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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?

14 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Unsightly? by WillyWanker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless they are unsightly why bother? Just leave them be. You never know when they might be of use again at some point in the future.

    1. Re:Unsightly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You never know how long you'll be in a property; the next owner might not be a tech head and cable in every room might be a selling point. Unless you can get more selling it than it might be worth when you come to sell the property, leave it in the walls. If you want to get rid of the sockets, fine, but pulling cable out without having a way to easily replace it is a recipe for future sadness.

    2. Re:Unsightly? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Another reason is you might want to run other wiring (or even fiber-optic cable) through the walls at some point. You can just attach it to the coax at one end and pull it through. This way you get rid of the cable and get your fiber installed with the least amount of fuss.

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    3. Re:Unsightly? by Oligonicella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, "pulling it out" indicates he's never attempted that before. That stuff doesn't exactly snake through the angles it's been run.

  2. Don't pull? by DeBaas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about, don't pull it out or tie some other wire that can be used to pull something new through to it and leave that in the walls (like one electrical wire, in Europe electricians often use black for that). That way if in 10 years from now you want to replace it with whatever is cool then you simply can pull that through.

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  3. Why?? by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know why you'd bother removing the cable. If you don't want the jacks remove them and cover the holes. Make the spot in someway where the cable is though so you can find it again.

    Stripping the cable out of the wall for no reason would be a bad idea imho. You never know it could be useful again for something. If nothing else should you ever decide to move the next person might not be a cord cutter and might be really glad to have those cable runs.

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    1. Re:Why?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      NEVER remove infrastructure that is benign. The need to remove systems in walls is a fools errand. Use your time on something constructive instead of destructive. Dead unused wiring of any type is as dangerous as a rolled up extension cord hanging on a nail. If it's in the way then cut but leave enough to make a splice or install a connector in the future. Old systems can be re-purposed for many things without major snaking and wall destruction to install new wiring. I'm an electrician so I know this.

    2. Re:Why?? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > NEVER remove infrastructure that is benign. The need to remove systems in walls is a fools errand.

      In general, this is a good guideline. There are times when you need to clear the old cable due to fire hazards from older wires with flammable coatings that obstruct putting in a proper fireseal between areas of a structure, or when there is a risk of a less careful technician re-activating the old cable unsafely or insecurely. I've done some work in student housing where a vital rule for safety was "do not leave extra wire _anywhere_ that someone might connect to without using a grounded outlet".

      The cleanup of obsolete cable is also a good opportunity to label cables and circuit breakers as you identify cables and to apply insulation in wire channels or conduits that can improve climate control. Many old junction boxes are poorly mounted and poorly insulated.

  4. Off air antenna. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most folks that we help with cutting the cord (we are a regional WISP) end up setting up a local off-air antenna to catch news and local programming.

  5. Wired Networking by c · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't care about really high speeds, coax-to-ethernet bridges (designed for retrofitting surveillance cameras to IP devices) aren't expensive. If you don't have ethernet to those rooms then it's less hassle than running new wire and less prone to interference than powerline networking.

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  6. Re: Throw them in the trash... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the kind of comment that is making slashdot and other forums toxic. If you don't have an answer, just leave it be.

    Showing off how "knowledgeable" you are by crapping on others without answering the question only fools newbies.

    There are legitimate answers to this question, and maybe even some neat hacks. Sadly, they'll all show up below your waste of everyone's time.

  7. Terrestrial ATSC or DVB Television by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Use it for that. Put a Put a ATSC Tuner card in a PCI Slot of your Domain Controller. Use the rest of the cable to run the rest to televisions, and attach the exterior input to a Terrestrial Antenna.

  8. Use is for house-wide digital audio by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With these cheap adapters you can run 5.1 digital audio over the cables. Just plug in one end to the coax out on your sound card, and the other to the input on an amplifier anywhere in the house.

  9. Re:first by danomac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure, but for most people a properly wired home is telephone and coax run to most rooms. Almost all non-techie people use wireless. We're a unique crowd here.