On 2/10/12 8:50 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

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.


Respectfully, Michael even though we wouldn't *want* to make a 170 foot
drop. it isn't unheard of. And the amplifiers are very capable of
handling it. Ind it is very location specific. Getting a decent signal
at a marginal location doesn't have any effect on the rest of the
system. There are attenuators and there are equalized attenuators that
will give a flat signal at the end of a 170 foot drop.

RG6 cable has a loss of around 5 db per 100 feet at 500 MHz. Let's give
you 10 db at 170 feet, worst case. When I worked in the industry, I
plugged (or designed in) in a number of equalized attenuators. It only
affected a single drop, or some times a few. You could have a specific
amp running about +10db, and with the equalized attenuator, hit the
house around 0, flat.

While some might think that it is bad design, ask the system owners
whether they would want to put in another pole, perhaps with a
distribution amp, or simply use a 20 dollar attenuator.

The world is not perfect, and my job in the catv world included just
about every part, from strand mapping to system layout to in the field
work. We needed a balance between perfect and affordable. But the only
time there might be an issue was if the system was over-amped, then
there could be problems with proof of performance certification. We
never had an issue with that.


Bottom line is, a 170 foot drop is perfectly capable of having a nice
flat swept signal - and it should, unless the system design itself was
bad. Done properly, any issues will be mechanical rather than
electrical. But nowadays they have messengered cable, so it's even less
likely.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -