Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

JOLLY

JOLLY

Super Simonologist
It seems as though I remember our own Cream123 building a guitar about a year or so ago, and he happened to wire it up so he could use coaxial TV cable to use as his guitar cable. It also seems as though I remember him stating it should/would/could be one of the best cables to use as far as audio transference or whatever. Hopefully he will respond to this thread and let us know.

Maybe I'm an idiot and totally misunderstood what he was saying at the time of his build. Anyways, if this happens to be true, and that coax can be used, I think it would be great. Hell, I'm a cable TV contractor. I just threw away about 5000 feet of the stuff today. I burn through it left and right, and I don't do anything with it but throw it away. Hell, I probably have at least 15,000 feet of it in my garage at the moment. Of course, that 15,000 feet will be used for my work, but I constantly throw away at least 5000 feet of the stuff per week. That 5000 feet is just temporary lines run to households. It's stuff that I can't bury. I just wind it up and trow it away.

Any ideas, truths, or whatever about this?

Thanks in advance!!:)
 
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Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

jcthejester13 said:
It might transfer sound well but that **** is rigid as hell!
Click to expand...
I agree it is rigid, especially the "flooded" that is meant to go underground. However, the "in house" isn't that bad. I mean it's not as flexible as a regular guitar cable per se, but It would be great to use while recording if it is as good as I thought I read it is.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

JOLLY said:
I agree it is rigid, especially the "flooded" that is meant to go underground. However, the "in house" isn't that bad. I mean it's not as flexible as a regular guitar cable per se, but It would be great to use while recording if it is as good as I thought I read it is.
Click to expand...

True dat, homeslice! I should take some guitar cable and household coax to work and hack it up and do some testing side-by-side.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

T.V. co-ax is usually a single copper strand surrounded by insulation and a ground mesh with a sheilding. The sheilding is like an aluminium tape and the ground mesh is made of a metal that doesn't solder [ yours like this? ], so trying to attatch a jack plug can be a problem unless you've got a solderless type. It's made to carry a much higher frequency range but its still copper wire on the signal side.

I've tried this with CB aerial cable [ cheaper than Audio cable ]. It works but it was a bit noisy. Also as the cable is made to be affixed permanently it doesn't like being moved around constantly and the sheilding breaks and starts producing a lot of noise when you move.

PS; Scrap wire fetches a good price at the metal recyclers.
 
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Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

GoldenVulture said:
T.V. co-ax is usually a single copper strand surrounded by insulation and a ground mesh with a sheilding. The sheilding is like an aluminium tape and the ground mesh is made of a metal that doesn't solder [ yours like this? ], so trying to attatch a jack plug can be a problem unless you've got a solderless type. It's made to carry a much higher frequency range but its still copper wire on the signal side.

I've tried this with CB aerial cable [ cheaper than Audio cable ]. It works but it was a bit noisy. Also as the cable is made to be affixed permanently it doesn't like being moved around constantly and the sheilding breaks and starts producing a lot of noise when you move.

PS; Scrap wire fetches a good price at the metal recyclers.
Click to expand...

Brilliant Vulture! :wow:
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

That'd be sweet! I have about 400ft in my garage. Even if it's rigid it'd still be cool for making a bunch of pedal jumpers.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

TheLivingDead said:
That'd be sweet! I have about 400ft in my garage. Even if it's rigid it'd still be cool for making a bunch of pedal jumpers.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mess with it;

T.V. co-ax is usually a single copper strand surrounded by insulation and a ground mesh with a sheilding. The sheilding is like an aluminium tape and the ground mesh is made of a metal that doesn't solder [ yours like this? ], so trying to attatch a jack plug can be a problem unless you've got a solderless type. It's made to carry a much higher frequency range but its still copper wire on the signal side.

I've tried this with CB aerial cable [ cheaper than Audio cable ]. It works but it was a bit noisy. Also as the cable is made to be affixed permanently it doesn't like being moved around constantly and the sheilding breaks and starts producing a lot of noise when you move.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

Eastern European guitars had some odd jacks.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

Yup. That's what I have, Jerry. The roll of cable was my last eff you when I quit Directv. Never really figured out what I'm gonna do with it. Ah well. Maybe I'll sell it on the cheap to some contractor.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

You should be recycling that stuff, or at least reusing it. You do realize how much cable costs right now, right?

I'm a phone man, lots of different types of cable in my garage, not much of it would be useable for anything other than speaker cables. I can't imagine rg6/58/59 being bad as instrument cable, but it would be more work than it would be worth methinks.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

i used to make my own guitar cables using coax from the local electronics shop when i was a teenager. It works fine and its cheap as chips....not very flexible tho due to the solid core.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

King IzzO))) said:
You should be recycling that stuff, or at least reusing it.
Click to expand...
Doing the job that I do, I can't reuse it. I would love to be able to recycle it in some way, but there's nobody around here that will take the stuff. I just throw it all away.

Thanks for the responses.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

Would you still be using the screw-type connectors or solder it to a 1/4" jack?

The screw stype connectors don't allow much flexibility. After some small amount of stress I'm willing to bet the connector would fail.

I'm willing to bet the same would apply to the coax + 1/4" jack. The cable is just too rigid and the stress would cause premature failure.
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

Everybody is missing the big picture here. Who needs a wireless unit when you can have a 15,000 foot guitar cord!!!!!!!
 
Re: Coaxial TV Cable Used As Guitar Cable? Attn. Cream123

metalmachine said:
Everybody is missing the big picture here. Who needs a wireless unit when you can have a 15,000 foot guitar cord!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
And you know what that reminds me of..........

 
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