Spky + coax over Cat 6

pablo21

I have two coax cables coming from my sky + dish to my comm's room/ Cat 6 Patch panel. Can anyone recomend a Balun for converting the two coax to run over the cat 6 network (point to point) to where the Sky + box is? Also if this is not possible let me know! Many Many thanks for your help!

Tony

Unless something new has come out I dont believe this is possible as apart from not carrying RF you have now way to send control tone and voltage to the lnb.

pablo21 wrote: »

I have two coax cables coming from my sky + dish to my comm's room/ Cat 6 Patch panel. Can anyone recomend a Balun for converting the two coax to run over the cat 6 network (point to point) to where the Sky + box is? Also if this is not possible let me know! Many Many thanks for your help!

pablo21

Hi Tony, Many thanks for your reply. I currently use BNC Baluns for all my cctv system over Cat 6 and it works perfectly so I guessed there may be something similar available for rf. I "converted" the coax to cat 6 for the sky + and it does work but the signal has degraded quiet a bit, picture was choppy, so I guessed with all the different baluns available today (hdmi, rgb, audio, etc etc) that there may be one to do this little job for me! I know there are rf to ethernet adapters available in the states but I havent seen them used to extend the input to the sky dish as I hope to use it! The other option I have is to leave the box at the comms room and extend its output over cat 6 to the tv room and find a way to bring the "magic eye" back. I've just moved into the house and this is only temporary until I get everything up and runng, which will be a central media server sharing all media including a couple of sky inputs to all users around the house.

Tony

I think the box in the comms room is your best bet and then perhaps use a wireless remote control device to change channel

Edit: you might also try Paul http://www.premierav.ie/

pablo21

Just spoke with Paul in premierav and he was extremely helpfull! He pointed me in the direction of madnat.com and they have exactly what I need!!

So just to plug him again because he was so helpful...
http://www.premierav.ie/

watty

CCTV is only 50Hz to 6MHz.
SVGA / XVGA even is possible on CAT5, it's up to about 200MHz.

Satellite coax signal is 950MHz to 2100MHz and to the LNB carries 22kHz signalling (Selects L.O. for low or high part of Ku band), +13V or +18V power (powers LNB and selects vertical or horizontal polarisation).

It's not possible. You need proper Satellite grade coax.

You can feed RGB SCART out + stereo over 2 x CAT5 cables.

pablo21

Wow! I bow to your much superior knowledge!! As its only a temporary setup until I get my media server running, I could use one of the baluns to convert the output of the box to cat 6 http://www.madnat.com/5zwdx561725/-MadNat-Cat5-Extenders/TVRFFM/TVFMRF-via-Cat5---RJ45-connector/p-136-332-1226/ and run it over the network to the tv.
Many many thax for your input Watty!

watty wrote: »

CCTV is only 50Hz to 6MHz.
SVGA / XVGA even is possible on CAT5, it's up to about 200MHz.

Satellite coax signal is 950MHz to 2100MHz and to the LNB carries 22kHz signalling (Selects L.O. for low or high part of Ku band), +13V or +18V power (powers LNB and selects vertical or horizontal polarisation).

It's not possible. You need proper Satellite grade coax.

You can feed RGB SCART out + stereo over 2 x CAT5 cables.

fat-tony

Pablo - I think you and watty may be at cross-purposes;)
I'm assuming what you want to do is feed the RF output from the SKY box via CAT5/6. This would be feasible via baluns as the output from the sky box is in the UHF CH 21-69 range. I don't know what the quality would be like - depends on the baluns, distance carried etc.

What is not feasible is carrying the input from the dish to the SKY box via baluns and CAT5/6. The frequencies involved, as watty mentioned, are in the 1 - 2 GHz range from the LNB (low noise block amplifier) mounted on the dish arm to the receiver. Plus the LNB requires a DC voltage which is switched between 13V and 18V depending on the channel you're watching and also needs a 22kHz tone dependant on the frequency band of the satellite.

As Tony (no relation!) said, you may have to locate the SKY box in the distribution cabinet to allow direct connection to the downlead from the dish and then rig-up a wireless connection to permit operation of the remote control. The conventional "magic-eye" solution wouldn't work as you need a 9V supply at the TV end.... although it might be possible to power it directly - I'll leave that to your solution experts:)

pablo21

Guys,
I moved the box back to the comms room last night and enabled the second output to use the "magic eye", converted it to cat 6 and it worked! The picture's crap though! I think I'll just focus my time and energy on getting my media server built and finishing my network! (Something I actually know about!!)