Splitter attenuator?
DeeDubya1
Newbie

Okay, since I got some good feedback on my 'HD over coax' question, thought I'd throw out another:

I'm one of those people who have pixelation when using VoD.  I'm also one of those people who have sat on the phone for hours with VZ tech support and have gotten nowhere (after resetting the STB *again* as if that would magically fix the problem).  But I digress...

One of the things I decided to do on my own is to replace the splitter that existed in my house cabling.  Basically, I've got a cable coming out of my OTB into a splitter and the 4 outputs go to various rooms of the house.  Last night I stopped at Radio Shack and got their gold-plated, 1GHz, bi-directional 4 way splitter and head outside to replace the old one.

As I'm removing the old splitter, I noticed something I hadn't before; the cable coming out of the OTB doesn't go directly into the splitter input, rather there's a little barrel shaped device between them.  It's marked 8dB and I assume it's an attenuator.

My questions are a) why is it there? 2) could it be causing my VoD pixelation problem? and d) will I blow up my STBs if I remove it?

I'm guessing the VZ guys didn't put it in when they hooked up my FiOS...the house had DirecTV when I moved in and they used the same wiring...I'm guessing it was part of the satellite TV installation.

As always, thanks!

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Re: Splitter attenuator?
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

Not sure why it's there ... it definitely could be the cause of just about any signal quality related issue ... I've not heard of Verizon purposely using an attenuator out of the ONT.   It certainly wouldn't hurt to pull it out to test the behavior of the STB's and rest of your network without it.

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Re: Splitter attenuator?
DeeDubya1
Newbie

D'oh!  ONT is what I meant...I'll pull it and see what happens.

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Re: Splitter attenuator?
prisaz
Legend

@DeeDubya wrote:

Okay, since I got some good feedback on my 'HD over coax' question, thought I'd throw out another:

I'm one of those people who have pixelation when using VoD.  I'm also one of those people who have sat on the phone for hours with VZ tech support and have gotten nowhere (after resetting the STB *again* as if that would magically fix the problem).  But I digress...

One of the things I decided to do on my own is to replace the splitter that existed in my house cabling.  Basically, I've got a cable coming out of my OTB into a splitter and the 4 outputs go to various rooms of the house.  Last night I stopped at Radio Shack and got their gold-plated, 1GHz, bi-directional 4 way splitter and head outside to replace the old one.

As I'm removing the old splitter, I noticed something I hadn't before; the cable coming out of the OTB doesn't go directly into the splitter input, rather there's a little barrel shaped device between them.  It's marked 8dB and I assume it's an attenuator.

My questions are a) why is it there? 2) could it be causing my VoD pixelation problem? and d) will I blow up my STBs if I remove it?

I'm guessing the VZ guys didn't put it in when they hooked up my FiOS...the house had DirecTV when I moved in and they used the same wiring...I'm guessing it was part of the satellite TV installation.

As always, thanks!


Are you in a single family home, or ist your ONT a multi dwelling unit? Meaning shared with others. It could be a lowpass filter to keep your MoCA from being on your neighbors network. I have also seen them installed when the internet is through Ethernet CAT 5 and not COAX.

I have had DTV for years and never have seen or heard of an attenuator being installed. Usually with most dishes, you want the signal to be as close to 100% as possible. I had installed inline signal amplifiers in the coax before, and it could be that they installed an 8db inline amp on yours. I have two here sitting on my desk, one is 13 db and the other is 13-18db. But yours does sound like an attenuator if it is perfectly round. Have you ever had a TiVO? I know the signal used to be to hot for them and it would cause issues like you are seeing. From the ONT the signal is fairly strong so a tech could have installed it.

In either situation removing the device would not hurt if the ONT is only for your house. Anything between the ONT and router with splitters could cause issues.

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