What is a good decibel reading for a cable signal?

Question

My cable has a DB rating of -8, would a signal booster increase the quality of my television and internet signal?

Answer 1

i don't know the quality of the instument you are measuring the dBmv of the cable feed, but the level sounds ok. a normal antenna type amplifier will block your cable internet connection. a special cable amplifier will boost the incoming TV pictures, but will only bypass the internet. my recommendation is if the picture is ok, don't mess with it. if it is not, call the cable provider and they can usually improve both the TV and internet connection if needed.

Answer 2

A perfect reading is ZERO DB 0db.  -8 DB is a bit low but your TV should handle that easily.  I have always tried for a bit higher, say +10 DB to give the system some headroom

Answer 3

Those with internet via cable modem can usually read their signal level by the modems web interface (http://192.168.100.1 for Ambit).

I'm getting -2.7 dBmV now.  I did have a poor line (that's fixed now) where everytime it rained the signal would slowly drop.  At -10 dBmV I would lose sync on the modem (no internet) and could see some noise on the upper cable channels.

SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) is also an important measurement.  Remember, a signal booster is also going to amplify the noise.

Connectors can loose between 1 and 2 dBmV and additional loads from multiple TVs and splitters also are a detriment to your total signal.