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Ask Slashdot: What Can You Do With Old Coaxial Cable?

Posted by EditorDavid on from the home-improvement dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader Theaetetus writes: I recently bought a house and the previous owner left some coax (mostly RG59) running between rooms for cable distribution. I'm a cord cutter and don't need cable, and I've already run CAT6e everywhere. But before I pull the RG59 out and try to seal the various holes he left, I figured I'd pick Slashdot's brain: can anyone think of a good non-cable use for spare coax lines?
Leave your best answers in the comments. What can you do with old coaxial cable?

3 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Antenna wire by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Informative

    A dipole is actually 75 ohm, so RG59 works fine as a feed line.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Re:Unsightly? by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you don't like how they look, unscrew the wall plate, shove the cable into the wall, and replace the wall plate with a blank one. That's a helluva lot cheaper and less labor-intensive than pulling the cable out.

  3. Re:first by danomac · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd just terminate them properly with wall plates where need be and leave them. Surely you aren't going to live in this house your whole life? As another mentioned, you can set up an OTA TV antenna and use them to run it to your TV.

    I wouldn't remove anything, if you sell your house you can take a hit on the sale price for not having it wired properly.