Satellite & Terrestrial setup

infected_shroom

I have moved into a new house and want to setup satellite and terrestrial. All rooms in the house have TV points - running back to the attic.

My intention is to put up a 10' mast secured on a 16" T&K wall bracket on a south facing gable wall. A sat. motor & dish and a terrestrial aerial to be attached.

Q.1. Theres soffit/guttering attached to/and extending out from the gable wall. Do I just drill a hole in the side (or underneath?) and try and get the cable through that way? Having checked things out from inside the attic, I can see this might be problematic as I would imagine it will be difficult to get the cables through. Any tips on this?

Q.2. There are six cables leading to six TV points. I assume I need to order up some form of switch to connect the 2 lines in (from dish and aerial) to the six cables? What should I be ordering up here? Whatever is required, I hope it doesnt need power as I have no power points in the attic!

cast_iron

It's often easiest to jus drill a hole thru the cavity wall straight into the attic. Just make sure its the attice you drill into - not a bathroom or something!

It's best to use a seperate cable for the aerial and satellite. You sure there isn't 2 cables going to main room? Pretty bad job on the sparky's part if just 1 in a new house. (I would put 6 to the main room alone)

There is a "switch" but it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

There is quite alot of work in what you propose, and it appears, at best, the satellite will just be available in main room. You'll prob need power in the attic to distribute the aerial signal to the other rooms.

infected_shroom

cast_iron wrote:

It's often easiest to jus drill a hole thru the cavity wall straight into the attic.

I can see how this would be easier but on the flip side, will this degrade the heat efficiency of the house...swings and roundabouts..

cast_iron wrote:

It's best to use a seperate cable for the aerial and satellite. You sure there isn't 2 cables going to main room? Pretty bad job on the sparky's part if just 1 in a new house. (I would put 6 to the main room alone)

Pretty bad job alright. There should be standards for these sorts of things but of course there arnt in Ireland. Just one cable per TV point unfortunately.

cast_iron wrote:

There is a "switch" but it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

What is this 'switch' (any links?) and why is it to be avoided?

cast_iron wrote:

it appears, at best, the satellite will just be available in main room.

Whilst a couple of the TV points are not all too important, I must have both terrestrial and sat feeding the living room and a couple of the bedrooms.

cast_iron wrote:

You'll prob need power in the attic to distribute the aerial signal to the other rooms.

So does this mean that all my neighbours in this new estate have had to get a socket put in in the attic in order to setup functional terrestrial reception?? Bloody builders!

cast_iron

infected_shroom wrote:

I can see how this would be easier but on the flip side, will this degrade the heat efficiency of the house...swings and roundabouts..

Very negligible taking the house as a whole. No worse than boring a hole in fascia/soffit. Fill it with mastick to seal it.

infected_shroom wrote:

What is this 'switch' (any links?) and why is it to be avoided?
Whilst a couple of the TV points are not all too important, I must have both terrestrial and sat feeding the living room and a couple of the bedrooms.

It appears you will need a single multiswitch along with a combiner/diplexor for each point you want sat/aerial. I've never seen such a setup and doubt this is even possible.

infected_shroom wrote:

So does this mean that all my neighbours in this new estate have had to get a socket put in in the attic in order to setup functional terrestrial reception?? Bloody builders!

Only if they want to distribute it to multiple tv.s, yes.

emaherx

infected_shroom wrote:

I
My intention is to put up a 10' mast secured on a 16" T&K wall bracket on a south facing gable wall. A sat. motor & dish and a terrestrial aerial to be attached.

you cant have more than one Receiver working off of a Sattellite dish with a motor.(at least its not very practical).

So if you want to distribute just the one STB around the house just connect the RF out of the Box (if it has one) to your distrubution amp along with your terrestrial.
(All TV's will show same Sat channel)

otherwise you will want at least two dishes one with a motor for main room and one stationary with a quad lnb for the bedrooms. Each feed for the satellite will need to be brought from the dish to the individual rooms.

alternativly forget the motor and get a dish with multiple Quad Lnb's for reciveing Astra 1&2 and Hotbird. (This will require a sterdy Dish and Bracket as three quad lnb's will be too heavy for some dishes) This also requires three Disecq switches and can be messy cable wise.

infected_shroom

emaherx wrote:

you cant have more than one Receiver working off of a Sattellite dish with a motor.(at least its not very practical).

Your right - its not all too practical, but its an interim solution until such time as I get a second fixed dish up.

emaherx wrote:

otherwise you will want at least two dishes one with a motor for main room and one stationary with a quad lnb for the bedrooms. Each feed for the satellite will need to be brought from the dish to the individual rooms.

This is probably what I will go for ultimately (but not at the moment).


The main issue I have at the moment is the lack of power in the attic. These multiswitches seem to be very expensive. Could I use a receiver powered multiswitch such as this?
What would be the feasibility of using this with a moteck motor which is also receiver powered?
What are the drawbacks of using these types of switches which cast_iron touched on in his initial post?

emaherx

infected_shroom wrote:

Your right - its not all too practical, but its an interim solution until such time as I get a second fixed dish up.

This is probably what I will go for ultimately (but not at the moment).


The main issue I have at the moment is the lack of power in the attic. These multiswitches seem to be very expensive. Could I use a receiver powered multiswitch such as this?
What would be the feasibility of using this with a moteck motor which is also receiver powered?
What are the drawbacks of using these types of switches which cast_iron touched on in his initial post?

I honestly think it will work out cheaper just to buy the second dish as to distribute a satellite feed like this you need a quatro lnb (diffrent from a quad)
a multiswitch and a diplexor at each tv point (plus i dont think the multi switch will work with a motor as the disecq comands are received by the switch and are design for multiple satellite setups not motors) besides when you switch satellite on one tv you will need to watch channels on the same satillite on all other TV's

your best option is to try and run extra cable for your terrestrial and distribute it through a distribution amp and leave your sat system seperate.

My brother moved into a new house last week and we were able to "squeeze" two extra cables down the existing conduate in the wall, have you explored this option.

as for your attic socket could you run a lead down the corner of two walls into a room such as your utility room and plug it into a socket there.

infected_shroom

emaherx wrote:

your best option is to try and run extra cable for your terrestrial and distribute it through a distribution amp and leave your sat system seperate.

It turns out that there were to runs from the attic to the front room. I've setup the terrestrial feed to the front room - good picture with the help of a powered amp which I've setup temporarily using an extension cable. I've decided that I will have to get power to the attic and will get an electrician to install a couple of double sockets.
I just need to get a splitter to feed to all rooms.

emaherx wrote:

My brother moved into a new house last week and we were able to "squeeze" two extra cables down the existing conduate in the wall, have you explored this option.

I'm glad you suggested this. I had thought about this before and dismissed it as being an impossible task. Decided to give it a go and have succeeded in getting a sat feed into two of the bedrooms by taping the second cable to the one that was already in there, removing the socket in the bedroom and pulling through.
I've hit a snag on the third bedroom - which is a shame. its only a distance of about a meter from attic floor to bedroom socket - but they must be tied together or something. I wonder if I turn off the electricity, remove the pattress box and then i may well be able to see a loose wire if i feed one down from above?

Could I do this and still be able to get the pattress box back in?
Could I take it out in the first place without taking big chunks of plaster with me?

L1011

infected_shroom wrote:

Your right - its not all too practical, but its an interim solution until such time as I get a second fixed dish up.

Torodial. One dish, no motor, each satellite can be individually multiswitched and a feed from each DiSEqC'ed in to one downlead.

infected_shroom

MYOB wrote:

Torodial. One dish, no motor, each satellite can be individually multiswitched and a feed from each DiSEqC'ed in to one downlead.

Yes, at one stage I thought the WaveFrontier was the ideal solution. The only snag for me is that it wont reach as far as Hispasat - which I want access to.

In any event, I'm happy with the setup I have if I can just get a digital feed to the last two bedrooms. The terrestrial feed brings in both Irish & UK channels - so thats what people in the house will want to watch 95% of the time. Might get a small dish in the future if it looks likely that theres something on sat that others want to view specifically eg.fixed on particular sat for footy, etc.....or get a second dish for Hispa - and go torroidal for the other dish...might do that whenever the motor dies - which they tend to do every couple of years.

L1011

Well, you'll get the beams intended for us on Hispasat with a dinner plate (albeit with damn pernickerty alignment) but you'll not get the US beams with a skatepark with prime focus over the bowl... so a small dish for Hispa and a torodial for the others might do the job.

Zaphod

A suitable multiswitch will diplex terrestrial and satellite, handle all the diseqc switching and work with either quad or quatro LNBFs.

Such as 2 sats (8 in) + terr -> 4 out.

http://www.emp-centauri.cz/products.php?menuId=2&page=155-cp

Up to 4 sat (16 in) + terr -> 16 out
http://www.emp-centauri.cz/products.php?menuId=2&page=170-cp-16

The T-90 toroidal has a range of 40 deg in the spec, but it can be modified to go even further.

http://www.satlex.de/en/wavefrontier-pic_1.html

infected_shroom

@Zaphod: Thanks for your detailed post. With regard to the multiswitch....

You don't share cast_iron's concerns on using a diplexing multi-switch? I vaguely remember reading something negative about them some months back but can't remember what exactly the problem was with them.

As the motorised system is up, I will probably make do with it for the time being. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear more on the above - as maybe 6 months down the road, I might consider going with the WaveFrontier.

My main priority for right now is sorting out cable runs to the two remaining bedrooms.

Zaphod

infected_shroom wrote:

You don't share cast_iron's concerns on using a diplexing multi-switch? I vaguely remember reading something negative about them some months back but can't remember what exactly the problem was with them.

Ideally you would use separate cables. But it seems to be pretty standard for multi-dwelling setups to have terr and sat diplexed via a multiswitch. The main problem is leaking of LNB noise into the terr signal but this can usually be avoided with decent quality multiswitches. It also helps to have good cable (ct100 or ct125) and good reception for both terr and sat at the receive end.

infected_shroom wrote:

As the motorised system is up, I will probably make do with it for the time being. My main priority for right now is sorting out cable runs to the two remaining bedrooms.

Which receiver will control the motor? AFAIK diseqc motors don't like being controlled by more than one receiver although there is one model which will work OK with 2 different receivers IIRC.