How long can the cable be from the dish to the receiver before the signal is no longer working or degrades in cold weather/ice and snow? Also anyone know of a place to but long cheap coax cable?
I always buy my video and audio cables from monoprice and have never had any issues. They sell coax and cat as well so you might check them out and they have great prices as well.
You should be able to connect 2 cables but keep in mind there is some loss at each connection. I run from the dish to a grounding block before entering the house. The grounding block is a connection.
Also Directv specifies solid core coax which, as I understand, has lower loss. My setup has copper-clad center core coax which works fine on the 5 lnb dish but when or if I need to replace I'd use solid copper. I bought a 500ft roll of RG6 quad-shield at Home Depot for something like $0.13/ft. Others might comment on using copper-clad vs solid copper. As stated mine works fine.... for now.