~ Cable 101:

With coaxial cable, small mistakes can lead to big problems including poor picture quality, HD tiling and slow internet speeds.

• Never use cheap cable. Be sure it is a good brand like Commscope RG-6 Tri~Shield. Commscope is used by most major cable and satellite company's. 

• Never kink a cable or bend it into a smaller than 4" Radius. Bending in tight corners can destroy the shielding and cause poor audio and video streaming.

• Never pull too hard or stretch on a the cable. Stretching can cause a cable to loose it roundness, causing poor streaming.

• Never smash or pinch a cable. 

• Never space staples evenly to prevent intinuation. 

• Never let the braided shield show. Even on strand can cause E-gress and ingress from other sources.

• Never scratch or nick the center wire. Even though you would think a shiny center conductor looks better, scraping or sanding it will cause poor picture quality.

• Never use crimp or turn-on connectors. Use only compression fittings such as PPC brand EX6XLPLUS to prevent unwanted ingress and egress. The number one cause of digital tiling.

• Never just finger-tighten fittings, always add a quarter of a turn with a wrench.

• Never run coax parallel to electrical wiring. Running cable more than a fw feet along an electrical wire can cause cross channeling.

• Never use standard electrical boxes. Always use an open mud plate so the cable can flow freely and not kink in the electrical box.

• Never use a cheap or gold splitter. Don't waste your money on poor quality gold fittings or cheaply gold plated splitters. Your best splitters are heavy in weight and the cover on the back is soldered, not glued on.

~ Product Care:

*Always keep cables and ends clean, free from chemicals and sharp objects.

*Hand wash with cold water only. 

*Do not twist or bend cables around sharp corners or into smaller than 4"circumference.

Various types of cables used for device connections:     

• Coaxial Cable: Also known as Coax Cable consists of an inner conductor made of 18 AWG Copper Clad Steel surrounded by a gas injected foam Polyethylene Insulation Dielectric, an Aluminum/Polymer Bonded insulating layer, then a 34 AWG Aluminum Braid ground wire. Many Coaxial Cables also have an additional Aluminum/Polymer Bonded insulating layer, all inside a flame retardant rubber jacket. The name coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing a geometric axis. In 1941 a 220 mile long coaxial cable was installed from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Stevens Point, Wisconsin. This marks the first commercial use of coaxial cable in the United States, and carried a single television channel.

• HDMI: (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a compact audio/video interface cable used for transferring uncompressed video data and compressed/uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI source device such as a DVR, DVD Player, Computer Monitor, video projector or other device to a Digital High Definition Television.

• S-Video: Separate Video is commonly known as S-Video or Super-video cables and are typically used for 480i resolution. S-video cables consist of 4 pins. The bottom two pins being ground pins, pin 3 carry’s the Intensity (Luminance), and pin 4 carry’s the color (Chrominance), separating the black-and-white and color signals. S-Video cables are known for producing a better image quality than composite video, but have a lower color resolution than component cables.

• Component Cables: A Component AV cable have a total of 5 wires, 3 wires for video (separated into Red, Blue and Green signals to produce a better picture) and a Red and White line that is used for the left and right audio connections.

• Composite Cables: Better known as AV Cables are the standard three wires connection consisting of a white and red line used for right and left audio, and a yellow wire used for the video connection.  

Copper Clad Cable Vs Solid Copper Cable ~

•Solid Copper Coaxial Cables consist of a coaxial cable with a solid copper center conductor

where as

•Copper Clad Coaxial Cables consist of a center conductor made up of steel, then coated with a layer of solid copper.

How Does Signal Travel 

The basic theory and principle of RF upstream and downstream signal travel consist of an RF transmission that carry’s the signal from the one source to a second source over a coaxial cable. All RF signal transmissions only travel on the outside of the center conductor and do not use the actual inner core of the cable. This is known as the "skin effect". 

Solid Copper Disadvantage-

There is no real advantage in using a cable with a solid copper center conductor versus a Copper Clad Steel center conductor, but in many cases it can result in a disadvantage since solid copper cables will stretch from heat, movement, placement on uneven surfaces and bending, which in return will change the resonant frequency of the cable, causing impedance mismatching and poor picture quality, where a steel center conductor that is evenly covered by a layer of copper will not stretch, break or loose consistency, and continues to maintain the designed resonant frequency for many years.

• This is why a higher quality cable will be made up of a steel copper clad, not solid copper, and it is also why since the late 1950's, 18 AWG Copper Clad Steel has been the cable of choice for both cost and efficiency.

• The transmission speed of coaxial cable is 10Mbps (megabits per second), and they offer 80 times more transmission capacity than twisted pair cables. 

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