Can I use old coxial cable successfully?

[michael-maule]

I am installing a satellite dish in a location that used to have a conventional terrestrial aerial which is no longer there. Therefore the coaxial cable already exists and is neatly concealed in the fabric of the building and I would like to reuse it if possible.

Please forgive the simplicity of the question from someone who has no real understanding of how all this technology works, but if I replace the old TV aerial connectors with satellite connectors will this work? Or do I have to run a whole new cable length from the dish to the receiver box?

Thank you to anyone who can help me.

Michael

[Robbo]

Hi,
It depends on the quality of the cable there but it is 99% likely that it will be no good. You need satellite coax, such as wf100 or wc 100. It is double screened, and has a much lower loss than the normal TV stuff.

Robbo

[michael-maule]

Hi Robbo,

thanks. That's disappointing. It looks like the same thing to the untrained eye. I'll run a new cable. The next challenge will be trying to align the satellite!

Michael

[Robbo]

That is quite easy when you get the hang of it.

Robbo

[madrat]

depends what you want to receive and how long the cable run is, I have used normal coax cable before and if its a strong satellite its not much of a problem apart from very bad weather. My mums house still has the cheap nasty stuff running there sky system with a cable run of about 12 meters (with a join). heavy rain dose knock the signal off, but I think thats a combination of bad cable and the mini dish

[michael-maule]

so there is some hope then. I'm in France and want to use Astra 1C 1E for the newly launched satellite TNT (like Freeview on Sky). The cable is old though. But as I said before the untained eye can't tell it from new.

[michael-maule]

Robbo, is there a simple guide somewhere (on your site?) on how to position the dish without instruments? I have succeeded in the past on analogue signals but digital ones seem much more difficult.


Michael

[madrat]

you have to be patient, move the dish a tiny amount then wait a few seconds for the meter in the receiver to display the settings. A cheap alignment meter that temporarily fits between lnb and receiver is a big help also.

this site might help

DishPointer.com - Satellite Dish Pointer / Alignment Calculator with Google Maps

[Jimdefruit]

Try the old cable first, you might be lucky.

Make sure you set the receiver to a stong fta channel and move the dish very slowly. If you can see a tv from the dish position it is perfectly possible to find the sat ok. I prefer that way rather than a meter because you get immediate results in seeing the channel you are searching for.

[Robbo]

When my Sky was installed they'd used ordinary TV cable, and it was a relatively short run (about 10m or so), It was fine when it worked, but if it started raining i would start to lose the odd channel or three. With heavy rain, most channels were breaking up. Changing the cable to proper saellite cable improved things no end, and only got a small amount of break up in torrential rain. This is on a very strong satellite in the UK.