For four people, we have a ton of TVs and modems. If you want to know
why, you don't need to wonder, I'm married and my wife is handicapped
(walks with a crutch). In this house are 3 modems (2 for internet and
one for phone), 3 digital cable boxes and 4 analog TVs.
Of course this is all done with splitters. Recently we just replaced
all the internal cabling with RG6, which if I read it correctly, helps a
little but not much. Oh, yeah, the problem--We get internet access
dropouts. When hot and humid, we get a lot of dropouts, otherwise we
can go for weeks without a dropout. We were told that our 'transmit'
was in the red, so I had one of their service technicians here to look
at the line and after some stuff that he seemed to know and some that
sounded like incomplete regurgitation, he announced that we had too many
splitters. Anyways, He did reterminate the outside cables and checked
that the input level was correct.
Although I'm an EE, RF is not my field, so I did a little reading up.
It seems that when it comes to transmit signal levels, there is a
hand-shaking between the modem and the receiver where the modem is told
how high to crank its output so that the receiver gets the proper level.
At a certain point, the modem tops out, usually due to too many
splitters. At this point, there is apparently little headroom for
signal level increase due to temperature and too high a signal level
causes dropouts. Why the hand-shaking does not compensate for that, I
have no idea.
So, anyways, apparently with too many splitters, you end up with too
much return loss, causing the modem to boost signal to the max. Add
elevated temperature to that and you get dropouts. The technician
mentioned zero or low return loss amplifiers, but confessed that Cox
does not have them. I've seen them for one in and two out, but I'd
probably really need a one in and three out.
Of course, the first step would be to use the phone modem for one of the
internet modems as it does have an internet tap, however, I don't know
if the dual purpose would cause some problem if the phone and internet
were used at the same time.
Okay, does any of this make sense? What have I got wrong? Also, would
a low return loss amp be the best bet?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated!
Thanks....Steve
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