On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 23:49:47 GMT, "Walter R."
wrote:

My house is 22 years old and was wired with RG 59 coax in the walls.

I ran into a problem with my RG 59 cables because they had too much
signal-loss for my cable modem.

I will have to replace the RG 59 with RG 6 for the cable modem. Do I need
RG 6 for HDTV or will HDTV work with RG 59 coax? (Hate to run more wires
through walls than absolutely necessary.)

The "RG" (radio guide) numbers used to mean something when they were
mil-spec (MIL-C-17) cables.

Now every Tom, Dick and Wong build "RG" cables, so the specs are,
shall we say, open to interpretation. In fact cables built to
MIL-C-17 aren't labeled with an RG number anymore, since it's become
so meaningless.

That said, RG-59 and RG-6 are both nominally 75-ohm impedance cables
and the loss (attenuation) characteristics are similar. RG-59 is
slightly smaller in diameter, thus its attenuation is -slightly-
higher than RG-6, but nothing you should notice in the typical
application.

RG-59 should work fine in either application. If you are experiencing
signal loss then you should check for damage or bad connectors
(connections) before condemning the cable.

Also, you likely have splitters in your system. There are so many of
these on the market it's hard to say whether you have good ones or bad
ones. They're all similar in design, so the way they're slapped
together determines more than any design differences. Without
electrical measurement (difficult to do without a lab) or physical
examination, the best alternative is to substitute another one and try
to note any difference(s). Also, these are directional; a splitter
with the input signal connected to an output port will pass something
but it will be highly attenuated.

It's also possible that your cable provider needs to deliver some more
signal to you.