I moved into my new home about 3 months ago. Well, actually it is a 23 years old house with finished basement. Overall the house was in good condition, but it was in need of many minor repairs. Being the handyman that I am, I ripped out the carpet and installed laminate flooring, hardwood, exhaust vent cover etc. But that’s not what I am writing about being that my blog is about technology. What I am going to discuss is the coaxial cable for my Rogers digital TV.
The type of coaxial (coax) TV cable in the house is RG59. This is an old standard TV cable installed before the cable companies offered digital or satellite signals. RG59 is good for analog TV signals, the previous owners of the home did not have a digital receiver and were content with the limited analog channels. But my household has a bigger requirement for TV channels. In order to get all the channels we needed and to take advantage of the VIP package, I had no choice but to order the digital receiver. If you are not already aware then this may be news to you, in the year 2011 it will be mandatory for all TV signals to be transmitted in digital frequencies in Canada. This rule is already effective in USA.
Initially after the Rogers technician installed my digital receiver all channels worked. But days later I noticed some of the digital channels started freezing at first and then eventually blacked out. RG59 coax was the reason for the black screen. Because the RG59 cable is unable to transmit high frequency signals, it is only good for analog not digital channels.
I had no choice but to run new RG6 cables from the Rogers demarcation in the basement to the family room. To do this I had to purchase a 3 ft long flexible drill bit from Home Depot. I must say that it was no easy task., I made two unsuccessful attempt at drilling a hole through the inside of a wall to the basement before I got it right the third time. I then installed two RG6 coax and one CAT5e cable drops from the basement to the family room. After I terminated the coax able I was able to watch all digital channels interruption free. The extra coax is for my Satellite dish which I will put up someday, the CAT5e cable is for my Wii console that I may want to connect to the internet.
The RG59 cable is 20 AWG thick, while the RG6 is 18 AWG (American wire gage). If you put the two cable side by side you will notice that RG6 is much thicker. The AWG measurement is misleading, the lower the number the thicker the cable is.
