Is cat 3 cable just as good as cat 5??

[GunRunner1 0]

I found a spool of cat 3 cable:

Telecom 1000' Plenum cat 3 6 pairs.

 

Is there any difference other than the quanity of pairs?

 

Thanks,

[jeromephone 6]

Yes there is cat three, is only rated for 10mps on data. Cat 5 and six are engineered with different twist and seperation on different pairs to give the higher data ratings. Three pair is a pain. If you are installing phone most new ones use one or two pairs so you have a spare automatically when you run a drop but with three pair you are always short plus it is harder to keep organized on the 66 block. I think you will find that video baluns also have limitations on cat 3 vs cat 5

[GunRunner1 0]

thanks,

I'll stay away from the cat 3

[Javik 0]

This is a bit of a dead thread, but I'd just like to add for other topic searchers that CAT3 frequently is NOT twisted pair. The wires run straight through without twists.

 

It is the twisting that allows the wires to reject outside interference, because any interference sources passing near the cable (power line, etc) will equally impinge upon both wires in the twist, cancelling itself out.

 

With a straight-through cable, one wire in the pair is slightly closer to the noise source than the other wire. The magnetic field of the noise source more strongly affects the closer wire, inducing a voltage/current difference between the two wires. This shows up in your signal as a 60hz hum, pops/clicks, and other noise.

 

 

Using twisted pair DC power wires to your camera is probably a good idea so as to provide a cleaner power source to it, though for coax you can obviously use a bigger gauge twisted pair.