Just moved into a ~20 year old house with AT&T Fiber internet. Fiber enters the home in the living room and I’m seeking a solution to get wired internet into an office on the other side of the house.
The house is not wired for ethernet, but is wired for coax which is not in use. I purchased a 2 piece MoCA kit in an attempt to use the coax lines to run internet into the office.
There are 7 coax jacks inside the house and 7 coax cables coming out of a hole on the outside of the house, and none are labeled. To identify them, one by one I connected a MoCA adapter to a jack inside the house and then went outside and tried the other MoCA adapter on every cable until the light indicated a connection.
Only 2 of the coax jacks inside linked up with a cable outside. The other 5 showed no signal after trying every possible combination. The only conclusion I can come to is that 5 of the lines are damaged. Worth noting that the cables on the outside of the house have been exposed to the elements in a tropical climate for who knows how long.
Is there anything I could try to get those 5 lines working or are they toast?
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Good RG6 Coax cable with compression ends are really resilient to weather. Even crimp ends are pretty resilient. Unless the ends look really corroded they might be fine. There may be Non-MoCA compatible splitters within the home. How many coax connections are there throughout the house? It might be worth it to buy a cheap cable toner/tester although they dont always work too great with Coax it may help find your cables and if they run to the outside location. Below is one that will work with the Red and Black clips included. You just strip a piece of coax with a connector on one end and attached one to the center copper and the other to the shield. It will still tone through splitters though but at least you will have a better understanding of if the wires you tested before are connected somehow to the outside.
Only 2 of the coax jacks inside linked up with a cable outside. The other 5 showed no signal after trying every possible combination.
One thing to check is that the in-room coax outlets are actually connected to a coax cable behind the wallplate. (It happens.)
Then, you could try re-terminating the coax lines, starting with the outside connectors. (example coax compression kit)
I considered this during testing and removed the wall plates to connect the MoCA adapter directly to the cable behind the plate.
Re-terminating the lines outside is something I’ll consider, but I’m concerned I won’t have enough room to work with as they only extend out of the wall about 4 inches each.
they only extend out of the wall about 4 inches each.
Oh, are you referring to the ends at the wall outlets? My earlier comment meant to suggest that you first try ONLY re-terminating the unidentified cables at the outside junction location, making the assumption that those ends are the stumbling block. (And if reterminating the outside ends resolves the issue, I’d also consider reterminating the 2 identified lines, thinking that they may have deteriorated performance, even if not as crippling as the other 5 lines.)
Then, you could try re-terminating the coax lines, starting with the outside connectors.
The lines on the outside of the house only extend about 4 inches past the wall. Would a photo of the ends help to determine the level of corrosion?