I live in a townhome community, and have no idea how my cable infrastructure is configured before it reaches my house, but at the closest point to where the main line seems to arrive, I get a weak signal.

From what I can gather so far, the main cable line comes in through the basement, and goes into a 2 way splitter, which leaves one outlet for the basement (currently unused), while another line travels upstairs to the living room, gets split again at some unknown point, then travels up to the master bedroom upstairs, and from there is plugged into a cable modem.

My goal is to boost my signal strength, and to add a splitter upstairs to allow for a TV in the bedroom while using the modem.

So, in short, I'm looking for hardware suggestions. I'm trying to avoid overpriced Monsteresque stuff where a cheap solution would work. I see that Monoprice has some really cheap no-name splitters, for example. Would they suffice? And as far as an amplifier, I'm clueless as to what to look for.

Thanks in advance!

http://www.cencom94.com/gpage4.html

antronix or regal spitters, (5-1000mhz min.) electroline single port drop amp installed at the beginning of your system.

I live in a townhome community, and have no idea how my cable infrastructure is configured before it reaches my house, but at the closest point to where the main line seems to arrive, I get a weak signal.

From what I can gather so far, the main cable line comes in through the basement, and goes into a 2 way splitter, which leaves one outlet for the basement (currently unused), while another line travels upstairs to the living room, gets split again at some unknown point, then travels up to the master bedroom upstairs, and from there is plugged into a cable modem.

My goal is to boost my signal strength, and to add a splitter upstairs to allow for a TV in the bedroom while using the modem.

So, in short, I'm looking for hardware suggestions. I'm trying to avoid overpriced Monsteresque stuff where a cheap solution would work. I see that Monoprice has some really cheap no-name splitters, for example. Would they suffice? And as far as an amplifier, I'm clueless as to what to look for.

Thanks in advance!


You know the signal is weak, how?

Perhaps the problem is on the Cable Co. side. Have you put in a support call to them?

I would, before spending my dough to try to fix what might be their problem.

The signal provided to your house, IMO, should easily support a two-way or three-way split.

However, if the basement is going to remain unused, I'd get rid of that splitter and join the wires with a straight coupler. Then, you could try using that splitter upstairs.

Before you change anything, go to your computer web browser and put in this address or just click the link http://192.168.100.1 That will almost always bring up the modem home page. You may have to do a bit of navigating, but there should be a screen where you can see the signal information. The values you are looking for are similar to this:

Receive power (RX):
Transmit (TX):
Downstream SNR (RX SNR):
Upstream SNR (TX SNR):

Find the corresponding values in your modem information/diagnostic page and tell us what the values are.

It was actually the cable company who told me the signal was weak, when they came to the house to activate everything. Maybe they were just trying to sell me something I don't need?

Here's what my modem says:

Receive power (RX): -1 dBmV
Transmit (TX): 52 dBmV
Downstream SNR (RX SNR): 39 dB
Upstream SNR (TX SNR): ?

It was actually the cable company who told me the signal was weak, when they came to the house to activate everything. Maybe they were just trying to sell me something I don't need?
Here's what my modem says:

Receive power (RX): -1 dBmV
Transmit (TX): 52 dBmV
Downstream SNR (RX SNR): 39 dB
Upstream SNR (TX SNR): ?


Hmmm.... if the tech said the signal was weak during the install, what was his reason for not fixing it?

Is it safe to assume the cable tech looked at the existing wiring and splitters and gave them a thumbs-up??




All I have are specs for Charter, but they are:

Receive power (RX): -12 to +12 dBmv
Transmit (TX) +35 to +53 dBmv
Downstream SNR (RX SNR) No less than +31 dBmv
Upstream SNR (TX SNR) No less than +22 dBmv

So, for a Charter system, you would be within spec, but pretty close on the TX power.

If you get rid of that splitter in the basement it would help with your current wiring. But, moving it up by the modem so you have a splitter there will re-introduce the loss, but not more than you already have. If you leave the splitter in the basement and add another upstairs, you will increase the losses MORE than you already have because it will then be three splitters in the system rather than two.

Before I would get in a panic, I would do that - remove the splitter in the basement, put a straight coupler in it's place. Then, move that splitter up to the bedroom where you want to add the TV.

If I were you I'd try the arrangement I just described without the amp. You can always add one later if necessary, and it probably won't be necessary.