Live in an older condo and have to use 2 cable splitters - one for TV/internet in my office, and another for TV/home phone in my living room. I’ve had problems in the past with signal deterioration, although I’m not sure that was contained within my apartment, as I haven’t had issues for several years now.
But doing a redesign and my splitters are kind of old and crappy, and I want to ensure that I’m not compromising any signal strength beyond what’s necessary - can someone recommend a good cable splitter or otherwise provide advice on setup?
I don’t have any super great advice. It’s just that back when I had a cable modem on the 2nd floor, I have a “satelite/cable” T splitter in the basement. It’s a splitter where one of the two output is marked as “satelite”, supposedly because it’s got a better signal than the other output. That output went to my cable modem, while the “TV” (crappier?) output went to an amplified 4-way splitter to go to the rest of my house.
Gotcha - I didn’t realize there were such things. That makes me think that I should get an unbalanced one though, and have the lower signal strength going to the home phone, which I don’t really care about, in order to have stronger cable?
You still want a balanced splitter. Anything inline on a coax cable has signal loss, generally most splitters are around 3.5dB of loss on each port though there can be variance based on manufacturer. Get one that is 5-1000Mhz (1Ghz). Try and get one with only the number of ports you need - if you do get one with ‘extra’ ports put caps (terminators[1]) on the unused ports, this helps reduce reflections and noise.
If you have a MOCA-based cable system in your house you will need a splitter that goes up to 2.3Ghz (often sold as MOCA splitters). “Gateway”- based systems use MOCA. The intelligent part goes, say, in your basement and only little STBes go on your TVs. You can usually share DVR recordings in your house, etc.
In detached homes you can also put an active amp in which can make a big difference, I put one of these in my place [2]. Condo’s are setup differently than detached home neighborhoods so I am not sure if an amp would help your situation.
I’m replacing all of the (outdated) coax in my entire house in prep for a much-needed new router and I have one last hurdle, the dreaded splitter! I’ll be connecting 3 devices via coax: 2 TV receivers and 1 cable modem.
My GoogleFu has failed me and I can’t find whether it’s best to have one “unbalanced” 3-way splitter, or two “balanced” 2-way splitters, or … use what’s called a TAP. Any experts here?
This is how they would be installed, in the order of what I think is the best solution:
(1) One “unbalanced” 3-way splitter: Unbalanced means the splitter has two -7dB outputs and one -3.5dB output. I think it would be best to connect the cable modem to the -3.5 output and my two TV receivers to the two -7dB outputs.
(2) Two “balanced” 2-way splitters: Both splitters have two outputs, each a -3.5dB output. The line from outside connects to the first 2-way splitter, with one output going to my cable modem, and the second output going to the second 2-way splitter. Both outputs on the the second 2-way splitter would connect to a TV receiver. I believe, but am not sure, that the attenuation on all 3 outputs would be the same as the (1) above 3-way splitter solution, but I’m not sure. If so, may as well go with one 3-way splitter?
(3) TAP: Taps are like splitters, but have one output with less attenuation, for high-demand devices (the cable mode?). Line from outside connects to a 2-way Tap. The Tap output with less attenuation would be connected to my cable modem and the other Tap output would be connected to a 2-way splitter that would output to the 2 TVs.
Based on my searches, I’m leaning towards the first solution. Mostly because I don’t know if I need or should go the route of the Tap, and if I do, what low attenuation value should the Tap output1 have?
Lastly, what splitter should I get??? Help me Obi-wan!
I don’t have the splitters yet, but most splitters seem pretty cheap so I could buy multiple and try them. Was hoping a guru would know which is the proper/correct way. I haven’t looked at prices for taps.
I think this is correct - in part through trial and error, as the 7db output didn’t work for the cable modem - I think that’s why the “unbalanced” splitter exists.
