Can you hookup coax cable to cat 5e cable for tv hookup?

Answer 1

Very likely, but you might encounter issues. The cables will certainly connect up properly. However, a CAT 5 coupler is not rated for CAT 6 speeds and may introduce more noise. Noise translates into corrupted data packets, which might be noticeable as a slower connection (as those corrupted packets need to be retransmitted).

If I were inspecting a contractor's work at, say, my workplace, this would definitely not pass muster. (They'd better have a darn good reason for even putting in a CAT 6 coupler!) Bad installations can result in problems which are more expensive to fix later on.

That said, I've been using a CAT 5 coupler to connect two CAT 6 segments on my gigabit Ethernet home network for over a year (because I've been too lazy to actually replace the cable run) without any problems, including streaming HD videos from one room to another.

Answer 2

No, the two types of cable are not compatible. Coax cable is a shielded cable with special end connectors and a single internal conductor, where as Cat 5 is multi conductor 4 pair cable.