Directv and copper shielded coax

[kev1782]

I have a customer who had Directv come out for an install, and the tech looked at the coax that was pre-wired and told the customer that copper shielded coax causes the HD channels to have problems. I've never run across copper shielded RG-6 coax in the 9 years I've installed Dish Network and Directv. Has anyone ever had problems with coax that has copper shielding instead of aluminum shielding?

 

[scarebear]

are you sure he was talking about the shielding and not copper clad steel center conductor?

 

[boba]

Or was it RG-59 not RG-6, copper shield is much more common on RG-59?

 

[kev1782]

No, it was copper shielded RG-6. I assumed it was 59 over the phone, but when I got to his house, it's RG-6, swept up to 3000 megahertz just like every other "satellite approved" RG-6 coax we buy. It wasn't the Radio Shack special that always had the copper shielding, it was RG-6 with a stiff center conductor.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

Does it have a foil shield in addition to the braid? Copper-shielded RG59 only has the copper braid, although it has better coverage than the braid used with cables having the foil. This can cause problems at high frequencies (double-shielded cables having two braids in contact with each other are better), which could affect the signal strength. The compression connectors which the installers use probably won't fit, either.

 

[kev1782]

There's no foil on this coax. Just the copper shielding, directly touching the plastic sheath.