Do I need to cap this off?

[Kerberos]

I don't know much about aerial cables, been doing some work in the loft and I found this buried in the insulation (see attachments).

There is a 2 way splitter which looks like it's feeding into a couple of tv points. There are 3 coaxial sockets in the house which all work fine, so I guess this one just isn't used. Wondering if I need to cap it off with anything or is it OK just to leave it up there?

I'm actually boarding the loft with raised loft legs (as the insulation is really high - fairly new house) so this will become fairly inaccessible.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

is the bare end the other end of one of the three connected to the splitter? is yes then just uncrew that cable. the plug might be tight though, if you have one an 11mm spanner will undo it or pliers

 

[Lucid]

I'm actually boarding the loft with raised loft legs (as the insulation is really high - fairly new house) so this will become fairly inaccessible.

Before your do the boarding: - remove all three cables from the splitter. Get hold of a F-type back-to-back (coupler / joiner) connector. Take the one lead that has two ends and add it as an extension to the single cable that was on the input (the one socket side) of the splitter. Tack the end of the newly extended cable up somewhere clear of the loft floor. You will now have a single aerial feed (if that's what it is an not Virgin cable) ready if ever it is required.

 

[Kerberos]

is the bare end the other end of one of the three connected to the splitter? is yes then just uncrew that cable. the plug might be tight though, if you have one an 11mm spanner will undo it or pliers

It's not actually connected to the splitter at all! From what I can see one of the cables connected to the splitter goes down towards the back of the house where the living room is. The other cable goes to a stud wall which is shared between two bedrooms, each bedroom has an aerial socket on their side of the wall which this cable must feed in to (and perhaps is split again?). The bare end one seems to be coming from this stud wall as well. There are no other aerial sockets in the house.

I've tested both aerial sockets in the bedrooms (not at the same time) with a TV and they work fine. I wonder what that cable is then

 

[Kerberos]

I just unscrewed one of the bedroom aerial sockets and it looks like this behind. So one of them seems to be fed into the aerial socket on the other side of the wall.

 

[Kerberos]

And the one on the other side...

 

[Lucid]

That's what you get when electricians have a go at wiring TV aerial gear. They haven't a clue. He's looped it through like they would do with mains sockets. With aerial signals, any issues or a loss of signal at the beginning of the chain affects every other socket lower down the chain.

We aerial fitters don't wire like that. Each aerial socket should have its own feed from the nearest splitter.

The sockets are also very poor. Again it's down to the sparky thinking they can wing-it or the site QS penny-pinching. The exposed circuit board shows us that the sockets are unshielded. This means they're vulnerable to allowing interference in to the system. That's another reason why aerial fitters don't wire daisy-chain fashion unless the gear or system design allows for it.

 

[Kerberos]

That's what you get when electricians have a go at wiring TV aerial gear. They haven't a clue. He's looped it through like they would do with mains sockets. With aerial signals, any issues or a loss of signal at the beginning of the chain affects every other socket lower down the chain.

We aerial fitters don't wire like that. Each aerial socket should have its own feed from the nearest splitter.

The sockets are also very poor. Again it's down to the sparky thinking they can wing-it or the site QS penny-pinching. The exposed circuit board shows us that the sockets are unshielded. This means they're vulnerable to allowing interference in to the system. That's another reason why aerial fitters don't wire daisy-chain fashion unless the gear or system design allows for it.

I'm not suspired! Had a bunch of problems with these sort of things in this house. Classic new-build snags like windows not fitted correctly, loose boiler flue, leaking pipework. Another item to go on the list!

Here is a shot of those two cables going to the bedroom aerial sockets. So one of these is that cable that goes nowhere that I asked if I should cap off and the other comes from the splitter. The one that goes to the living room goes off in a different direction so both of these must feed to those two bedroom aerial sockets.


I could be severely wrong here, but would it be worth prepping the cable that goes nowhere and try connecting it to a three-way splitter? From what it looks like, there are two separate cables for each aerial socket, it's just that one doesn't connect to the splitter. I guess they both work because the one that is connected to the splitter is looped into the other one?

 

[Lucid]

Whether or not you can split depends on the signal strength and quality coming from the aerial and how much signal loss there is cause by the cable runs, joints and splitter(s). It's the sort of thing that needs to be measured with a proper professional meter.

If I was there and trouble-shooting it would be one of the first things I would do. Then I would map out the cable routes and connection points and measure at each split point and socket.

Can you map out what connects to where and then post as an upload?

 

[winston1]

Even the cable screening does not seem to be connected on those aerial sockets.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

I like it in pic 5 that they have drilled a hole through the knockout !!!!

 

[Kerberos]

Whether or not you can split depends on the signal strength and quality coming from the aerial and how much signal loss there is cause by the cable runs, joints and splitter(s). It's the sort of thing that needs to be measured with a proper professional meter.

If I was there and trouble-shooting it would be one of the first things I would do. Then I would map out the cable routes and connection points and measure at each split point and socket.

Can you map out what connects to where and then post as an upload?

Evening, sorry for the delay on this. I've managed to map out the aerial cable through a very crude drawing!

So this is what I think it looks like up there. The only part I'm not 100% sure of is what's going on at the socket on far right to the back of the property as I can't get round to that part of the loft easily. But a coaxial cable is definitely being fed down into the living room as I can see it behind the media plate/socket (labelled as "TV"). There are two other connections on this media plate labelled as "SAT" which have a wire running back up to the loft too. There is a large amount of excess cable hanging in a loop from the soffit outside which I believe the developers left there so that if you wanted Sky for example, you have easy access to the cable.

Hopefully this helps

 

[Lucid]

As far as your TV aerial signal cables go, you could test and confirm your mapping with the following guide:

Regarding the SAT signals, given that you've got some basic unshielded TV outlet plates elsewhere in the house then I'm going to guess that the two SAT connections go to a couple of back-to-back connectors screwed through the plate. If that's wrong though then feel free to update us here. In the end though it probably doesn't matter. The cables aren't part of the aerial signal distribution system, and even if you added a satellite dish at some point, these cables would still be separate from the aerial system.

Coming back to the aerial side of things, @winston1 's point about the shielding not being connected is important. In order for the coax shielding to do its job of shunting interference energy to a ground then it has to be connected all the way through the system. If you get chance then you should at least remake the connections and include getting the outer braids under the cable clamp holding the white (dielectric) insulation.

Your question about further splitting is going to take too long to answer here. TBH, I would suggest getting a local aerial guy in to redo the whole system. It is going to mean running some cables on the outside walls to get to the various TV points, and of course replacing the wall panels with properly shielded versions. At the same time you can ask about options to add additional sockets if that's what you need.