Wot Satelite Cable
 

Due to a bit of replastering going on I've got the chance for 1 day only to run a TV co-ax and a satelite cable all the way from my loft to the ideal place in my living room - naturally, got to do it before the replastering.

I haven't got a satelite receiver, or even a dish, but I thought I could put the wiring in ready for me or whoever buys my house next year.

As a complete satelite numpty what spec of cable and fittings do I need. Is there any distance limit from the dish to the receiver?

Get your self here

http://www.maplin.co.uk/?C=GKW&U=TA&T=brand2

You could leave the terminations of the ends of the cables, just run them in the wall and leave a coil at each end.

The builders who did my house took all the TV extensions in to the loft and left the ends plain but with about 4 mtr coil spare on each cable.

The best bet would be to use the alloy screened stuff for the satelite installation.Cant remember the number,...sc600,ft100 or summat?Some of the later Sky installations use a twin co-ax,(Sky plus/Multiroom).Run the cable to where you want the dish/tv to be positioned.If you are not going to fit a dish straight away,dont bother with the terminations.Just leave a couple of metres either end and tape the ends up to stop the ingress of water.
The position of the dish is critical,have a look down your street and see where other folks have them fitted.Some properties cannot recieve Sky as there is a building or summat blocking the signal.Also some Councils are a bit funny about dishes bolted to the side of older houses,....it may have to be a Cable installation.
For the best terrestial reception,take the aerial lead into the loft to a booster.(4,6,8 channel,depending on how many tv's are in the house)
Run a lead from the booster to each tv point.Do not take the lead from one tv point to another.It will work,....kinda,..but with each point added the sgnal will be weaker.Standard co-ax is just fine for this.
Oh yeah,you will need a 13a socket in the loft to power up the booster.

A neat option is to terminate the coax cables at the wall with a faceplate, a bit like a 13amp electrical outlet, but with coax connection instead of 3 pins. That way, when the cables not connected yet you won't have unsightly cable lying around. Every room my house has been wired like this so I can have a TV wherever I want. All the cables run back to an amplifier in the loft, the ariel cable feeds the amplifier. That takes care of terestrial.
For Sky I would run the cable to your outlet as KeefyB suggested (you should be able to terminate this with a faceplate too). Just be aware that the standard Sky installation only uses one coax cable but Sky+ uses two. Your best bet is running the dual coax even if you only want Standard Sky now as it will give you the option to upgrade later.
You may also want to think about whether you want Sky in another room. If you do, and you want to feed that room from your existing Sky box and not the dish (this is the cheaper option) then you will need a run of coax from the box to the other room. You could always feed the amp in the loft from the Sky box via the coax then any room fed by the amp gets Sky (although it will not be in stereo).

Jools,

Also, think about running some audio feeds inthere too. That way you can feed them back to amps and such for the full effect.

Rgds,

Rob