Cable/Internet Coax run limits???

[La.Chipmill]

I'm wanting to run cable/internet out to my barn/mancave.  The barn is about 500ft from my house and the house about another 150-200 from the pole where the cable company would connect.  I know that splitters and connections which are used all in the house can degrade the signal, so I'm wondering if I would have any issues just tying onto the coax at the back of the house and running to the barn or if I would be best to have a complete run from the cable pole to the barn and bypass any connections/splitters in the house.

I thought this would be a fairly straight forward google question but it seems all the answers get real technical talking about db loss rates and other jargon that I'm not familiar with.  So hopefully, the Woodnet Braintrust can provide a less technical answer that's easier for me to decipher.

TIA

[vernonator]

Well depends on what you mean by cable/internet. Cat5e has a distance of 100m - thats straight ethernet cable. Typically you limit it to 90m and that allows for 10m in the switch/hub.  RG6 can go 1000FT (coaxial cable) but you will need a switch that supports it on both ends.

[La.Chipmill]

Ok.  I'm talking RG6 type coax cable, not a Cat5 Ethernet cable.  Whether I tie onto the coax at the house and run to the barn or have a new line run from the pole to the barn, I'll have the modem sitting out at the barn.  I'm looking at roughly 700ft from pole to barn.  Only difference would be bypassing connections/splitter within the house if I do the run straight from the pole to the barn.

[vernonator]

Ok.  I'm talking RG6 type coax cable, not a Cat5 Ethernet cable.  Whether I tie onto the coax at the house and run to the barn or have a new line run from the pole to the barn, I'll have the modem sitting out at the barn.  I'm looking at roughly 700ft from pole to barn.  Only difference would be bypassing connections/splitter within the house if I do the run straight from the pole to the barn.

You should be good with 700ft and RG6. I would have them pull a new run from the pole just to eliminate any splices/splitters (which usually SUCK).

[La.Chipmill]

Thanks.  I figured I would be ok especially if I bypassed the house.  I was trying to interpret some of the info that I found as probably being good out to a 1,000ft but there was too much other foreign jargon and technical talk thrown in for me to be sure that's what they were saying.

[JosephP]

You running it underground?

[TDKPE]

Cable signal attenuation depends on cable type, length, and frequency. I don't know what frequency range DOCSYS modems use, but I've seen everything from 50 MHz (very low loss per 100 ft, like 1.5dB) to 1 GHz (6+dB) over RG-6. Every 3dB loss is half the power delivered, though without knowing how strong the signal is at the pole, and how little the modem can work with, and what frequency the modem works at, that in itself doesn't tell you very much.

I'd try it without an amplifier, but I'd use solid copper cored coax, and if an amp is needed, you can power it from the modem end in your out building, but put it as close to the pole as you can. Or bring it into your house, and put the self-powered amp there, then run it out to the outbuilding, in which case copper coated steel core should be fine.

That's assuming you end up needed to boost the signal for that long cable run.

Another option might be RG-11, which is also 75 ohm coax, but lower loss, but not by a lot.