Existing wiring & Lidl sat system

65bl

When my house was built 12 years ago, my pal got the electrician to put in extra conduit from the sitting room to the attic ( 3no extra in addition to the 1 already put in by the spark ). He subsequently set up aeriel etc. My understanding of how it works is that the aeriel comes in to the attic - down the conduit to the sitting room TV, then back up to the attic where it it is distributed to bedrooms kitchen etc. Similarly the video player goes up to the attic and is distributed in the same way. At a later stage we added an analogue satelite system and i believe it works in the same way - into the attic and then down the conduit to the receiver in the sitting room, back up to the attic and distributed to the other rooms in the house. The sat has lain dormant recently after some high winds did some damage over the winter but it used to recieve Eurosport CNN and plenty of German channels.
Yesterday on impulse i bought the sat system on offer in Lidl. My question is this - Can i connect the new digital sat system into the existing 12 yr old coaxial cable ( which is hidden in the walls ) or do i need new cable compatible with a digital system.
Obviously i'm hoping to remove old dish from chimney - replace with new one and use the existing cable from the chimney to the attic and on down through the wall to the reciever. Is this possible or am i just being a bit too optimistic

I should add that my mate is sadly no longer with us hence this post

many thanks

BL

Tony

Sorry to hear about your mate. Theres a good chance this cable will work ok but I'm afraid the only way of knowing is to try it.

65bl

Thanks

Will try it out over the next few days

I am guessing from your reply that the coaxial cable in place may or may not have degraded over the years ( based on the assumption that good cable will last and lesser cable will not - i am fairly confident that the cables in place would have been the best available at the time )

So - assumin that the cable is good, is the the process of down to sittingg room, up to attic, distribute etc etc, a viable and workable option

Again many thanks

BL

steveon

If you have power in the attic you could run a new cable from the dish to a point in the attic and use the rf function to send the signal to the main room and redistribute the signal back around the house.

However Im not 100% sure about the sl65 but some of the boxes Lidl sell are only PaL G and so cannot be distributed using rf signals easily

Galaxie390

Hi 65bl,

I'm using 22 year old coax cable, installed by the original builders behind the plaster. My satellite signal is absolutely fine, although it is being viewed on an 8 year old tv!

Many people who've seen it have LCDs & Plasma screen say it's really is fine and why did they spend loads on new tv's????

I reckon my eyesight is deteriorating at the same rate as the coax cable, so with any luck I'll always have a 'good picture' lol

Antenna

steveon wrote:

If you have power in the attic you could run a new cable from the dish to a point in the attic and use the rf function to send the signal to the main room and redistribute the signal back around the house.

However Im not 100% sure about the sl65 but some of the boxes Lidl sell are only PaL G and so cannot be distributed using rf signals easily

none of the Lidl sat receivers have a RF modulator - though one model of them I have seen has an option for (a non-existing) one in its menu!
He could use a VCR to distribute it

Tony

An attic is the worst place to leave a satellite receiver

steveon wrote:

If you have power in the attic you could run a new cable from the dish to a point in the attic and use the rf function to send the signal to the main room and redistribute the signal back around the house.

However Im not 100% sure about the sl65 but some of the boxes Lidl sell are only PaL G and so cannot be distributed using rf signals easily