Router coax connection

[joe20895]

I need to relocate my router, due to a room repurposing.  It's connected to a coax port in the wall, and also to an ethernet port.  Reconnecting the ethernet to the new location is easy.  The coax is less obvious.  There's a rats nest of coax cables in the attic, and some of them appear to be not connected to the "live" coax network.  I bought a coax signal tester, and the coax ports at the router and at the STB are indicated to have a signal.  Other coax ports around the house show a variety of signal failure or functionality, so I can only assume some are not connected to the network.  Unfortunately the port at the new router location shows as dead.

I do have access to the cable in the attic that goes to the current router location (although I don't know where the other end goes/comes from, as it goes under some paneling and it's impossible to find where it exits).  Is my solution as simple as tapping off that cable and adding a cable to the new router location?  Any special connector required, or will a simple splitter do, connecting the ends of the cables that go to the old and new wall ports to the "out" terminals, and the end of the cable coming from the paneling to the "in" terminal?

[jav6 · Accepted solution]

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@joe20895 wrote:

I need to relocate my router, due to a room repurposing.  It's connected to a coax port in the wall, and also to an ethernet port.  Reconnecting the ethernet to the new location is easy.  The coax is less obvious.  There's a rats nest of coax cables in the attic, and some of them appear to be not connected to the "live" coax network.  I bought a coax signal tester, and the coax ports at the router and at the STB are indicated to have a signal.  Other coax ports around the house show a variety of signal failure or functionality, so I can only assume some are not connected to the network.  Unfortunately the port at the new router location shows as dead.

I do have access to the cable in the attic that goes to the current router location (although I don't know where the other end goes/comes from, as it goes under some paneling and it's impossible to find where it exits).  Is my solution as simple as tapping off that cable and adding a cable to the new router location?  Any special connector required, or will a simple splitter do, connecting the ends of the cables that go to the old and new wall ports to the "out" terminals, and the end of the cable coming from the paneling to the "in" terminal?

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Are you able to identify where the cable entrance to your house is (might be in the basement)?  That should be where the signal originates to all the in-house cabling.  There may be a splitter there that connects cables to outlets in various locations and some may be disconnected there.  It sounds like somehow the cabling ends up in your attic where cables are distributed to different rooms.  You could tap off of the 'live' cable with a splitter providing the signal to the cable you need the signal on, but you'd have to have the tools to cut and crimp the connectors properly.  A tone generator might help to trace the cable you need the signal on to its origination.

I had an old house in Illinois where I had the cable entry in the basement and ran cabling up to the attic to splitters.  Then down thru the other walls to various room outlets where I might want cable access.  They weren't all active, but the cabling was there.  I'm sure the subsequent owners of the house scratched their heads wondering what the heck I did, just like you. You're not in Illinois, are you?

[joe20895]

LOL, no, not in Illinois—Maryland.

Thanks, I appreciate the assistance.  Based on your suggestion, I did take a look in the basement and found the cable going out of the VZ box and into a splitter.  It's a 6-way splitter and there was one "out" port open, but there are two coax cables loose.  So I'm gonna do a bit of testing and see if connecting one of those will "liven" up the port at the future router location—and even knowing if those cables liven up any other dead ports is useful info.

ETA: Well, hooking up the first cable did nothing.  I tracked it afterward and discovered it comes from outside, so maybe it's a vestige of a previous Comcast install.  Hooking up the second cable did liven up one coax port, but unfortunately that one's in the basement.

There must still be some connection that's been unscrewed in the attic, I guess.

[joe20895]

To further add, I found the offending connection!  There was a cable that was joined to another cable with an inline connector.  Pulling those apart revealed that one of them had a signal.  So I plugged that one into the "input" port in the splitter in the attic, and the other end into one of the "output" ports.  Using the remaining free port in the splitter, I plugged in each of the loose cables in turn, and was able to determine two of three, one of them being the port in the room in question.

Now, I just need to decide if I want to bother moving the port to the other side of the room to be more convenient.

Note: this still doesn't really answer the original question.