I ran over the DishNetwork cable w/ lawn mower. Can I splice it together? How Please be very detailed!! thanx

Question

This would be the outside line, coming from the dish into the house. We have a dish 500 with two receivers. I cut one cable; the other box on the uncut cable still works. I have read about f-connectors, but don't know what they are, etc. Please advise of cheapest/easiest way to do it; we will probably be cancelling the subscription when our two years ends in a few months anyway. Explain it on a third grade level; I am intelligent and fairly mechaincally inclined but know nothing about tv/cables/satelite/etc. Thanks so much!

Answer 1

you can splice the cable but you will likely lose some of the signal strength.  The best solution would be to solder the connection instead of using F type connectors.  Because the cable is outside you will also want to seal it from moisture that can corrode the cable over time and degrade the signal quality further before the cable breaks again.

You can seal the soldered connection with silicon caulk and some sort of insulating tape, like black vinyl electrical tape.

if the gap created when the lawn mower blade cut through the cable is to great to solder the two cut ends back together again you can cut a small piece of standard coax cable (RG59 or RG6) and use the center conductor to splice the two cut ends.  The center conductor is what carries the satalite signal to the receiver box, the outside mesh or film conductor is only a shield and while important will not harm anything if it is not re- connected.  although you would probably want to reconnect them also if you can.

Answer 2

Go to Radio Shack. Tell them what you did. They will sell you the RG6 coax cable ends, the coax cable end crimper tool & the adapter that will go in between the coax cable ends to make the connection complete. You do not & will not need to silicon or solder ANYTHING!