Let me start off by saying I'm the type of person who is logical, and pretty technically saavy. I have quite an extensive electronics background including teaching BEE in the military, and 10+ years experience in the broadcast field (radio, not TV though).

So, I am not one to believe in what I consider "voodoo" or "snake oil". I'm more interested in the "science" behind my thread topic which is this:

Never really dealing with the quality differences between cables, when I ran my RG6 cable in the house, I used whatever cable my local electronics store handed me when I asked for RG6. All of my inwall RG6 video cable is Belden 1694A or equivalent bundles. IMHO, way overkill for video bandwidth, but I used it because the price was cheap (bluejeans) vs store bought stuff.

However, the stuff I ran for OTA/Cable/Satellite was....awe crap, I can't remember the number, but basically cheap Belden copper clad steel center conductor swept to 1 GHz (should have noticed this initially, but I didn't pay attention to it).

Anyway, I recently upgraded my DirecTV service and purchased an H20.

For the mostpart, everything is working perfectly. Had some minor pixelizaiton initially, but "tweaked" the dish and all is well.

Here is the thing-Now, I am wondering if I should rip that cable up and rerun it (a real pain the in @#$%) or just follow the old addage of "if it aint broke, don't fix it."

IIRC, satellite signal L band frequencies go up to about 2.4, maybe 2.6 Gig or somewhere around there. My cable is only swept out to 1 Gig, which is why I am second guessing myself. Plus I have seen online (not confirmed) that DTV is requiring installers to use solid copper center conductor RG6 for the new HD installs. I read something about too much resistance of the copper clad for the multiswitch built in to the dish. I have also read that because of skin effect, copper clad is okay to use for satellite freq's since the higher the freq, the more the signal will travel on the outside of the center conductor (thus negating the need for solid copper center at high freq).

My basic question; anyone with experience on this particular issue?

My "technical" side says rip up the rg6 and redo it with the proper cable. My "practical" side is saying leave it be.

Has anyone actually compared signal quality of one cable type vs the other?

TIA,

-Alan

Alan....
My gut says try what you have first.....then, if it DOESN'T fly, go with a clean install of full-shielded solid-copper center- conductor RG/6, ideally swept to 3 GHz....something like Belden 7916A (what I've used for cable, D* and E* installations, all with excellent results, using runs of about 100'-150'). Good luck!

Thanks for the reply!

I just hate not doing things right the first time, LOL. I actually ran accross a thread that talks about this very subject in the "distribution" section of the forums. But it was only one thread, and there was no real concensus.

Its funny; in some forums, people will argue up and down about the audio/video quality of cable a vs cable b, but yet, there isn't much in the way of RF cable performance discussions, LOL.

I guess I will leave it be. The "practical" side is also telling me that although the 3Ghz swept cable should be used, in *every* new residential construction they are doing in this area, they are using the regular copper clad steel RG6, and when DTV installers do an install, they don't even rip up and re-run the proper cable. They just use whatever is already existing.

-Alan

PS. I also used weatherproof crimp style connectors; I know compression fittings are preferred, but I just don't like them.