Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

tom wrote:

On 2/9/2012 10:34 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

tom wrote:

On 2/9/2012 9:35 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Cool! You seem to know what you are up to.

Can you put rough numbers around what you mentioned? Like what are
providers legally required to deliver at the far end of the drop?


We were required to deliver 0 dBmv at the end of 100 feet of RG-59 or
RG-6 for two sets per the franchise. The system was designed at +10
dBmv at the tap to allow for three or four TVs at the 100 foot range.
That was on a 36 channel system with RCA modulators& HST. It was done
for two reasons. To have a little extra signal available when the
system was built, and for conversion for a 300 MHz plant to a 450 MHz
plant without respacing the trunk amplifiers.


I build a headend& interface to tie two incompatible community loops
together. Ours was a sub split loop, and the other CATV company used
mid split. We used 2& 12 for pilots, so we fed them Channel 2 into
their return, and down converted their feed to T-9 for our return. That
headend had two RCA HSP and a combiner. The interface was another HSP
in a large stainless steel NEMA box mounted to a power pole at the
boundary of the two systems. A pair of two way splitters were used to
route the signals between the systems, as well as into and out of the
HSP. The other company wanted us to install a modulator and a
demodulator at the boundary to give us audio& video, and another pair
from our side so the interface would be baseband. Their design was over
$15,000 in hardware alone. My design was under $3000 for all the
hardware& labor to install. I had system designers from both sides
telling me it wouldn't work, but it did the job with no problems. :)



Very nice. We were much more constrained on the install I mentioned up
the thread a ways. The fiber was fed at E1 speed, which probably didn't
work it very hard.

We had an issue at one point.

This was a distributed proc/data system, one of the first. Each cabinet
was a standalone PBX. And you could make 126 of them look like one.
And each could survive on its own.

First fiber campus we'd done. Staggered cut to the new infrastructure.
Fun stuff.

At one point we had to do the cutover to the other large pice of the
system. Each end connected the fiber. 0 signal.

TDR from A end showed 700 meters from A end, 800 meters from end B.
Length from A to B is 1500 meters.

The work that occurred because of that was not fun. Had to go get the
guy doing fusion splicing.

Joy. Midnight trip to Pittsburgh with the salesman.

Actually it was fun. Not much traffic at night.

Landing pattern at 160mph in between DC9s into Pittsburgh at about
midnight. And they didn't like 160 at all. This was scary.

Quickest turnoff onto a taxiway I've ever experienced. Of course the
taxiway may not have been one. We didn't care.



Still easier than having to use blasting caps to find the ends of a
broken conduit under the finished concrete floor in a new RADAR site.
An old fish tape & blasting cap pushed as far as it would go and
BOOM!!!. Then repeat for the other end. Then they used a jackhammer to
break out the concrete between the huge floor divots to install new
conduit. The electrical contractor had failed to tie the conduit to the
rebar & wire mesh before the pour. :)

Or driving ground rods through permafrost in Alaska. We drove 60' of
rod and used three tanks of Acetylene to heat the rod to get it through
the ice layer outside a military radio & TV station at Ft. Greely.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

Joerg wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Joerg wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Joerg wrote:
amdx wrote:
Hi All,
I'm on a boat, about 170ft from the utility post.
Recently our cable company switched to the wonderful world of
Digital TV. I got the new digital converter and had no picture.
I took the box back and got a second box, still no picture. So now I
suspect a weak signal and confirm that it is the cable length. The cable
company came out and gave me a better cable than I had installed. At
this point I have a picture but it is intermittent. The signal at the
utility post has 3 outputs and had a four way splitter, I suggested the
cable guy put in two 2 way splitters and give me the stronger (first) tap.
That got my signal to work almost all the time. I'd like to get the
signal to work 100% of the time.
Looks like the cable guys screwed up.

In your opinion.
If their company cable box doesn't deliver a useful and reliable signal
I call that screwed up. One pays for a service and expects to either get
it delivered as promised or money back.

... If they are delivering the level called for in
their franchise, they didn't screw up. It has always been up to the
customer to pay for or provide extra equipment for non standard
installs.

Mike's install does not sound non-standard. 170ft cable drop towards
premises which is fairly normal, plus the cable company's set-top box.


Grow up. That is an excessive length drop. A standard drop is under
100 feet. You think you know everything, and that the world has to live
by your rules. You don't, and it doesn't. ...

http://www.starvision.tv/lineup_res.htm

Quote "Maximum Drop Length 300 Feet"

Now that's what I call good service.

... I'll bet you've never even
seen a CATV franchise, or the dozen of pages of specifications agreed to
by both the CATV company and the local government. The CATV company
isn't a Santa Clause machine, and local governments know why there are
limits to the service provided. If there were't, no one could afford to
build or operate a CATV system. You've never designed a headend, or a
physical plant If they build to supply higher port levels, it has to
start at the headend, and requires closer spaced trunk amplifers. The
system noise goes up from all of the cascaded amplifers, and the
equipment runs hotter, withj a very reduced service life. When you can
design an RF distribution system of more than 500 MHz bandwidth and has
over 10,000 output ports, with the gain stabilized to a couple dBmv 20
miles from the headend and over a range from sub zero F to + 100 F then
you can tell me I'm wrong.

One headend I designed and built was only off by .1 dBmv at the test
port on the first trunk amp which was a half mile from the head end. If
you can do better than that, I'll listen to you and your opinions


See above. Obviously others can. And yes, I have designed RF broadband
power amps. Lots of them. Not just lashing up boxes but the actual
transistor level circuitry including layout guidance for the nasty stuff.

Fact is, if a cable company isn't competent to do a 170ft drop they
should decline the job. Otherwise it is a screw-up, plain and simple. In
our area they'd lose their shirts to the satellite guys because there
are many houses like ours where there is no reasonable way to get from
the street to the house with a 100ft limit. We have around 200ft that's
still there from the early 90's and the previous owner said cable TV
worked just fine for them. We are not subscribed because TV ain't that
important to us.


Yawn. You constantly harp about having to meet specs in medical, but
whine like a drunken jackass when other businesses have to meet their
specs. yes, they could design the sytems to 300 feet or more, but the
cost to every customer on the system would go up. Would you like to pay
an extra 20% to 30% just so a very few locations can get better
service? Oh, that's right. You're too cheap to even have cable TV.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

On 2/10/2012 7:47 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Still easier than having to use blasting caps to find the ends of a
broken conduit under the finished concrete floor in a new RADAR site.
An old fish tape& blasting cap pushed as far as it would go and
BOOM!!!. Then repeat for the other end. Then they used a jackhammer to
break out the concrete between the huge floor divots to install new
conduit. The electrical contractor had failed to tie the conduit to the
rebar& wire mesh before the pour. :)

Or driving ground rods through permafrost in Alaska. We drove 60' of
rod and used three tanks of Acetylene to heat the rod to get it through
the ice layer outside a military radio& TV station at Ft. Greely.


You've got me beat.

I am glad I didn't have to use blasting caps as TDR. But it does sound
kind of fun if you didn't have delivery pressure on top of it.

Sounds like good work. But not up the Giant Rat's standards, I'm sure.

Interesting that he portrays himself as young and uses that reference.
Very curious. Maybe he's old and a failure and not young and a failure
as he claims.

tom
K0TAR

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

JIMMIE wrote:

Jeff, I installed TVRO systems for several years and used a lot of F
connectors. Suprisingly the ones I found that worked best were the
ultra cheap ones that only took a pair of pliers to fasten These were
the ones with the separate crimp rings. Used with some good quality
heat shrink tubing this eliminated most of the problems you mention. I
dont know why these connectors went away, my only guess is that
someone wasn't making enough money on them.


Those were the lowest grade, next to screw on fittings. They had the
highest leakage, and shortest service life of all the connectors I ever
tested. Did I mention that we bought 50,000 feet of RG-59 & RG-6 per
month for cable installs? We were using the Raychem for new work &
repairs in the mid '80s. They were the best we could find, both for
drop, trunk & feeders. They didn't need a boot, and you would break the
cable before a connector would pull off, if installed properly. We had
to keep a close eye on radiation to prevent one of the midband channels
from interfering with airplanes. 95% of the problems were those half
assed separate ring, three cent connectors.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

tom wrote:

On 2/10/2012 7:47 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Still easier than having to use blasting caps to find the ends of a
broken conduit under the finished concrete floor in a new RADAR site.
An old fish tape& blasting cap pushed as far as it would go and
BOOM!!!. Then repeat for the other end. Then they used a jackhammer to
break out the concrete between the huge floor divots to install new
conduit. The electrical contractor had failed to tie the conduit to the
rebar& wire mesh before the pour. :)

Or driving ground rods through permafrost in Alaska. We drove 60' of
rod and used three tanks of Acetylene to heat the rod to get it through
the ice layer outside a military radio& TV station at Ft. Greely.


You've got me beat.

I am glad I didn't have to use blasting caps as TDR. But it does sound
kind of fun if you didn't have delivery pressure on top of it.

Sounds like good work. But not up the Giant Rat's standards, I'm sure.

Interesting that he portrays himself as young and uses that reference.
Very curious. Maybe he's old and a failure and not young and a failure
as he claims.


He was a cable grunt when Time Warner built Cube in Cincinnati, so I'd
say that he's at least 50 and still a very angry failure.

That RADAR site was at Ft. Rucker, and the problem was in the area
reserved for the new IFF hardware in the mid '70s. Weathervision was
assigned to the space while I was there, but were were in the process of
moving to another building when I was told I had orders for Vietnam. I
ended up in Alaska instead. Two weeks later that AFRTS station in
Vietnam was overrun and the engineers killed. They shipped parts of the
transmitter that survived the gunfire to the station in Alaska. :(


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

Increasing Cable TV SIGNAL LEVELS
 

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:47:54 -0600, amdx
wrote:

The Box is a CISCO RNG100
Only data I know how to get is;
Tuner 537.00 Mhz 2dbmv
TDC 75.25 Mhz 5dbmv
RDC 20.00 Mhz 30.0dbmv Yes 30.0


It's the same as the Cisco Explorer 1540C with some features removed
by Comcast.
http://www.cincinnatibell.com/shared_content/pdf/tv/exp1540_uguide.pdf

How to get into the diagnostics:
Press and hold SELECT on front of unit until the MAIL light
starts to flash, then press INFO.
Or
Press and hold PAUSE on remote until MAIL light starts to
flash (around 10-15 seconds), then press PAGE-UP (-).
On some remotes, PAGE (+) might need to be used instead.

I'll guess(tm) that TDC is downstream power, and RDC is upstream
power. (20MHz is in the frequency range used by upstream path).
30dBmV is acceptable as the upper limit is about 55dBmv. Remember,
this is dB's above 1mv into 75 ohms, not dB's above 1mw into 50 ohms.
dBm = dBmV - 48dB
So, your 30dBmv is really -18dBm

The downstream values are also in the ballpark. See:
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16085
The numbers are for cable modems, but the levels should be similar for
DTV. The typical delivered values should be:
-10 dBmV to +10 dBmV "Recommended".
-11 dBmV to -14 dBmv / +11 dBmV to +14 dBmV "Acceptable".
-15 dBmV & +15 dBmV "Maximum".
5dBmV is fairly is good enough and should result in a usable picture.

See if you can excavate the SNR numbers. Maybe there's RF garbage on
the systems (oscillating distribution amp, ingress, whatever, etc).


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

On 2/10/2012 8:07 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

He was a cable grunt when Time Warner built Cube in Cincinnati, so I'd
say that he's at least 50 and still a very angry failure.


Sounds correct. He's got problems alright.

That RADAR site was at Ft. Rucker, and the problem was in the area
reserved for the new IFF hardware in the mid '70s. Weathervision was
assigned to the space while I was there, but were were in the process of
moving to another building when I was told I had orders for Vietnam. I
ended up in Alaska instead. Two weeks later that AFRTS station in
Vietnam was overrun and the engineers killed. They shipped parts of the
transmitter that survived the gunfire to the station in Alaska. :(

Sorry to hear that. Had friends that survived intact but were still
damaged goods from that war.

tom
K0TAR

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

"VWWall" wrote in message
m...

Pomegranate ******* wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:45:31 -0800, The_Giant_Rat_of_Sumatra
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:34:43 -0600, tom wrote:

Interesting how little you bother to learn about the people you swear
at.
Interesting how ****tards like you make presumptions about people (and
include insults), and then forget that you even did it, and act as if I
am some kind of offender against you because I called you the ****tard
you are for doing it..

You are as ****ing retarded as it gets, boy. Your mother should be
jailed.

Go on, Nymbecile, finish your favourite joke off. It's ages since we
heard it!

He really needs to create a new file from which to cut and paste. Like
most comedians', his jokes get stale after awhile.

--
VWW, K6EVE
-
But you must admit that this normally quiet newsgroup finally has some
activity. Who knows, this could take on the characteristics of the GFW.
--Wayne W5GIE

"GFW=Great Fractal Wars"

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

On 2/10/2012 8:32 PM, Wayne wrote:

He really needs to create a new file from which to cut and paste. Like
most comedians', his jokes get stale after awhile.

-- VWW, K6EVE
-
But you must admit that this normally quiet newsgroup finally has some
activity. Who knows, this could take on the characteristics of the GFW.
--Wayne W5GIE

"GFW=Great Fractal Wars"

Unfortunately the traffic has nothing to do with antennas.

Things dried up here around 6 months ago. I suspect the people with
brains and stories, and some of us remember who they are, are no longer
with us or finally bailed due to the noise.

Now all there seems to be is some less verbose hangers on plus script
kiddie morons and worse.

tom
K0TAR

Increasing Cable TV signal strength
 

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:47:52 +0000, Pomegranate *******
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:27:00 -0800, The_Giant_Rat_of_Sumatra
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:02:35 +0000, Pomegranate *******
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:44:45 -0800, The_Giant_Rat_of_Sumatra
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:12:15 +0000, Pomegranate *******
wrote:

Would you please supply some evidence of your claims?

You don't even know what a 10Gb/s optical port looks like either,
jackass.

You are truly pathetic, and a total loser.

The only response a retard like you knows is "stalk and jab".

Would you please supply some evidence of your claims?


You wouldn't know what a constellation measurement was if one bit you in
the ass, much less understand it. Nuff said.

Would you please supply some evidence of your claims?

You failed to respond with a definition of the term. That is proof
that you are an uneducable twit.