Pre-wiring TV Video, Sound, & Internet

for Homes, Communities, Commercial Offices, and Businesses

 
Pre-wiring is the word used to install audio, video and data wiring in your building during new construction or as ‘old work’ wiring after construction. The wording identifies installing and terminating the cables prior to connecting the user equipment. Getting there is half the fun! If you are able to place system wiring during construction, you save a retrofit expense of 3-5 times the cost later and have no mess to clean up. ASTROvision is knowledgeable in existing construction where point-to-point wiring needs to be esthetically invisible. This wiring is the point-to-point conductors that are required to connect devices to their source. A few examples would be the commercial 'house' antenna and satellite dish to the TVs, the audio sound receiver to the recessed ceiling speakers and ‘whole premise’ sound system or it could be the interface cabling between a number of personal computers in a network. For many, chain electronic stores were the only source of equipment and the local electrician was the only available installer. The concern here is that when pre-wiring, taking short cuts to save a dollar or having unknowledgeable installers using unknown quality or type of wiring is counter productive and costly in the long run. Proper, professionally installed wiring is a must to maintain the integrity of the ‘backbone’ system consisting of a combination of premium quality copper and fiber optic cabling to serve your present and future needs (See ‘Home Automation’) with regards to video, sound and data. Rule-of-thumb has it that it takes three times the time and expense to correct a mistake or poor installation as it does to do it correctly the first time around.

Let’s talk about overall performance. Certainly there are different requirements such as data, video and sound each with it’s own character of cabling dependent on variables such as distance, power requirements and type of service or environment where it will be used. A couple of things that will seriously effect performance are method of wiring, type of terminations, quality of conductors and distance of runs although many of the same requirements are the same in theory for video, sound and data, for the purpose of this section, we will concentrate on the one most associated within everyone’s home – that being RF or Radio Frequency. Cabling for RF normally is used to carry frequencies from 50 MHz to 900 MHz. This would encompass UHF–VHF–FM and CATV bands. Currently, standards require allowances for 2GHz to carry high frequency for Satellite TV and similar transmission such as Turbo Internet via satellite.

Method Of Wiring:
There are basically two types of installation wiring methods relating to RF such as that normally installed for television. One is ‘looped or daisy chain’ which is very rarely used today by professionals except in large commercial installations on a budget. This method has serious limitations and should never be used where more than one dwelling or commercially occupied unit is being serviced. It is comprised of taps and splitters in which a portion of the signal is dropped off to each of a number of outlets from a single feed from the source. If something goes wrong anywhere on the system, everything down line is effected. The other method is the home run method which provides the greatest versatility and dependability. Public cable providers require this method to operate. In such a method, each leg is independent and allows for flexibility to control and service each outlet separately. If an improper character of wiring is used, such as the wrong impedance, a serious mismatch will be created that will all but totally destroy the signal over distance.