changed out that last 12 feet of RG59 with RG6

[wa2ise]

I've been replacing the runs of RG59 throughout the house fed by the rooftop antenna with RG6 the cable installer guy gave me (he gave me around 150 feet, thank you). There was this last 12 feet of RG59 I hadn't done (was thinking how much loss would 12 feet of RG59 cost me). But I went and did it anyway, and it did make a difference. Looks like that fraction of a dB I got made it enough signal strength for the ATSC receiver box to allow reception and decoding of some marginal signals. Or maybe that old cable was bad... Now all the TV coax cable (cable TV service, master antenna system) is all RG6. I used the old RG59 to fish the new RG6 runs thru the walls and ceilings.

[old_tv_nut]

The problem with RG59 is that it has very loose RF specs, both for shielding and RF attenuation - some stuff is OK and some is not. RG6 is spec'd tightly enough to be useful.

[DavGoodlin]

I had similar experiences, and use all my old RG 59 for FM or channel 3/4 from the DTV box.

30+ years ago in my antenna-installation heyday, RG6 was not commonly used other than by cable companies, primarily becase it was available as quad-shield, to keep cable from radiating.

Preferring Belden foam-core twin-lead types over RG-59, it often made the difference between getting deep-fringe UHF and not getting it. Of course, twin lead had to be carefully run using stand-off insulators and would get more lossy than coax when it was wet.

[philcophan]

I agree. RG-6 beats 59 any day of the week. The only thing I think may be better is the old Belden 8259(??) fully shielded 300 ohm... can be run just like coax. Today it is unobtanium, but I did manage to scarf up 6 new 100 foot hanks on ePay... would love to find a roll....

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I had similar experiences, and use all my old RG 59 for FM or channel 3/4 from the DTV box.

30+ years ago in my antenna-installation heyday, RG6 was not commonly used other than by cable companies, primarily becase it was available as quad-shield, to keep cable from radiating.

Preferring Belden foam-core twin-lead types over RG-59, it often made the difference between getting deep-fringe UHF and not getting it. Of course, twin lead had to be carefully run using stand-off insulators and would get more lossy than coax when it was wet.

Regarding the Belden foam-core, that was my choice over RG59.
We were a UHF town, long before other areas.