Using a 3-way splitter to hook up cable?

Question

I just moved into a house with roommates, and she said that she has cable, and it's connected to all the bedroom in the house, but not hooked up. There is a three way splitter in my room, but i'm totally clueless on hooking it up....is this something the cable company has to do, or can a regular gal like me figure it out?

I have a big cable sticking outta my wall, i just don't wanna mess with anything...any info would help!!!!

Answer 1

If the cable is turned off - then the cable company will have to be contacted to come out and turn it on (installation)

If the cable is turned on - then the cable wire sticking out of the wall should carry the cable signal.

Now, do you just have a TV and no other devices like a VCR and DVD player.

If you only have a TV, s***w the cable wire into the back of your TV set.

If you have a VCR you need to put the wire into the IN slot on the VCR and the OUT slot connects the VCR to the TV.

Answer 2

Cable 101

By law once the cable TV enters your home you can do with it as you want as long as it does NOT cause interference with other peoples cable and you can hook it up any way you like to as many sets as you want. About the only way to cause interference is to buy a TV transmitter and hook it up backwards so its signal goes back onto the cable line, and not to the TV sets. So that should not be a problem.

A three way splitter simply  a device that supplies 3 cable TV connections. They can go to any  TV or TV device.  

When the cable TV line comes into your home it will go somewhere, normally there is a splitter. The input from outside cable line goes into the port (hole) that says input on the splitter.  The rest of the holes are outputs that go to other TV's in the home. (or other devices VCR, TIVO, etc.)

WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO DO is look for where the cable comes into the home and see where it goes from there.

Cable TV needs a wire all the way to each TV. When your roommate said it is not hooked up it could be the the wire coming into the home has cable TV on it but is does not go anywhere.

The wire coming out of your wall is PROBABLY the cable for your room.  So unless you need more that one cable simply plug that wire into your TV set and see if it works.

If you need more than one TV line then put the input of the splitter on the line coming out of your wall and the other three ports will be 3 additional cable connections.  You will need a short cable from the splitter to the TV. NOTE: each time you go through a splitter you loose some signal.. The cable company only supplies so much signal so it goes through too many splitters and the picture will be bad.  A three way splitter should be OK.

It could also be that the wire coming into your room is the cable coming from outside and the 3 way splitter is for the other rooms in the house. If this is the case one is for your room and the other two are for the other bedrooms. Again find out where the cable comes into your home and follow it to your room.

Now if you have a VCR/DVD or Cable Box, or digital converter or TVIO then thing get a little more complicated.

Here are some basic hookup diagrams.

http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerS...

You can always call the cable company and they can come out and sort out what is going on BUT!!! there may be a charge for this.