Sky cable

[skyliner34]

Im currently using 'shotgun' sky cable for my sky +HD.

will changing to a thicker cable improve signal strength?

 

[Joe Fernand]

'will changing to a thicker cable improve signal strength?' - I doubt it, a bigger dish, proper alignment, new LNB could help.

What problems are you seeing?

Joe

 

[skyliner34]

Not really much problems, some channels suffer problems in torrential rain. My father in law had the same problem, so I re aligned the dish and his is sorted. Tried the same on mine and new lnb and I have improved the strength and quality, most hd channels are 95% - 100% signal and quality. But some SD ones are 90% signal and 50%quality, notably the welsh channel S4C & sony tv etc.

I tried some of the shotgun cable in the house to make up some short coaxial cable and was shocked on the bad pic quality compared to say a WF100 cable. So I was thinking if this makes that much difference on a short run, would it improve sky, I know sky is digital, but correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the signal between box and lnb analogue? I haven't got enough run of WF100 to go from dish to box, otherwise if try it.

Also what's best? These screw on F plugs or I have these QED F plugs which are solder types?

 

[ChuckMountain]

What do you mean the picture quality was bad? Was it a digital or analog signal you were passing? Unless the signal is physically breaking up\other artefacts appearing then there shouldn't be any difference in picture qualities its 1 and 0s. Are you sure you made the cable up correctly, its quite easy to terminate badly, especially if you use the wrong diameter plugs for the cable.

The signal is digital its a discrete on\off form represented by a square wave rather a sine wave like you have in analog.

People have preferences for different cables. I personally used crimp F plugs with a crimper was approx £20 plus the plugs which are much better than the F screw ons. The solder ones depend on how good your soldering is plus its one additional join in the cable as you need to solder the centre connection.

 

[skyliner34]

Hi

What I meant was the quality signal meter on the sky box will show around 50% while the signal strength would be 100% on some SD channel which would lead to breakup when we had downpour.

On Saturday I popped into screw fix and brought a reel of webro twin WF100 cable. Jesus it's thick compared to the thinner shotgun cable. The connections on my shotgun cable were all right and clean and no short or anything.

I wired the wf100 and went into the house to make sure all was ok, and to my amasement the signal quality meter on the sd channels I was having problems with is now around 75-80%!! Great news!!

I might of had a faulty cable or something!