Combining cable and antenna into one line

SaurusX

Senior member
Nov 13, 2012
993
0
41
I got a new LG HDTV the other day to replace a CRT in the bedroom that we'd been holding on to. The wife and I have been using antenna for our TV watching (with the assistance of an HTPC DVR) for the past 5 years or so. Haven't paid for cable for the same time. The antenna is in the attic and has coax running behind the walls to three different rooms of the house.

This new TV, however, does not tune the local NBC station without glitching even though the signal is at full strength. No other TV in the house has this problem and I tried troubleshooting this every way I know with only one solution being found. I combined the cable from Time Warner and the antenna line using a coax splitter turned around and then plugged that into the TV.

The clear QAM local channels from the cable company and the antenna channels don't seem to interfere with each other much at all. I choose the NBC channel from the cable feed and all others from the antenna feed. The LG HDTV actually allows me to pick and choose which channels I want from both sources and combines them into one channel selecting lineup; i.e. no switching from Air to Cable.

Long setup for this question: Is this going to cause a problem? Is the cable signal going to leak out of my antenna in the attic and cause interference with anything else out there? I don't want the FCC breaking down my door and shooting my dog.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
100,234
17,895
126
I got a new LG HDTV the other day to replace a CRT in the bedroom that we'd been holding on to. The wife and I have been using antenna for our TV watching (with the assistance of an HTPC DVR) for the past 5 years or so. Haven't paid for cable for the same time. The antenna is in the attic and has coax running behind the walls to three different rooms of the house.

This new TV, however, does not tune the local NBC station without glitching even though the signal is at full strength. No other TV in the house has this problem and I tried troubleshooting this every way I know with only one solution being found. I combined the cable from Time Warner and the antenna line using a coax splitter turned around and then plugged that into the TV.

The clear QAM local channels from the cable company and the antenna channels don't seem to interfere with each other much at all. I choose the NBC channel from the cable feed and all others from the antenna feed. The LG HDTV actually allows me to pick and choose which channels I want from both sources and combines them into one channel selecting lineup; i.e. no switching from Air to Cable.

Long setup for this question: Is this going to cause a problem? Is the cable signal going to leak out of my antenna in the attic and cause interference with anything else out there? I don't want the FCC breaking down my door and shooting my dog.

your antenna is not an emitter.
 

NutBucket

Lifer
Aug 30, 2000
27,151
635
126
Any antenna is capable of transmitting. But unless you're dumping out a lot of power nobody will notice. Plus I highly doubt the frequency of cable signals is anywhere in the usable band of the antenna anyway. In other words, you'll be fine.