Analog Sphaghetti

With the bedroom remodeling almost complete, it was time to wire up the A/V gear since I sleep with the TV ON. I always thought people who had to have absolute silence to study, read, work, or sleep were unrealistic. I’ve spent my life swimming in noise: music, television, barking dogs, to remain adaptable and tolerant of almost any environment.

I’m setting up a media cabinet in my closet to pull all the clutter out of the main bedroom area. I spent the weekend wiring. I had my contractor punch some holes in the walls and run some cabling into the attic. I had most of the hardware, but had to go grab the wiring jacks and adpaters plus two of my new favorite tools, a “toner” and a cable fish. With six pairs of speaker wire, 4 coax cable feeds, two pair of RCA jacks to distribute audio to the living room system, two satellite feeds, and two s-video ports to run, the “toner” saved hours of figuring out which wire was which. I only had three coax that needed run now, two on the west wall (one feeding the living room) and one on the east wall (in case I ever decide to flip the room around), but the ran to the attic and had to be patched to the media closet meaning six cables altogether, three in the attic that connect to three going to the closet. By trial and error, trying to connect the right pairs, going to the bedroom hooking up a TV to test, going to the closet to complete the circuit, then walking back to see if the TV works, then going to the attic to change to another wire, would take forever, plus it is ball sweating hot in the attic.

Enter the “toner”. First I hooked all the coax in the attic to their partners that drop into the closet. Hook the toner to one end of the coax in the bedroom. Walk into the closet and fire up the “inductive amplifier”, waving it next to the coax cables. When the amplifier makes the loudest sound, you’ve identified your cable. Put it in the patch panel and label it. Woo hoo! I then hooked up the device to confirm the signal was good. Then I just had to repeat the process about twenty more times.

The contractor hadn’t run enough coax and skipped the s-video. How the hell do you feed a cable through the plywood attic floor, down a two foot gap to reach the header of the wall, through the insullation, down the wall cavity to the hole cut into the closet? One word, “Cable Fish”. (It might be called something else in the biz.) This slim little badass in four sections of 3/8″ round, two feet long fiberglas rods that thread together lenghtwise and ends in a changeable tip, I used the bullet. I took some coax into the attic with the fish. I taped the coax to the fish and with flashlight in mouth, threaded the fish through the floor, near the gas line, between the gaps in the floor joist and the wall header, through the insulation and down into the wall. Boo yah! I then cruised downstairs to the closet, detached the coax and pulled extra down, then attached another coax and reversed the technique for maximum economy of motion and an additional coax into the attic.

So far I have the bedroom stereo, ReplayTV, two DTV receivers, the four channel video distribution unit, the CATV amplifier, and three TVs with coax IR distribution, all up and running so you can watch four sources and control them from anywhere in the house. I still have to do the RCA audio feeds, s-video, networking, an XBOX, coax to three more rooms, and more IR distribution.

Although I enjoy a good sauna or even taking religious substances and banging drums, naked, in a sweat lodge, working in the hot ass attic has wiped me out. Plus, the itiching from the pink fiberglas insulation reminds me of crabs in college, except shaving won’t help in this case. I’m so lucky I get to do this for fun and not as a way to make a living.