Found out RG6 quad shield has way more signal loss than I thought

I was reading through some old commscope spec sheets last week and saw that quad shield actually loses about 30% more signal per 100 feet compared to standard RG6. Been using it for years on long runs thinking it was better, but now I'm wondering if that's why some of my distant customers have pixelation issues. Anybody else check the specs and change what they run?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_mia20h ago

Read a similar breakdown from Belden a few months back that showed the same thing. It makes sense when you think about all that extra copper braid just eating up the signal before it gets to the connector. I switched to standard RG6 for anything under 150 feet and my pixelation calls dropped quite a bit.

the_nathan15h ago

You ever notice how nobody talks about the FREQUENCY you're running through the cable either? I read an article from someone who used to work at a cable plant that said quad shield is actually designed more for RFI rejection than signal preservation, and that at higher frequencies the loss gets even worse than what the spec sheets show. So if you're running satellite or high band digital stuff, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot with quad shield on long runs. I switched to regular RG6 for everything under 200 feet and started terminating with better compression fittings, and my callbacks for pixelation dropped like a rock.