Tainted 0 Posted December 24, 2018 First time poster and cctv noob. I’m hoping to get some help identifying what I have in my house. I know next to nothing about cctv, but I got a degree in electrical engineering 20 years ago that I never used, so talk fast and I’ll catch up. The house was built in 2006 but remained empty in foreclosure for the better part of ten years. I bought it in January and have been repairing/updating it. I’m just about done and it’s time to figure out what all of these wires are. The photos below show what I have. In the living room, there are two sets of wires coming out of the wall, several feet apart. One has 6 coax cables. The other has 6 coax, 2 more coax connected to each other, 2 yellow Ethernet cables, 4 white 2-wire cables, 2 white 4-wire cables. 3 of the white 2-wire cables are marked with pen as FL, FR, RR or RL (going off memory here, 3 of those are correct and one incorrect). The photo with three white and one yellow cable is just inside the front door. The only place I have seen the yellow ethernet is here and the living room. I have an alarm/communications panel in the upstairs laundry room, but no yellow there. There is an enclosure on the outside of the house with coax inside. 6 coax are stubbed out from the wall here. Are these wires for a cctv system that was never installed? Can you help understand the purpose of each wire? Any help is appreciated. Thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DefenditYourselfcom 1 Posted December 26, 2018 The white wires with red and black wires in it look like 16/2 speaker wire. The wire with the little center pin protruding looks to be RG6/coaxial cable. The yellow wire looks like CAT5. There are two types of cameras analog and ip. Analog cameras use a coax for the video feed and a pair of wires for the power so in theory if both types of white wires were run to the same location you could use it for a camera (it is more traditional to use a "siamese" wire that has rg59 and 2 conductor for power attached to each other). CAT5 can be used for Digital IP PoE cameras. Coax is also used for cable tv / satellite while the speaker wire may be used for speakers depending where the other end terminates. A Cat5 wire could be run for data or phone in addition to cameras depending on where it terminates -Louis Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dicsan1001 1 Posted December 31, 2018 Hello Tainted, I think you should use a toner device to find cable and identify each ends. You will need a helper to help you on the ends to do it fast. fluke devices are good but you can find cheaper on amazon. https://www.flukenetworks.com/datacom-cabling/copper-testing/IntelliTone-Pro-Toner-and-Probe Then after you can use the cable depend on the functionality you wants to use those for. Audio : Low voltage stranded cameras analog and television : coaxial internet and ip cameras : ethernet, cat5/cat6 Jay P. Dicsan Technology Share this post Link to post Share on other sites