I’ve decided to purchase the Humax FOXSAT-HDR so that I can get Freesat with a digital recorder. On reading the technical specification I believe I need a dual LNB to watch one channel whilst recording another?

Whilst carrying out major house building work last year I thought I would plan ahead and put the cable in ready for when I purchased the satellite system, I installed the cable, but only one !!

Is there anyway I can combine the dual LNB outputs at the dish onto one cable then split them again at the satellite box?

Or do I need to tale a hammer and chisel to the new plaster!

Thanks for any suggestions

Rod

You should be able to slide another cable down the trunking
Failing that undo the box in the lounge attach two pieces of string to the cable and carefully pull the cable into the loft or ceiling with the string
Then use one piece of string to attach dual figure of eight cable or two cables
and pull the string back through

The other string?
Make sure it's long enough allow it to slide back through with the cable as it will help it slide in, but it's main purpose is as a backup should the first string fail

If you add the loop cable tuner 1 out to tuner 2 in you can record a 2nd channel in the same band as tuner 1 is using one cable as a temporary work around. REmember factory reset after adding 2nd cable or stb won't know it's there.

It supports Single Cable Distribution (SCD), otherwise known as Unicable. Right now, we're testing with a Unicable LNB from Inverto. This allows up to four compatible receivers to be connected using a single cable, rather than requiring one cable per tuner. A normal LNB shifts the satellite signals to an intermediate frequency; with Unicable, there can be up to four of those intermediate frequencies, and each tuner is assigned one, which it uses to talk to the LNB, which contains four independent LNB units and the electronics to handle the signalling between them and the receivers. So if you don't want to run extra cables Unicable could be a solution - as long as all your kit's compatible, and you don't mind paying around £70 for the LNB - we got ours from Germany, including shipping. Buy in the UK and pay around £80.

Admin Edit: Please provide a link to your source when reproducing articles which you do not own the copyright to.

http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2008/11/humax-foxsat-hd.html

Get a shotgun cable, this only takes up the same space as a single cable. Its a 10 mins job to replace.

No, you need a twin- or quad-output LNB.
http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/lnb.htm#twin


Yes - a Stacker-Destacker (provided that your cable is decent).

There's some very amusing answers on this thread (don't get me wrong they are all correct but mostly from a cost point of view very expensive). Cheapest best solution change lnb to quad, if the the connection to the dish is around 10M replace single cable with the thinner shotgun cable. If longer add a single higher quality coax.

I got the standard Inverto unicable LNB with the 3 splitters from a UK source, cost <£40, but I think you may need a round dish and setting up isn't all that straight forward. People looking for an "easy way out" are probably going to be disappointed.

Did you actually have any luck with it, Dan? As you know, I concluded that it wasn't actually reliable in SCD mode.

Oh wait. Whoops. No, he didn't write that. Any of it.

What he did instead was copy and paste a whole section from the PCW blog, without attribution, as if it was something he'd done.

The original of that ripped off text is here

Wow, as a new user to the forum I'm most impressed with the speed and quality of the replies received.

Firstly I can’t easily add another cable; it goes under floors, through a wall and is then plastered in a newly decorated wall. All my fault of course, my new rule for the future “Always put in spare cables when rewiring”.

I’m going to go for the loop cable suggestion as a temporary fix, but keep an eye on the Unicable option for the future.

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

Cheers

Rod

Interesting article and jonoro should really have copied the full thing, especially the update at the end - it does not seem to work!

Might be worth dropping Humax an e-mail about this to clarify the situation if you're thinking of looking into this route more.

If you have excel then post 31 in this thread may interest you

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=984808

So, to use a Humax Foxsat+ 'properly', you ideally need a dish with a 2-way LNB, and two cables.

I have a Sky oval mini-dish, with 1-way LNB and single cable.

Maplin sell a 2-way LNB and bracket to fit onto a sky oval mini-dish. If I fit those and run a second cable, will it work OK, or do I need to change the whole dish?

Ta

It will work perfectly. That's the ideal setup.

Cool. Just to double check; the sky oval mini-dish is OK?

Yes, I have that, a quad lnb and a twin cable. Works 100%.

Excellent. Thanks guys

I don't have a receiver, I was just checking how to align the dish without using a standard or unicable/legacy LNB. Now I understand how Unicable works, I am surprised with your results.

Sorry for any confusion, I meant the Unicable LNB "might" need a round dish - I didn't try a sky dish.