Why is my cable not working?

Claude Greiner

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Sep 8, 2003
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Detroit - The Paris of the Midwest
I was at a commercial job today on a digital HD headend. Couldn’t get anything to come on channel 47 (350 MHz or higher)

I never seen a splitter with such a low rating for passing frequencies.

Needless to say me and the customer replaced this beauty with a 2-way and (2) 8-way 1 gig splitters.

IMG_4431.JPG
 
Must actually have filters in it to prevent it from passing higher frequencies. Wonder what the reason was, can't see why you spend money to put filters in there to deliberately limit it to 300 MHz. Maybe it was for applications that would mix in something at higher frequencies like UHF modulators? Or they were worried about signal egress from higher frequency sources?
 
Why would it have such trouble passing frequencies above 300 MHz then? It isn't like ordinary 900 MHz splitters have a special design.
 
Also, pardon my ignorance of CATV systems here. But what actual unit of measurement for signal level are cable techs referring to when they say so many "dbs" (i.e., the plural of "db")?

"dBm," "dbμV", ect.?

They drive me crazy with just loosely using the db measurement for an absolute unit signal level like that, when they're technically a unit-less system of relative measure of course.

And just curious, but how does a tap actually treat a signal going back in the reverse direction from trunk output to input such as the upstream MoCA networking signal from a receiver in a DRE installation or something?

Is some of a reverse signal siphoned off into the tap down port same as a portion of a normal forward signal is?

Or is it blocked from doing this? ...

Just wondering (if anyone knows that is ....)

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Some good questions here. I wonder if it’s the wire gauge or circuit trace thickness. Or maybe the materials. Like you wouldn’t expect cheap speaker wire to pass 1 GHz. There must be something to the materials or construction. I’ve also seen 550 MHz splitters, 900 MHz, 1 GHz and 3 GHz.
 
I think satellite deals with dBM but cable uses dbUv. So cable is looking for inputs in the range of +10 to -10 "db", while satellite wants -25 to -45 or so.
Also, pardon my ignorance of CATV systems here. But what actual unit of measurement for signal level are cable techs referring to when they say so many "dbs" (i.e., the plural of "db")?

"dBm," "dbμV", ect.?

They drive me crazy with just loosely using the db measurement for an absolute unit signal level like that, when they're technically a unit-less system of relative measure of course.

And just curious, but how does a tap actually treat a signal going back in the reverse direction from trunk output to input such as the upstream MoCA networking signal from a receiver in a DRE installation or something?

Is some of a reverse signal siphoned off into the tap down port same as a portion of a normal forward signal is?

Or is it blocked from doing this? ...

Just wondering (if anyone knows that is ....)

Satellite uses dBm, which is referenced to millivolts and is typically used in RF. Cable uses dBmV which is referenced to microvolts. Thus you see satellite receivers usually wanting signals in the -30 to -55 range, while cable receivers usually want signals in the +5 to -10 range. I think the conversion factor between the two is a little under 50, so a satellite signal at -45 "db" is equal to a cable signal that's +5 "db".
 
Some good questions here. I wonder if it’s the wire gauge or circuit trace thickness. Or maybe the materials. Like you wouldn’t expect cheap speaker wire to pass 1 GHz. There must be something to the materials or construction. I’ve also seen 550 MHz splitters, 900 MHz, 1 GHz and 3 GHz.

Good point, if they used a very thin gauge wire in that ancient splitter it would have greater loss at higher frequencies than "modern" cable splitters.
 
I was at a commercial job today on a digital HD headend. Couldn’t get anything to come on channel 47 (350 MHz or higher)

I never seen a splitter with such a low rating for passing frequencies.

Needless to say me and the customer replaced this beauty with a 2-way and (2) 8-way 1 gig splitters.

View attachment 141297
Yeah wow ....

That must have been one of the very old muti-outlet taps intended for early analog CATV systems, that only carried the 12 VHF TV broadcast channels 2-13 (54-216 MHz) at the time.

Lol ....

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Yeah wow ....

That must have been one of the very old muti-outlet taps intended for early analog CATV systems, that only carried the 12 VHF TV broadcast channels 2-13 (54-216 MHz) at the time.

Lol ....

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

The place is very old. But before going digital they where running 2-36 analog
 
We had one like this. My dad had it set up on the end table next to the couch.
 

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When I was a kid our cable system had channels 2-35, with a little box that looked something like this

il_570xN.526392280_dm2n.jpg

Wow...hadn't seen one of those in years! The earliest cable I remember us having when I was a kid had a box like that, if not the same exact one. I was usually the one dispatched to run the slider between channels. :D
 
BTW;

When Blonder Tougue named that obsolete device a "12 Port Directional Terminated Tap."

Is that because it's actually comprised internally of an asymmetrical splitter as all taps really are. With the twelve -13 db taps sipphoning off a combined 60% of the RF energy from the trunk in total.

And thus with only 40% of the RF energy now remaining in the trunk is simply terminated and thus thrown away as waste heat?

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