Marina cable is analog

We're new to the cruising scene so please excuse our dumb questions. Our home marina has cable to the each pedestal and it seems to work fine but the signal is analog so not very clear. While there are far fewer channels, our over-the-air HDTV antenna pulls in a much clearer picture. Is there a way to improve the signal that the marina is providing? Thanks!

If the coax or connectors are corroded that will impact the signal quality. Plus depending how they wired the marina there could just be lots of signal loss. This coupled with analog signal is likely the issue.

You are better off using your digital antenna or looking at satellite options.

I'll second the corroded connection/signal loss scenario. Make sure the contacts at your pedestal are clean and that your cable makes a secure connection to it. That and ask someone else on your dock what their reception is like. The ask someone that's on a slip much closer to the entrance or the cable source. If their picture is likewise weak then that might just be "how it is" there. But if other slips are getting a better picture then make sure it's not your cable or the wiring in the boat. If that's OK then ask the marina if there's something they can do to resolve the quality at your pedestal.

I put a tv on my Dad's boat once. Almost lost my boating privileges.

The cable company might be broadcasting at a lower resolution than the OTA signal.

Woodstock said:

We're new to the cruising scene so please excuse our dumb questions. Our home marina has cable to the each pedestal and it seems to work fine but the signal is analog so not very clear. While there are far fewer channels, our over-the-air HDTV antenna pulls in a much clearer picture. Is there a way to improve the signal that the marina is providing? Thanks!

Click to expand...

Short answer...no, and I don't think looking for bad wire connections will help. Most of us don't remember how bad analog TV signals look, because we haven't seen them in the US since 2009.

Since then, analog signals are no longer allowed for 'broadcast' -- everything coming over the airwaves now is digital. That's why your picture is better with your antenna.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_transition_in_the_United_States

However, as long as they are not broadcasting into the airwaves, cable companies, hotels and marinas can still put analog signals on their privately owned wires, although there are very few reasons why they'd want to do this. Analog signals can't be 'compresssed', so they waste a lot of bandwidth.

A marina is a special case however -- they don't want to have to supply cable set-top-boxes to every boater, and they don't want to deliver HDTV content for 'free', and/or they don't want to upgrade old equipment, so they convert channels from digital to analog, which solves these problems (although the picture looks poor).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_headend#Analog_Modulation

Can you connect to a cable wifi hotspot from where you are? A Ubiquity Nanostation can reach one up to a mile or more away if you have a line-of-sight. Then you can 'stream' content from your cable provider through a ROKU or something similar.

https://thenextweb.com/us/2012/05/2...r-massive-wi-fi-sharing-effort-across-the-us/

Riverguy, I think you nailed it but I will check all my connections too. I don't think my signal is weak, it just looks like analog TV from 10 years ago and we're not used to that. Didn't know if I could hook up a converter box to "find" the digital signal. Thanks for the replies