Philo wrote:
"szilagyic" wrote in message
ups.com...

Hello,

I am just trying to get an updated list of the top brands of RG-6 quad
shield coax cable. I have seen posts from a few years back mentioning
Belden, Carol, and Commscope, but I just wanted to get an updated
list. I have seen Carol and Zenith brands at local stores recently,
are these any good? Mainly going to use this cable for running feeds
from HDTV & analog TV antennas in the walls of a house.

Thank you very much for all feedback,
--
Chris


Just do not worry about the cable; put 1/2" or preferably 3/4" ducts in the
walls.

Never place RF (or any) cable directly in concrete or masonry. If, for some
reason, you end up with a bad cable (soaked with rain water for instance)
you just have to pull it out and replace it. So you don't really need to go
for top brands and overrated and expensive cables.

Kind of depends on who's building your house. Conduit would be quite
unusual in most residential construction, and would be likely very
expensive. I suspect you could run 10 parallel runs of high quality
RG-6 without conduit and still cost a lot less than the conduit. Just
abandon a run if it fails. The labor for conduit installation
(especially if they are not already installing it) is high..

In most houses, the wiring is done after the structure is built, and the
electricians go through with a drill and spade bit and drill the studs
to run the cables. They have the flexibility to run the cable anywhere
convenient (for instance, around plumbing that is in the way).

You would want to remind the folks doing the installation that the
standard is to keep low and high voltage separated by more than 12", and
particularly (because it's not in the code) that you want decent bend
radii. Otherwise, they tend to string the cable and just pull it snug,
which will almost always bend it too tightly, particularly where they
come down from the attic through the header at the top of a wall.


There are flexible (plastic) conduits available which are somewhat
easier to route, but still, you run into a problem with drilling lots of
1.5" holes (to clear the od of the conduit) in studs that are only
3.5" wide. The inspectors don't like to see it, especially if all the
holes are lined up in a straight line. To them it starts to look like
the edge of a perforated ticket stub saying "tear here".



If you intend to place short stretches (less than 10 or 15 meters) for the
VHF range, use RG6 with solid polyethylene dielectric. If you have to place
important lengths for UHF of satellite MF bands, use RG11 with polystyrene
or foam dielectric. I used train loads of Commscope cable without to many
problems. They gave weird names to their cables like 6ST??? for RG6 type and
11ST??? for RG11. Always use RF cable with copper clad core as they work
best with F type connectors. Stay away from jacketted cables with "flooding
compoud", even for underground placement.