Any tricks for tracing existing cables?....see photos.

[edweather]

Have a nice spot to mount a rooftop antenna. Our new (to us) house was built in 2003, and looks to be prewired for cable, because it has a coax connector in every room. The problem is that there are at least 7 cables entering the house, 3 from an old satellite dish, and at least 4 from an old cable set-up. Is there any way I can find which one is the "magic" wire? Any trick or tool I can use to trace these wires? The attic is a spaghetti nest of wires.My best case scenario would be to feed all the rooms from the antenna to this one wire.

 

[Fringe Reception]

Ed,

Using test leads with alligator clips, connect a 9 volt pocket radio battery to the 'source' coaxial cable. Then use a multi-meter (VOM) to find where the voltage is and is not. If there are any spitters in the system, the DC current most likely will not pass through them, so you will have to disconnect the cables from the splitter/s to verify each coax run. If there are any satellite components remaining in the system they must be eliminated or bypassed.

Draw a wiring diagram and mark each coax with something to ID them. Colored plastic bread-bag locks work quite well as does masking tape. Good luck!

Jim

 

[edweather]

I had great success. Got almost everything figured out. All but one wire entering the house went nowhere. Found a wire in the attic that went to the bedroom and living room. Still working on a couple of othere. Just installed an antenna in the attic. See post and pics on other forum. Thanks for all the help. Ed