Can I patch coaxial?

Wife switched internet providers and they had to come install cable service to the street as the house wasn't hooked up. The installer thought that the hole I had my OTA antenna cable going through looked like a good spot to run his cable in. He cut my cable inside the house and at the eve of the house taking about eight feet out of it.

It's not worth the hassle to call them to fix it. It's been a journey just getting this far.

I'm going to have to drill a new hole through the wall. But I'm hoping I can just splice in an eight foot section in the middle without have to run new cable all the way up to the roof.

Will I reduce my reception by doing so?

IMO you'd be better off crimping proper connectors and using bulkhead F-F connectors than trying to splice the cable. It that's outdoors, just cover the connection with silicone.

I don't think there's any way of doing it without adding some signal loss, with how finicky DTV is I don't know if that will be acceptable, might be better to just replace the run.

In my experience, its theoretically possible, though ill advised at best. F/f like Evan said is probably the easiest, however.....it can still trash quality. I would do as mentioned and replace all of it, personally. Or better yet, just call the jackass that berkeleyed it up and make him do it, and get a bI'll credit too.

It was rather disappointing. It's such a hassle to deal with them, I'll just save the headache and do it myself. I think I've got enough laying around so I won't have to buy any to do the whole run.

It should be fine, it's more a matter of using the right tools to strip the cable and crimp on the ends. I would try it, and then if it doesn't work, try to have the cable guy come back.

use compression fittings and make the splice inside if possible. You'll probably need to buy the stripper and crimpers from lowe's/home depot or the like.

You can splice it. Splice the center conductor and the braid. Of course, any splice OR connection in a coax line introduces losses. Even the best coax connector will introduce a dB or two of loss. Whether two connections and a male to male union will have more losses than a simple splice is a good question. Anyway, try it and see how it works.

At a minimum use screw on connectors and a male to male. A proper splice with compression connectors and a barrel connector is 2 dbs of loss. A poorly made splice with wire nuts will surely be more.

I deal with CCTV. A splice by an inexperienced person will almost always be a problem. Getting the Cable properly trimmed, making sure the braid is in the fitting correctly, you got the right fittings, right? Use a compression fitting and used the proper crimper, too. Yeah, the only real solution is a new cable run. 90% of the problems we have with new clients is from co-ax screw-ups.

Got the new cable run up to the roof. Picking up 39 channels now so a little better than before.

But I was wondering something. As I don't have an antenna per se, it's just coax with the last 8" stripped down to the core, With the other end is screwed in the back of the TV. Given that it's the tallest part of my house, what can I do to ground it? I'd hate to have a lightning strike fed directly to the back of my TV.

Any suggestions?

I wouldn't worry about the lightning. It goes where it wants to. You can put a lightening arrestor in the circuit if you want.

If you're getting 39 channels with that setup, I'd call it good.

I guess I'm lucky as I'm close enough to get Waco and Austin channels. A couple are overlaps but I'd say I've got a good thirty completely separate channels.

As an experienced cable installer, I would put a fitting on the end of the wire and put an antenna on, you really don't want water or humidity in that coax.

For grounding. I suggest it. I have seen ground blocks save TVs and home entertainment systems. However, there is only one proper way to do that and it's with a ground rod in the ground. So if you have already have a ground rod on that side of the house (usually your power service to the meter will have it below the meter). Run 12 or 10 ga solid wire from the ground block to a ground clamp on the ground rod. Make sure its only a few feet between the block and rod, you don't want a 50 foot wire, it won't be effective.

These types of grounding blocks are sufficient:

https://www.solidsignal.com

If you want spend a few more bucks, you can get a Surge Protector style like this:

http://www.trianglecables.com/product/Satellite-Cable-TV-Ground-Block-Surge-Protector.aspx