OTA antenna on old CATV lines?

skydancerca

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Apr 6, 2015
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I'm thinking of giving up cableTV. Can I run my OTA antenna outside via the old coax cable set up to get whole house OTA coverage, the way I used to have with cable? thanks
 
Solution
I think this is possible, but make sure your connection to the cable network is disconnected.

OTA TV uses a much narrower frequency band than cable TV does, so all the cabling should be fine.
It will work but depending on the length of wiring in the house, the number of splitters, and how strong/weak the OTA signal is in your area, you may need a pre-amplifier and/or distribution signal amplifier. This site has good info on all this.
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/antennas/basics.html

And yes, make sure the cable network is disconnected (there's usually a spot outside the house where the cable TV wire connects to a wire coming from the ground). Cable's frequency band overlaps with OTA so it will obliterate any OTA signals if it's still connected.