cable question
Richard_Cranium
Posts: 561 Forum Member
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when sky installed multi + boxes in my home they used dual feeds from the dish, wouldnt it have been easier to use a little splitter thingy indoors?
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Richard_Cranium
Posts: 561
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You have some channels that use a horizontal polarity and some channels use a vertical polarity.
So while you could watch two channel of the same feed (On different boxes) with a splitter, providing they're of the same polarity, but when you want to watch two channels (on separate boxes) of differing polarity, you cannot. And trying this can cause the LNB to short out and then you can't watch anything.
So they have to take a separate feed for each box from the LNB like it is designed to do so meaning you have cables around the gaff.
So i sent cable from each of these 2 feeds to other rooms in my house and got 2 bush freesat HD boxes, is that okay?
I thought sky used two feeds just so you could record them and the cable was cheaper then the splitter
Does the multiroom boxes have two sat ports on the back or just one?
And does the cables feeding these boxes have shotgun cable with two F-Connectors on them but only one in use?
(Looks like this - http://www.freesatcable.co.uk/image/cache/data/126491001033-500x500.JPG)
each has just one they are not recordables, no it single cable there were only 2 feeds left so i naturally thought 1 single feed per box.
its been working great to be fair
But you said the 3 Sky boxes were taking 2 feeds each... So unless im mistaken or you're houdini........
okay the dish has 8 fplugs the 3 sky boxes are taking up 6 leaving 2 feeds left
You could arrange a splitter which takes the control signals from only one receiver but that means that all receivers on the split can only view channels in whatever mode the "master" is set to. And if that box changes to a different mode all the other boxes have to change mode as well so would stop displaying whatever channel you were currently watching.
A recorder that allows you to record a different channel to the one being viewed needs two LNBs to permit the full selection of channels to each function. The same principle applies to all the other boxes you have. Each one requires a separate LNB to function correctly.
What you have on the dish is an octo LNB which is effectively 8 LNBs in one box. This allows you to connect 8 receiver sections - a recorder has two receivers, a view only box has one.
Each tuner needs a feed.
Sky+ boxes have two tuners - so you can watch one programme and record another, or record two programmes.
If you have a non-recording Freesat box that will only have one tuner and therefore only need a single feed. If you have a Freesat+ PVR that will need two feeds so you can record one programme while watching another.
Sky+HD boxes have an option to run for a single feed (but lose some flexibility) and it's possible Freesat boxes do too.
If they Sky boxes aren't Sky+ ones the installer may have run a cable from the dish which is connected to two feeds at the dish, but only one of them is actually used indoors. In our house the original lounge (now a bedroom) had previously had Sky+ installed, we nabbed one of the feeds from that and ran it through an air brick into the new lounge to a Freesat box. When a new housemate moved into that room with Sky+ the installer nabbed the cable back and ran a "shotgun" cable to the Freesat box leaving one side unused. Presumably this makes future upgrades easier.
could you explain shotgun?
It's two coax cables joined together. Think double barrelled shotgun and you get the idea
The "splitter thingy" is not little. It's called a "multiswitch".
Read all about it here:-
http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/multiswitches.htm
Read all about single- and twin- "shotgun" cable here:-
http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/cable.htm