Kind of blew my mind finding out signal loss over coax happens way faster than I thought

I was reading through some old training manuals from Comcast last night and saw the spec - you lose like 6 dB per 100 feet on RG6 at higher frequencies. That explains why my runs over 150 feet on that apartment job last month had issues. Has anyone else found a good way to boost signal on long drops without a powered amp?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylorshah26d ago

Oh boy, that's a good catch in those manuals. It's funny how this kind of thing shows up in everyday life too. I was just thinking about it with my home wifi - the signal drops off way faster than the box says once it passes through a couple walls. It's like that rule where you lose half your signal every time you double the distance, whether it's coax or radio waves. RG11 is definitely the way to go for long runs, I've had good luck with it on a couple of jobs where RG6 just couldn't cut it.

anderson.piper26d ago

Did you look into the impedance mismatch too? I used to think a long coax run was no big deal as long as the cable was decent, but those dB losses add up quick. Ive had to redo a couple drops after seeing the same specs. If you're not using powered amps, try a higher quality RG11 instead of RG6 for runs over 100 feet, it cuts the loss by about half. Also make sure the connectors are crimped perfectly, a bad fitting can eat another 3-5 dB easy.

the_harper26d ago

Figured out what kind of equipment they're feeding into? Long runs can behave totally different depending on whether it's an antenna, a modem, or something like an amplifier. I've seen people chase signal issues for days only to realize their gear just couldn't handle the cable length no matter what they did.