Will RG6 improve my RG59 signal on my 5er

when I had about a gazillion feet of cable for my dish at my S&B I bought some of those small in=line amplifiers, at that time about $15?, and they did increase signal strength. in fact they increased it more than all of these "losses" that are being discussed.
bumpy

You will get 5-20% loss per connection - splice a cable to make it longer, and you will loose 10-40% (there are 2 connections) at the joint. The quality of the connections and what they are plugged into is very important. If the connection gets wet, and the contacts oxidize, you will be closer to the 20% (or more) per connection.

"The front swich box to the rear TV in my 38' er... I am sure I will notice when I do the upgrade."


You won't see any difference in 38'. Any improvement will come from the new connectors installed.

Will RG-6 work better than RG-59.

Well, both cables come in a range of qualities and the best RG-59 is about the same as the worst RG-6 but on the more common quality of cable RG-59 has four times the loss per foot of RG-6. so the answer is YES.

However a better question might be "How much differnce will it make"

For the length from antenna to roof, You won't notice it
Likewise in many motor homes the switch to roof, and the switch to main TV you won't notice.

The front swich box to the rear TV in my 38' er... I am sure I will notice when I do the upgrade.

Checking the voltage at the head is a god suggestion. The next step I have done is to make up a cable long enough to go from the antenna to the amp, by running it through the door or window. If signal is better the you have a bad cable or connector. Also check you cable from amp to TV.

My old 5ver reception was really bad. What I found was a poorly installed connector at the amp. someone redid one of the connectors and didn't leave any of the ground shield in the connector.

Cougarnewbie wrote:
My current antenna is a 7 year old Sensar batwing with the add on "wingman" . Not very happy with what we have and the wingman did not seem to help. That is why I am suspect of the cable or connections.

You should go on the roof with a digital voltage meter. Disconnect the coax from the head of the Batwing and check the coax itself for voltage. If you have good strong 12+V power in the coax itself then you do not have cabling or connection issues. Look at the connector itself. Is the center wire clean and shiny copper? If not, does cutting the cable back and putting on a new F connector give you that voltage. If you have good voltage but poor reception I would replace the head. If you have bad voltage then you will also want to check the power supply itself to ensure A) it's on and B) it is putting out the proper 12V power. Just connect a short jumper coax to the power supply port labeled Antenna and verify voltage. If that's good and there's bad power on the roof I would run a new coax from there to the roof and you should have good TV again.

As others have stated you will see no improvement. In fact not all RG-6 is made the same as there is no standard. In general most cable labeled RG-6 has a slightly thicker inner conductor and slightly better shielding. A good quality RG-59 can be better than a low quality RG-6. In actual fact there is no standard. RG was an old term used in military specification and meant Radio Grade. That term went away when the military switched to the Mil-Spec system years ago. Most of what is sold today as RG could not pass the Mil-Spec requirement.

here is a little calculator for you. Because of such short runs I doubt you can tell the difference.

I spent $300. having the RG59 in my stick house updated to RG6 and I didn't see any difference.

Personally I think it is one of those "buy me" labels even though they say on paper it is suppose to work better. I didn't see it.

Cougarnewbie wrote:
My current antenna is a 7 year old Sensar batwing with the add on "wingman" . Not very happy with what we have and the wingman did not seem to help. That is why I am suspect of the cable or connections.

I had to replace the batwing on my fiver last year, it was the original one installed at the Jayco factory. The internal amplifier was toast. Spent $75 at CW for a new head, problems solved.