We are finishing our basement and the electrician is running some coax and I was thinking of just piggybacking the run with some cat5.

I'm assuming the shielding on the coax won't cause issues with the twisted pairs but wanted to ask the nerds here. I've always run it in a corporate environment and never had it near coax (and know to keep it away from the electrical lines).

Also, they quoted $55/cable to run each one. Crazy...

It depends. Most likely not a problem.

RF leaks from coax can cause problems though. Example: if you have RF on coax next to CAT5 or better cables being used for KVM or HDMI over Ethernet you may see intermittent signal interruption on the Ethernet.

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If one has RF on coax used for cable TV then the cable company needs to come fix it because something is unbalanced.

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Huh?

Now that makes more sense. And I agree. But theory and reality and unfortunately not always the same. Shielded CAT 5/5e/6 is nifty but is also more expensive, harder to bend, and has to be punched down in most cases because the additional shielding makes the girth too large to put ends on it.

And yes....electrical interference is to be avoided at all costs.

$55 per cable seems really high to me.

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$55 per cable seems really high to me.

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yeah me too, I laughed at that in their face. I already have a spool and face plates so it was more of a convenience thing if it was just a couple bucks more.

Thanks all.

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It depends. Most likely not a problem.

RF leaks from coax can cause problems though. Example: if you have RF on coax next to CAT5 or better cables being used for KVM or HDMI over Ethernet you may see intermittent signal interruption on the Ethernet.

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Have you actually had an RF leak from RG6 that is undamaged? How did you know?

Belden makes highly regarded structured wiring cables that include 2xRG6 and 2xCat5e in the same jacket. It makes it easier to pull.

The purpose of twisted pairs is to cancel EMI. Combine that with at least a double shield RG6 and there will be no problems.

Buy quality cable, install it correctly.

Make sure they run at least cat 5e, if not cat 6.

Verify the cables themselves. Cat5 is basically obsolete.

I dropped quad shield RG6 with multiple cat5e cables in every room of my house without any problems.

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Also, they quoted $55/cable to run each one. Crazy...

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Normally professional services charge ~$100 per run.

I have a 5e spool that I'll be using. The $55 I could see if they were fishing it behind drywall. But this is wide open framing. I ran one last night to the farthest point and it took me 5 minutes. No way that justifies $55/cable.

Does that $55 include terminations? That takes more time and skill. That's where mistakes are made.

But I wouldn't pay $55 per run in open framing.

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I have a 5e spool that I'll be using. The $55 I could see if they were fishing it behind drywall. But this is wide open framing. I ran one last night to the farthest point and it took me 5 minutes. No way that justifies $55/cable.

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That is crazy expensive for an open wall!

If ya'll think $55 is steep you might not want to build a house from ground up. I built a house in Katy and it was $87/drop and now building new house near Tomball in a higher end neighborhood and it is $130/drop.

They do offer "discounts" like if you have 6 drops in one location it would be $500.

And I have never had problems with coax and cat6 cable pulled together. I had them pull 3 cat6 cables and 1 coax to every TV location.

One thing is you don't want to run the coax or cat cable parallel to high voltage wiring for long runs. If possible you want to cross them perpendicular to each other. You want to mount them separated by studs as well, ie not in same stud bay.

This is what my AV closet looks like and what the enclosure looks like. They would not remove this box since it "comes standard" with the house. The Katy house came with it as well but didn't install it because I didn't want it.

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I have a 5e spool that I'll be using. The $55 I could see if they were fishing it behind drywall. But this is wide open framing. I ran one last night to the farthest point and it took me 5 minutes. No way that justifies $55/cable.

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Buy as many spools as drops you're running. Nothing sucks more than running the same drop over and over because you cheaped out on the cable.

There is no issue running cat and coax together. Especially if you use good wire. Keep them away from power.

Also understand most good, professional audio video guys are using considerably better cable than the $55 box at Lowes.


We do pre wires that I think are pretty reasonable.

Just did one as part of a larger audio video job. Pre wire ran about a grand and included 6 drops of Cat/Coax, couple of pull tubes, three zones of audio and 5.1 audio for media room. All ran to a wiring panel in the closet.

Brent C Harriman
SoundWave Audio Video
888-511-SWAV
brent@swaudiovideo.com