Standard TV coax plug and socket woes

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

I just ran into this problem. I moved to a new house and took a collection of useful looking cables with me. This included 3 male-to-male TV antenna cables and one male-to-female (might be useful as an extension, I thought ).

I am almost certain that in the previous house both the wall socket and the TV socket were female so I needed the male-to-male cables. In the new house, the only one that was useful was the "extension"cable. 

Now I want to go back to the old hose and see what the sockets really were...

Yes a male to male connection cable from the female wall socket to the female TV socket would be the norm.

 

However if the aerial is not connected to a wall socket but is portable it would likely have a connection cable, hardwired at the aerial and terminated in a male plug at the free end.

If this cable was not long enough you would need an extension cable with a male one end and a female on the other.

But what if it is still not long enough?

Then you could interpose a cable with a female plug on each end.

This is an alternative to a 'barrel connector' with a double female and a male to male cable.

La plus ca change la plus c'est le meme chose.

[John Cuthber]

1 hour ago, Lord Antares said:

 However, the point is that there is no other useful variant of the IEC cable.

Well, there plainly is, or nobody would make them...

1 hour ago, Strange said:

This included 3 male-to-male TV antenna cables

In reality, both sorts of connectors are used as the "thing stuck on the wall that's connected to the aerial and which you link to your telly".

If you have one of these

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/GU7081.html

then you need a different cable from that shown earlier. If you had that sort of cable, but you chose to move the telly to the other side of the room, and the cable wasn't long enough then you would need a cable with a plug at one end, and a socket at the other (like the one in the wiki page).

 

I called it an extension cable for a very dull reason- it performs the same purpose as the other things that are called extension cables eg

https://www.maplin.co.uk/c/household-diy/power-cables-supplies/extension-cables-reels

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=usb+extension+lead&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=223921108510&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18137737755658389798&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046552&hvtargid=kwd-92242925&ref=pd_sl_2ex6mnlbdw_e

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extension-UGREEN-Auxiliary-Headphones-Speakers-Black/dp/B00LM4ON3I/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1515842141&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=headphone+extension+cable&psc=1

They have a plug at one end and a socket at the other.

 

None of this actually helps the OP.

[Lord Antares]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

I just ran into this problem. I moved to a new house and took a collection of useful looking cables with me. This included 3 male-to-male TV antenna cables and one male-to-female (might be useful as an extension, I thought ).

I am almost certain that in the previous house both the wall socket and the TV socket were female so I needed the male-to-male cables. In the new house, the only one that was useful was the "extension"cable. 

Now I want to go back to the old hose and see what the sockets really were...

Yes, wall sockets usually have a female plug, but ironically, it is used to extend the existing coax cable to the TV

That's what I'm talking about. I know the definition of an extension cable is that it has one male and one female connector, but you cannot use a male to male cable to plug an antenna into the TV because the antenna either has the short cable ending in a male IEC connector or it has a female F-connector on it. So a male to male IEC cable wouldn't help.

But in most cases, the male to female cable is going to be needed. My store sells dozens of different lenghts and types of antenna cables, and none of them are male IEC to male IEC.

5 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Well, there plainly is, or nobody would make them...

I exaggerated. Male to male cables might be needed sometimes. But my point was that those were also used to extend the existing cable. The male to female cable is an extender cable only by definition. But practically speaking, it is not any more of an extension cable than the male to male one.

9 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

None of this actually helps the OP.

You started this. Yours was the first comment that didn't help the OP.