Virgin Media Cable - What does it look like?

knowlton · 25 May 2011 at 15:40

Here's the background to the story:

Ordered Virgin media services, engineer came around - found that one cable, goes into my flat - but we can't find where it comes out. Had to re-arrange the appointment whilst I contacted the builder who installed the trunking.

The builder said that it was in the wall - and by chance there is a wall socket with two TV sockets. One of the TV sockets work with terrestrial only and the other works with digital only (but only to a certain amount - i.e. I can only get 16 channels excluding BBC1, BBC2 and ITV).

I suspect that I have a dodgy aerial and that the one which works as the terrestrial aerial is the one cable for Virgin.

However the two cables look the same - do TV cables and digital cables look the same? Or does anyone have a link / photo to what they should look like?

Have the engineer coming this Saturday and I don't want to be making a re-appointment!!

GaryH-21 · 25 May 2011 at 15:49

Aerial sockets usually look like this: (push fit)

And satellite and cable connections usually look like this: (screw fit)

Not always though. If it's actually the physical cables with the same connections on both, then it will be hard to tell unfortunately

knowlton · 25 May 2011 at 16:04

GaryH-21 said:
Aerial sockets usually look like this: (push fit)

And satellite and cable connections usually look like this: (screw fit)

Not always though. If it's actually the physical cables with the same connections on both, then it will be hard to tell unfortunately

Ah I think I've worded it uber-badly.

I understand the socket bit - there are two ariel sockets and I can only conclude that the builder wired up the coax cable into one of these sockets so it wouldn't fly around everywhere.

What I'm trying to say is do TV cables and digital cables look the same?

They look a bit like this: http://networkcable-tester.com/2011/04/18/coaxial-cable-4/

GaryH-21 · 25 May 2011 at 16:38

Yeah, they are both the same kind of cable. The cable cable (lol) might be slightly thicker, but that would just be a complete guess!

23JMZ07 · 25 May 2011 at 16:49

Cable will be the same.

Uhtred · 25 May 2011 at 16:55

yes it's the same. Although it's 'fibre network' it's actually coax cable for the last part into your house

mrk · 25 May 2011 at 17:21

Do also note that if it's going to be used for Cable Broadband as well then it should be Solid Core coax cable, not the coax cable you usually get with Satellite TV installations and so on. I had the former and that was causing me problems with power levels so it was swapped with solid core as advised by the engineer and it's been fine since.

knowlton · 26 May 2011 at 16:04

Khaaan! said:
Do also note that if it's going to be used for Cable Broadband as well then it should be Solid Core coax cable, not the coax cable you usually get with Satellite TV installations and so on. I had the former and that was causing me problems with power levels so it was swapped with solid core as advised by the engineer and it's been fine since.

Ah, that's interesting to know... Yes, it's for TV and Broadband, although I'm pretty sure it is solid core...

If not, I'm going to be gutted this Saturday - I've been without fixed line broadband for the past two months now

mrk · 26 May 2011 at 16:10

Without broadband for a day is bad enough!

knowlton · 1 Jun 2011 at 10:31

Just for information, the coax cable from which we have been watching TV from in the last 2 months, was actually the cable trunking!

Finally got Virgin Media installed and to say the least, I'm relieved after 2 months without the internet!! No more three broadband too (the worst in the world!) =D