Where do you buy your cheap cables and conectors from?

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sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#1 erstellt: 12. Nov 2007, 19:26

I have seen many audio specialist shops selling wires by the meter. But which local brands do you use when quality and the type doesn't matter too much? Like the RF antenna ones used by satellite radios or FM antenna?

I was looking for some coaxial wire and F-Connectors around my area in Bangalore today, to extend the range of my worldspace receiver. The coaxial wires available in standard electrical shops looked & felt pathetic. I would prefer one which is more flexible and slim, like the default cable attached to the worldspace antenna. These ones can bend around unsealed window edges.

F connectors are another mess. The sales guys(cant blame them too much) nod their heads vigorously when I ask for F connectors , but hand me RCA ones instead. I am obviously looking at wrong shops here.

Any tips on where such cables and connectors are the right place to buy? Bangalore specific would be helpful. Generic sources too.

Please feel free to also educate me about the places you shop for your speaker and interconnects.

Thanks,
Sandip

Amp_Nut
Inventar

#2 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 04:09

Hi Sandip,

What you need is Cable TV Coax cable, and you should look at Cable TV Hardware retailers.

In B'lore, its S.P. Road.

There are several shop on SV Road selling CATV hardware and ALL will have what you need. One of them is :

Mr. G. P. Singh
Managing Director
SKYWAY COMMUNICATION PRIVATE LTD.
68/1, 1st Floor, Vanhi Complex,
S. P. Road, Bangalore 560 002
Tel: (080) 224 2978 / 224 2992

The data is old so the Tel nos could have changed.

You need to buy :

RG-59 Coax cable.

If you can accomodate a thicker cable ( Lower signal transmission Loss and higher priced ) its RG-6

RG-11 may be too thick for your application.

Spend money on a good quality brand like COMMSCOPE or TFC ( Both American Cos ) though you may not find a shop willing to sell you these premium brands by the meter ( a bundle is 1000 ft or 305 meters ! )

Skyway is a Good starting point.

And Yes... they will all have F Connectors. You will need to buy an F Connector to fit the cable. All F Connector Male sizes will fit the female F Conector on yr Worldspace Radio.

Cheers

[Beitrag von Amp_Nut am 13. Nov 2007, 04:12 bearbeitet]

Savyasaachi
Inventar

#3 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 10:40

Samson electronics (onkyo buys some of their cables and banana plugs here)...soon as you enter SP Road, its on the left. Helpful chaps..loads of connectors and cables. Best you get is MX quality which suffices for most applications.

Recommend the RG6 as well. About 8 to 9 rupees a meter when i last looked them up. There is a shop on the left about 30 feet from the entrance to SP road(Forgot the name) which deals exclusively in cables.
Another place to try cables is opposite CEE PEE and Anand elctronics. Sonodyne buys their speaker cable from this place.

-Saachi

[Beitrag von Savyasaachi am 13. Nov 2007, 10:50 bearbeitet]

sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#4 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 10:54

Thanks Sachi and Amp_nut for the really useful info. Here is another newbie question - what are these RG prefixes? Is it a gauge scale similar to AWG? Where can I find more info about it?

Savyasaachi
Inventar

#5 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 11:02

Basically your standard cable TV wire..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RG-6

sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#6 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 11:39

Thank for the link, Saachi. This reference off it was exactly what I was looking for.

What Does "RG-6" Mean?

And this was the one which ended my confusion.

RG stands for "Radio Guide," and the RG numbers are completely arbitrary. Most cables today are referred to as RG-# "type," meaning that they don't strictly conform to the original Radio Guide specifications. The result is that the RG designations are so non-specific that it's not really possible to say how a cable will perform just from knowing its RG number. We see a lot of discussions on message boards and the like where it's asserted that "RG-59 has lower bandwidth than RG-6" or "RG-59 is not as well shielded as RG-6"; statements like that are never really strictly correct. They may be correct as between one particular RG-6 and one particular RG-59, but not between others.

[Beitrag von sandipb am 13. Nov 2007, 11:39 bearbeitet]

sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#7 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 11:41

And this was hilarious. No wonder the numbers seemed so random

Coaxial history

So what do all the numbers mean ? RG-6, RG-8, RG-58, RG-59, RG-62, RG-122, RG-213, RG-405 and on and on?

The number is just a page in a book. RG-1 was the first page
(and obviously wasn?t a very successful cable design). RG-6,
the sixth page, was wildly successful.

Kamal
Stammgast

#8 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 17:09

Hi Sandip,
DO NOT extend the supplied cable length of the worldspace patch antenna!The signal strength will degrade considerably;the signal gathered by the patch antenna is good only for the cable length that comes with it.
A friend of mine did it(he added a 4 mtr length) & ended up with the receiver virtually non functional, with a wildly fluctuating signal, entirely prey to the slightest change in weather conditions).
If you have problem with getting a correct orientation with the patch antenna, get worldspace to fix an external yagi antenna for you.

Amp_Nut
Inventar

#9 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 17:23

Kamal is Absolutely correct.

I asumed that you were using an External Yagi antenna, and wanted to use the RG-6 cable with it.

sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#10 erstellt: 13. Nov 2007, 20:54

Whoa. Pity I just landed with 400bucks worth of brand new cable.

A little knowledge is a dangerous^W expensive thing.

When my worldspace installation was first done, the technicians very helpfully sold and installed some 5 meters of extension cable to the receiver to allow it to be used in my earlier house. It worked fine all these time, so I assumed another 5-8 meters won't hurt.

Do I have to buy the Yagi antenna from worldspace. Is it specific to a sat, or are there cheaper but as good antennas in the market?

At about 10 meters or so, would a booster also be required?

sandipb
Ist häufiger hier

#11 erstellt: 14. Nov 2007, 11:23

Phew. So I completed the cable setup today. I needed about 8-10 meters of wire on top of the one attached to the patch antenna. I saw with relief that I am still getting three bars on the antenna strength.

Since my knowledge of radio signals is poor, here is a question. How much is a digital signal affected by strength or distortion? Isn't supposed to provide more resilience to such problems in analog signals?

Amp_Nut
Inventar

#12 erstellt: 14. Nov 2007, 12:27

Since my knowledge of radio signals is poor, here is a question. How much is a digital signal affected by strength or distortion? Isn't supposed to provide more resilience to such problems in analog signals?

Analog Signals gradually fade off, with a continious - gradual - deterioration, as the signal strength falls.

For digital signals, as the signal falls, the BER ( Bit Error rate ) increases. The system will tolerate a certain BER, after which it crashes.

The extent of tghe crash varies, from momentary to complete.

In a momentary crash, you will have no audio briefly ( for digital audio), or pixelisation or picture freezing for digital video.

Complete crash : No Audio or no video. May even require a system reboot.

A Digital Cable TV Set Top Box can take upto 30 seconds to reboot....