diameter of each cable that you are currently using?
 
satelliteman said:
75 ohm impedance :D
Click to expand...
Damn, was messing with amateur stuff and forgot.
 
Yes, another interesting subject. Maybe worth considering a forum section.
 
PaulR said:
CH, don't forget the distances are in feet. 225 ft is about 70m so CT125 is surely the max you need to go. Brand new WF100 may just do the job in an unbroken run.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but the losses are not linear, a midrange IF frequency (eg 1400MHz) may pass down CT125 at that distance with enough at the receiver end, but the 2000MHz plus transponders could be close to the noise levels. (Especially if you put N-connectors on the cable :-rofl2 )
 
OK, so is the census of option that I will get away with WF100 cable?

Does the cable come in shotgun style?

Can anyone advice a cheap place to buy the cable from.

Thanks to all for you advice.

Cheers
Jamie
 
Just to close this one off, I replaced the cable with Weber WF100 cable, the total length of the run is 98 meters. It is now working with no amplifiers! I have three quarters signal quality and about a third strength displaying from the sky+ box.

So I always have the option to add the amplifiers in if this drops.

Thanks to all for your advice. Very pleased.
 
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