TV Aerial & Satellite setup

Moffo

Hi folks, I'm a newbie on the forum.

Getting a new house wired at the moment. Looking to install FTA Satellite Dish and Aerial for RTE, etc. Getting conflicting views on how to set up. Will be having 2 Receivers, for 2 tvs.

Have been told that I will need to run 2 separate coax cables to dual LNB on Dish.

How do I combine the Aerial feed with these 2 Satellite Cables ?

Do I split the aerial feed in 2, then combine each with the 2 Sat cables, and then split again at the other end ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Electriciain is due to start wiring any day now, and would like to get it right for coax cables.
Thanks

TheDriver

If you are doing it from scratch and its only 2 tvs, then run seperate cables to your rooms for satellite and aerial. From the dish, have a dual lnb with 2 wires, one wire to each room. From the aerial, you probably have an amp and a wire from it to each room on the seperate cable. You should invest in a 3rd wire to main room for the possibility of sky+ type of thing for future safety. Use proper CT00 for sake of few quid too.
Combining is only worth it if a) house is already wired withonly 1 wire or b) you want a lot of rooms and you could use a distribution type of system in attic.

Moffo

Hi, TheDriver
Thanks for your quick response. Would I need an amplifier for the TV Aerial input rather than a splitter. Presumably the amplifier needs a power source also.

TheDriver

Depends on your location but generally yes, you need one. Power supply can be from your living room up the coaxial if its a seperate wire to your satellite and amps can have 2 outputs so one to each tv.

nw1dqsv7amx026

Hi Driver,

I have only one cable from my attic to my living room!

Is it possible to put the sat lnb o/p and terrestrial signal from antenna onto this wire and into the living room?

I presently use this cable only for the lnb into the skybox in living room.

I have considered moving the sky box to the attic, routing the anntenna and lnb into the sky box then 9v o/p onto this cable down to living room.
But then I would lose stereo as I believe the 9v o/p of sky box does not have stereo?

Thanks,
Vincent

byte

Presley Low Cheddar wrote: »

Hi Driver,

I have only one cable from my attic to my living room!

Is it possible to put the sat lnb o/p and terrestrial signal from antenna onto this wire and into the living room?

I presently use this cable only for the lnb into the skybox in living room.

I have considered moving the sky box to the attic, routing the anntenna and lnb into the sky box then 9v o/p onto this cable down to living room.
But then I would lose stereo as I believe the 9v o/p of sky box does not have stereo?

Thanks,
Vincent

You could use a satellite/terrestrial diplexer. You'd need two of these, one in attic to combine, and one downstairs to seperate again.

What kind of cable is going from attic to living room. I ask this due to the loss introduced by the diplexers, and if it might be too much loss on top of lowgrade cable.

Putting your Skybox into the attic isn't advised, as the extremes of temperatures in attics isn't ideal for electronic equipment. And yes, you do lose stereo from using RF outputs, as opposed to the Scart (as well as Scart RGB picture being much superior to RF signal).

Is it totally out of the question to run a second lead from attic to living room?

bignose

Hi MOFFO, having had many years playing about with sat dishes, i would suggest if you have the choice to mount it in a get-attable position. You
can then re-set it when the wind mooves it.
It also gives you achance to view the many other sat's that are up there.
Keep the co-ax cable short.

TheDriver

Hi Vincent, totally possible as Byte has stated, you can get the combiner/divider from satellite.ie and retailers, easy stuff. Don't put your box into the attic, just pick up another fta box or sky box and move card around if you want.

staker

run 2coaxes (rg59 will do) to all points,3 to the main tv,1 for future reference (sky+ maybe) try avoid stb's in attics and if you can get him to wire a socket in the attic for a power supply to mast head amplifier on terrestrial signal..

Rippy

staker wrote: »

run 2coaxes (rg59 will do)

NO IT BLOODY WON'T !
CT100 (or equivalent) ideal, Rg6 absolute minimum. RG59 is for baseband video (eg. CCTV) and is hopelessly lossy at UHF or satellite IF.
I often come across houses completely wired with the stuff, and when I tackle them about it say something like" sure , it's all coax , it will work won't it?"

TheDriver

Rippy wrote: »

NO IT BLOODY WON'T !
CT100 (or equivalent) ideal, Rg6 absolute minimum. RG59 is for baseband video (eg. CCTV) and is hopelessly lossy at UHF or satellite IF.
I often come across houses completely wired with the stuff, and when I tackle them about it say something like" sure , it's all coax , it will work won't it?"

haha, you tell em Rippy! Can't believe someone recommending rg59, may as well use 40 year old coax altogether! CT100, WF100 etc, for sake of a few quid extra.

Tony

Dead right, almost every week someone calls and says " The electrician wired the house so all you have to do is put the dish up" . Makes me wonder why the electrician has not put the dish up since he is so expert at satellite cabling.

staker

get the house owner to pay for the ct100 and see him/her grin from ear to ear! whats the difference i honestly dont know

staker

and youve blown me hearing aids young man!

Tony

Its obvious you don't know

staker wrote: »

get the house owner to pay for the ct100 and see him/her grin from ear to ear! whats the difference i honestly dont know

staker

do you know tony?

byte

Rippy has already mentioned why RG59 isn't suitable - it's just too lossy, even for terrestrial signals.

Tony

Of course as I do this for a living, Rippy is correct, he does this for a living too

staker wrote: »

do you know tony?

staker

tnx guys for the info... not being rude but i'll still use the rg59 until i get a customer who'll pay me forthe ct 100. the cheaper options will always appeal more to the punter even though i price for both.

watty

@ staker

you may be creating interference and could be sued.

non-Satellite cable has not good enough screening and very high level amplified IF signal from 500MHz to 2400MHz leaks out "jamming"/interfering potentially with TV, GSM900, GSM1800, 1.4GHz security, DECT cordless phones, 864MHz barcode, microphone and baby monitors, 3G 2100MHz and other systems.

And it's lossy.

The main cost apart from Setbox/Dish/LNB is labour, which ought to nearly equal the cost of cheap equipment. It's just simply careless, miserly, unprofessional and selfish to use the wrong cable.

If you want to be penny pincher at least use a decent version of RG6 and then all the neighbours and other gadgets in the house won't have to suffer.

It's simple you don't offer prices for things that are wrong, like 43cm dishes when for rain margin you need 65cm or 80cm (Actually Astra 2D will work here on 43cm in west, but Eurobird and other Astra's won't.

Do you use smaller screws and bits of wood as pegs to bolt the dish as that is cheaper and customers don't want to pay extra for the proper bolts?

It's part of ANY job to only offer parts "fit for purpose", otherwise you could be sued.

staker

@ watty

i will not supply material that i will not be paid for. any claims against me will fail as my customers have already been informed of choice available..i do not care about interference as that is not my profession.

Tony

Guess your not into good quality installs then

staker wrote: »

tnx guys for the info... not being rude but i'll still use the rg59 until i get a customer who'll pay me forthe ct 100. the cheaper options will always appeal more to the punter even though i price for both.

Tony

Then do us all a favour and stop posting bad advice on this forum, people who read posts rely on correct information.

staker wrote: »

i do not care about interference as that is not my profession.

staker

jeez guys chill my bad, dont use rg 59 sry for upsetting your thread moffo

Hissing Sideban

I bought a new house three years ago from someone who had bought 'off plan' so I didn't get any say in anything like cableing.

All I can say is thank god the 'Celtic Tiger / Housing boom is over, as it was carte blanche for every bodger who can wield a hammer and nail (screws? they are just harder to hammer in aren't they). The standard of workmanship is atrocious! none of the doors are the same shape as the frames etc.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, the bodger who wired it had used RG59, and at that had only run a single cable to each room - this is in a non cable d area, mind you.

I had to replace the cables in my house by gingerly pulling the old cable out ,drawing two pieces of nylon string through, in the process, and then drag a new CT100 / RG 6 run through one at atime, leaving a draw string in place.
Without doing this, the pictures were awful, since the braid on most RG59 is not dense enough to stop some pickup directly through the shield.

The guy who says he 'does it for a living' therefore must be right is, I am afraid mistaken!

I am a qualified RF engineer, and I can tell you that RG59 is no good for TV cables in most situations. You might get away with it sometimes and in certain situations, but it isn't the right thing to do.

How can anyone say that the extra cost of a roll of RG6 versus RG 59 is going to make any difference. (saving of about €10)
It's greed on the part of developers and the attitude if you can cut corners then do so. Sure, it's only an awl country job.....!

Tony

To be fair to developers they rely on the electricians to fit the correct cable which is where most of the problems occur in my experience. I can never understand why they do not consult specialists in Rf distribution. Sorry to hear about your bad experience with your house.

staker

@ tony
am i mistaken in thinking there's a put down to electrcians in that last comment? ive been called back to tidy up plenty of satellite installations...
half bricks missing from front walls;cables run exteriorly at an angle barely clipped, a lot of dishes thrown up at dangerously low heights,and the most common the customer complaining of bad telephone lines after satellite installations.i can understand fellas not knowing- they were obviously never trained which is a different matter-but please dont imply that electricians arent up to the task of wiring a house solely because they dont install ct100

watty

staker wrote: »

@ watty

i will not supply material that i will not be paid for. any claims against me will fail as my customers have already been informed of choice available..i do not care about interference as that is not my profession.

yes you do, because it's illegal to cause interference and your customers will be sick of phones interfering with channels and vice versa. It's the law that if you sell goods they must be fit for the purpose.

You can be sued for offering substandard materials as an alternative, the customer is expecting the installer to be more expert.

Would you use Bell wire or loudspeaker cable for a lighting flex? It works because I've seen "home made" extension cables using both.. (Shudders).

If you kink mains flex and the insulation does not crack it works, put a sharp kink in coax and some frequencies bounce back up the cable, some are blocked and some leak out. RF is not like mains.

Tony

If they install rg59 they are definitely not up to the job and you previously said that it was ok to do so. I am speaking from experience where the electrician has fitted the wrong cable type, not enough cable and has run it to the wrong place. If an electrician does not fit ct100 type cable for a satellite feed then he definitely is not up to the job and to argue otherwise shows a lack of understanding of what is required for a professional installation to CAI standards.

staker wrote: »

@ tony
am i mistaken in thinking there's a put down to electrcians in that last comment? ive been called back to tidy up plenty of satellite installations...
half bricks missing from front walls;cables run exteriorly at an angle barely clipped, a lot of dishes thrown up at dangerously low heights,and the most common the customer complaining of bad telephone lines after satellite installations.i can understand fellas not knowing- they were obviously never trained which is a different matter-but please dont imply that electricians arent up to the task of wiring a house solely because they dont install ct100

staker

Tony wrote:

If they install rg59 they are definitely not up to the job and you previously said that it was ok to do so. I am speaking from experience where the electrician has fitted the wrong cable type, not enough cable and has run it to the wrong place. If an electrician does not fit ct100 type cable for a satellite feed then he definitely is not up to the job and to argue otherwise shows a lack of understanding of what is required for a professional installation to CAI standards.

3 things:1 cable type is specified in engineers spec "coaxial cable to be supplied to each tv point"
2 what do you mean by not enough? coax is terminated to face plate and wrapped around nearest rafter to trap door/dormer hatch
3electrician follows plans supplied by customer
cai is not a standard that i need to follow abd i wish more of ye would adhere to their standards

Tony

You are not making any sense, perhaps you could edit your post

staker

so thats it i suppose. thats a lame resort...i'm tired of this thread, rg 59 is old and extinct apparently, yet its still widely available and in the main is primarily installed in new developments.. there has to be a tightening of regs before a resolution can be reached.

Tony

RG59 is not widely installed in any new developments that I have seen, which developments are you referring to? Bell wire widely available too but it does not mean you use it for satellite. There are no regs covering satellite installations so how can they be tightened? The CAI standards are well thought out and should be used so that the customer gets a quality installation that will last in all weathers.

staker wrote: »

so thats it i suppose. thats a lame resort...i'm tired of this thread, rg 59 is old and extinct apparently, yet its still widely available and in the main is primarily installed in new developments.. there has to be a tightening of regs before a resolution can be reached.

byte

In fairness, I think engineers and developers of these developments should take the rap for this too, in not specifiying proper cabling to be used. They probably just want to cut corners wherever possible.

Tony

Agreed, the tv cabling seems to be thrown in as an afterthought with little or no planning

watty

"electrician" is a Generic term.

One trained & qualified for domestic wiring would not be allowed to do HV factory work with out any experience or supervision.

CCTV/Security systems for Banks also need extra training and experience.

Doing CAT5 structured cable or CAT3 MDF wiring needs different experience and training.

Wiring studios, Projection room/lecture theatres needs extra training and experience.

The fact is that even domestic wiring in this country seems to be at an erratic standard.

TV & Satellite installs need specialist knowledge. Sadly anyone can set themselves up as an installer and I have even seen very shoddy jobs done by "official Sky installers" that really only know the pointy end of the drill.

There is not enough good old fashioned Apprenticships and Technican training in this Country, which is what these jobs need, with lots of practical training. Instead of smart practical lads and lasses training as Technicians and doing practical apprenticeships they are encouraged to do Degrees leading to deskjobs.

I object to the people sent out by UPC/Sky or 3rd party installers being called Engineers, as a an Engineer is able to design and specify systems (with 3+ experience & degree before being really useful) and rarely allowed to install or repair anything.

We need good Technicians. They are unobtainable, and many installers little better than labourers. This of course makes the proper outfits that have real Technicians and Engineers look very expensive.

Moffo

Just to get this thread back on track....

How close together can I mount a Satellite Dish and an Aerial.

Thanks guys:)

Tony

as close as you like as long as you do not obstruct the satellite dishes' "line of sight" to the satellite

Onikage

Yup, in my area the terrestrial transmitter is to the north so some people even mount their aerials on the back of the dish!

0--)|-¦-¦-¦

TheDriver

My uhf yagi aerial is on the bracket for my dish though its point in opposite direction so doesn't affect the line of sight. Best thing to get is the K type brackets and a pole between them and mount dish and aerial(s) on it and make them quite sturdy.