Cable modem and TV on one outlet

kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
edited April 2005 in Science & Tech
I'm moving stuff around and will have to use the outlet my living room TV is on for both the TV and my cable modem. Will a regular $3 cheap splitter from Radio Shack work for this?

Comments

  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited April 2005
    kanezfan wrote:
    I'm moving stuff around and will have to use the outlet my living room TV is on for both the TV and my cable modem. Will a regular $3 cheap splitter from Radio Shack work for this?
    yeah, you might also want one of those devices that boosts signal integrity, cause the more you split those cables the more noise you introduce into the signal
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    Don't know what they're called or where to get them. Radio Shack? How much?
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    After only one split, you should be fine. If you get a splitter with more than 2 outputs, look for the output plug that is labeled with a higher dB. If I remember correctly, that's the one with the strongest signal, and the one you'll want to use for the cable modem (they should have the same output strength if it's a 2-way splitter).

    Whatever you do, don't put a booster behind the cable modem if you get one (it'll fry it). If you get one, put it between the splitter's output and the TV.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    Cool, I'll try it with just the splitter at first and go from there.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    Just in case someone was wondering, this worked out fine.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited April 2005
    I had problems with a traditional splitter, I had to use a 'bidirectional splitter'. Not sure what the technical difference is between the two, but it did the trick. I had somewhat shotty internet access (message light on modem would blink occasionally) when using the regular splitter.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    I think some splitters only send signals one way, from the outlet to two TVs for example, but a cable modem needs to send data as well as receive. I got a splitter/combiner, it cost $6 or something. There was a 4 way splitter that specifically mentioned cable modems, but I figured I'd try this one first.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited April 2005
    That's interesting to know.

    I split my signal to cable modem and the TV card...wondered why the cable modem would go offline. That explains it.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    Same thing happens to me on occasion. I just blamed it on Comcast, though :). Maybe I need to try a different splitter.

    Strange, with all the calls that cable companies get with people complaining about no internet service, you'd think that'd be something they'd reccomend.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited April 2005
    I bought a $10 splitter from Radio-Shack. The $3 cheap thing doesn't have a wide enough bandwidth for digital cable, so get the $10 gold coated terminal one. It has a bandwidth of 5MHz to 1.1GHz, instead of 80-900MHz that the $3 one has, but the $3 one is still good for internet sevice and regular cable.
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