I have heard that their is an adapater that you can change the impedeance of cat5 to RG-6. Is this so, and what is the quality like,price,and should this only be used if their is no way to get a new wire there,
and how many pair of the cat-5 do you have to use, I'm assuming only 1 pair.

Thanks in advance.

CB1

Are you trying to send an rf signal or a composite video signal?

There are several devices on the market that allow you to convert a composite signal to pass over cat 5 and then back again. Channel Vision model 3108.

A reasonable question to ask yourself, and one that I frequently ask others, is "What are you trying to achieve?"

try bi-tronics.com and search "video over twisted pair"; also if you have a local ADI or other supply house they usually have an extensive collection of ballands (?sp.)

Please forgive me for being ignorant.....

2 Questions:

1) What happens to wire impedence if you tin a few feet of RG-6 to both ends of a length of one of the cat5 pairs? 75ohm? 100ohm? or something else?

2) I did this for a composite video line from a receiver to a tv and the clarity greatly exceeded my expectations.....looks as good as a solid composite line in my eyes. The question is, what is the impedence of the line (see question one) and can having the wrong impedence on a video feed damage your display and rack components?

speaking from a cable guy who worked in the headend point of view: yes you can damage components in the rack if the impedance is not correct, it may not happen immediately, but eventually it will happen(i.e. what happened to the ch.63 honey ?) 4 MgHz video (composite) usually operates better at lower impendances though. Dont' know why. Also, tinning some rg6 to cat5 will change the imp. but to what i dont know; time to get out the multimeter.:)

Michael,
theory says the signal will be degraded much worse than it really will, especially if the "wrong wire" part of the run is short. If the whole wire is not 75 ohms impedance, then the energy will not all go just from one end to another, some of it will bounce back and forth on the wire, which might show up as a smear in the picture (might not). Again, how long is the run? You can probably get a good picture with twenty feet of lamp cord instead of a video cable if there is no source of interference nearby, but this is not a reliable approach, so we never bother to mention it. And because we don't mention it, people get all sorts of uptight ideas about what can be done...I once heard that you cannot put a camera signal on RG-6! just because the installers were used to using RG-59. It could be as simple and silly as they had no connectors for RG-6, so you could not put a camera signal onto it.

THEman,
you are right, the impedance will change, but it will take a heck of a lot more sophisticated equipment than a multimeter to check it at all.

THEman,

What was the reasoning behind not being able to run a camera on RG-6? I've done it so I know it works. and it works great. I've heard "for cameras use RG-59" but I don't keep RG-59 I keep RG-6 so I just use RG-6 for the camera runs.. I was just wondering if you heard an explanation or not..

peace.. Eric

Where did THEman say you can't run camera on RG-6? I didn't run them on RG-6 cause I got Siamese cable with power and RG-59 together. Plus I have a BNC crimper for RG-59, not RG-6. I could just as easily run it on RG-6 though.

Tell me you're joking. At least now I know that if I use a 100 ohm cable for a 75 ohm application that channel 63 may end up disappearing. Who knows, maybe channel 172 as well.

ItsColdinMN,

THEman stated "I once heard that you cannot put a camera signal on RG-6! just because the installers were used to using RG-59."

and I have also heard that but never heard a good reason for this so I was asking him if he heard a good reason for use 59 instead of 6. thanks.

well, guys, it wasn't THEman, it was me.

First, there is one class of RG-59 that usually does not get used for cameras: the old type made for antenna use. It has an aluminum foil and braid, so it is a bit of a pin to get into a BNC connector, and you can't solder it to an RCA plug.

Use 59 for camera because everybody does and it won't confuse anybody. Use 59 because the connectors are available in lots of different styles, including solder, which you can't with the aluminum braid of RG-6.

Use RG-6 when your camera run goes more than, say a couple thousand feet. Use RG-11 (the 1/2" thick cable company cable) if you need to go a few miles.

Here are the reasons you CAN'T use RG-6 for camera signals:
1.that's what they told me in my two-hour CCTV class.
2.we don't have any.
3.the camera guy said so, so I (the cable guy) cannot possibly steal any of his work, even the part he left undone.
4.my BNCs won't fit on the wire, so the wire must be wrong. My BNCs are made for RG-59.

It is basically a case of simple ignorance, where the fact that RG-59 is usually what is used for cameras turns into the rule that it has to be what is used for cameras.

On the REAL side, the only drawbacks to RG-6 are:
1.used to was, BNC connectors were not available for it
2.buying RG-6 BNC connectors may be an unsound investment; I don't know if the same $60 crimping tool that will crimp an RG-59 BNC will also crimp an RG-6 BNC. If I had to spend money on a crimping tool to put on only two BNCs this YEAR, i might also say "you can't."
3.ditto for RCA connectors, although Calrad here in Los Angeles (www.calrad.com, wholesale only, but available at lots of independent retail supply houses) is developing a series of crimp-ons including f, RCA and BNC for RG-59 and RG-6.
4.For those doing the occasional RCA for camera, soldering still is a great idea. You can't solder RG-6 because it has aluminum braid and/or drain wires. It is also too thick to push into the back of most RCA connectors. RG-59 has copper braid, so you can solder to it.

THEman,
this will make just too much sense when you actually see it written:

a transformer that changes a signal transmission method from balanced to unbalanced, i.e. CAT5 to RG-6, will have two ends:
bal = balanced end
un = unbalanced end

put the two syllables together, you get balun, which you logically spelled balland.

these are usually non-directional, so you can use the same balun to go from unbalanced to balanced, but it is still called a balun. I guess "unbal" might be confused as an abbreviation for unbalanced.