Upgrading cable-tv line between house and pole?

Have you had teh attenuation measured from teh house to the pole? Without knowing that number, you have no reference. Are you having some cable tv trouble, or just think the picture looks bad(which is typical cable tv anyway)?

For regular cable service simply switching to RG-11 may not make any difference. The difference between 6 and 11 isn't as great as one would think. Attenuation for rg-6 is around 3.5-4 dbmv every 100'. So you're probably losing 8-10dbmv by the time you get to your house (assuming you have an older line and a couple connectors). You only need 0 dbmv at the tv to get a good picture so how much you have depends entirely on how much is squirting out the tap and how many outlets you have active.


You would probably benefit more from a new piece of rg-6 to your house with an amplifier at your distribution point, taking the place of any splitters. You cable company should provide all of that.


Keep in mind you don't want too much signal either. Around 15-18dbmv can cause picture problems as well (static, herringbone). It's like overdriving a guitar amp to get all that fuzz and feedback.

I just built a house that is over 400 feet from the nearest pole and at that distance I was worried about loss. With the help of a friend in the biz, I ran rg11 from my in-house termination point underground to the pole (we even ran it up the pole and terminated it with a loop right next to the drop). Being a belt and suspenders kind of guy I also put an Electroline 8-way 3db dropamp in the house. This way each set gets just a few db less than the signal at the pole.


My cable company recommends running rg6 up to 400'. Above that they go to a section of hard-line and 400' of rg6. When they saw what we had done and measured the signal levels they were happy and I didn't end up with a green box in my lawn.


At 200' rg6 is probably fine if you've got a reasonable signal at the pole. If your signal level is at all questionable, I'd go for the 11.