installation questions?

joeL

Hi all,
I recently moved into my new house and I am thinking of getting Sky digital, rather than NTL MMDS.

The house appears to be wired for NTL MMDS (there is a small box on the side of the house with NTL written on it, whatever thats for??).

My question is, if SKY is installed, does the installer use the pre-wired aerial sockets, or does it involve new wiring, drilling holes in the front of the house, etc?? It would seem a waste if new wiring/sockets were required!
I'd imagine the dish would go onto the back of the house, but the main TV point is nearer to the front living room window (its a semi-D btw).

Also, I had a good look around up in the attic yesterday and couldn't see where the electrician put all the coax cable from the various TV points.

cheers in advance...

Tony

Have a look at the side of your house and see if there are cables in the service box there. You can use the existing cable if iit is of suitable quaity, you can also use a diplexer to combine a satellite and cable signal to your main tv. If you want to watch satellite on other tv's extra wiring will be needed unless you use a video sender. Unfortunately buliders/electricians do not install return paths when installing coax.

Tony

Originally posted by joeL
Hi all,
I recently moved into my new house and I am thinking of getting Sky digital, rather than NTL MMDS.

The house appears to be wired for NTL MMDS (there is a small box on the side of the house with NTL written on it, whatever thats for??).

My question is, if SKY is installed, does the installer use the pre-wired aerial sockets, or does it involve new wiring, drilling holes in the front of the house, etc?? It would seem a waste if new wiring/sockets were required!
I'd imagine the dish would go onto the back of the house, but the main TV point is nearer to the front living room window (its a semi-D btw).

Also, I had a good look around up in the attic yesterday and couldn't see where the electrician put all the coax cable from the various TV points.

cheers in advance...

joeL

thanks Tony,
one other point/question I forgot to mention -

don't know if its relevant, but the main TV point/aerial socket in the living room actually has 2 sockets in it if you know what I mean....

.....whereas the other TV points in the bedrooms have just got one.

What would the purpose be of having 2 sockets in one? - a return path back to the other rooms maybe?

Tony

Its hard to say Joel, take off the wall plate with a small scewdriver and see if there is one or two cables.

Tony

Originally posted by joeL
thanks Tony,
one other point/question I forgot to mention -

don't know if its relevant, but the main TV point/aerial socket in the living room actually has 2 sockets in it if you know what I mean....

.....whereas the other TV points in the bedrooms have just got one.

What would the purpose be of having 2 sockets in one? - a return path back to the other rooms maybe?

joeL

Yip, I checked last night, there are 2 cables wired into that TV point....

Gwynston

Originally posted by Tony
Unfortunately buliders/electricians do not install return paths when installing coax.

Yeah, tell me about it The builder of our house went to the effort of running cable to 4 TV points round the house, but there's still only 1 to the sitting room. How much effort is it for me to run a 2nd length of cable through existing ducting that holds one run?

Unfortnuately, at my TV point, no duct opening is even visible - the single cable appears to come straight out of a solid concrete wall

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by joeL
What would the purpose be of having 2 sockets in one? - a return path back to the other rooms maybe?

one for the TV and another for a VCR?

Tony

Originally posted by joeL
Yip, I checked last night, there are 2 cables wired into that TV point....

Thats positive perhaps one is a return path, at worst its a loop to another room.

Tony

jabarrett35

The second socket in my living room is for Fm radio though its mark as such.

dgently

I guess the question becomes, how hard is it to use all this inter-room ducting?

I had a peek behind some of my NTL connectors, and am seeing a similar story. If I knew which cable was going where, I feel like I'd have a shot at using the existing cable to pull through a fresh pair of cables. But since I don't know the order in which the NTL cable has daisy-chained the rooms, I don't know where to start yanking!

My ideal setup would be to have one run to the digibox with a return feed to the attic to combine the digibox output with an a an antenna signal an then distribute this combined feed to the other rooms.

Messy, but it's just hard to write off all that lovely ducting...