SAT/CATV signal mixer/segregator problems

Landoflemon

I Hope this is the correct forum for this problem.

I have a satellite dish and an aerial on the roof. I have built a HTPC with a S2 receiver and DVB-T2 receiver. There is on coaxial cable going from the attic to the living room. If I attach the sat dish to the cable, down through the house and into the computer the sat channels are working, likewise if I just have the terrestrial aerial signal going down the wires on its own. I want both Satallite and terrestrial signals down in the living room, not one or the other.

In Urlan TV in Limerick they advised me to purchase a Sat/CatV signal mixer/segregator. I have one in the attic taking both signals, pushing them through the single coaxial cable, and down in the living room I have another taking the coaxial cable and splitting it back into the Sat and terrestrial signals. However, when this is now plugged into the computer, neither receiver is picking up the signal. (The T2 tuner is getting some, very jerky laggy image, the S2 tuner is getting nothing). Has anyone had a similar problem? Half temped to also put this in the HTPC forum but I don't want to come across as spamming or anything.

Any help would be appreciated, I've been doing testing in different rooms in the house, and dragging the PC up and down a ladder all of yesterday, just out of ideas.

Sam Russell

Use a splitter/combiner at both ends. Cost a few euro each, you will need two of them. Avaiable from tvtrade.ie and others.

Edit: Just re-read the post. How are you splitting the signal to send it to the PC? You must treat the two signals after the splitter as seperate lines, and the sat can only go to a sat receiver - you cannot share or split that. If you have two sat receivers you need two cables from the satellite dish/lnb.

The Cush

Can you post a picture of the Sat/CatV signal mixer/segregator?

If I were combining terrrestrial aerial and sat dish signals together I would use one of there - http://www.tvtrade.ie/alltrade-tv-aerial-and-satellite-combiner.html.

And to split the signal at the TV end either the above combiner or http://www.tvtrade.ie/wolsey-tv-aerial-and-satellite-wall-plate.html.

fat-tony

When I googled the unit you referred to, it seems similar to the passive splitter/combiners referred to by The Cush and Sam. These are quite commonly used for the purpose of sharing sat and UHF/VHF TV. Unless you have a dud unit, maybe you have an issue with the common coaxial coming down from the attic where it is connected to the splitters? You may have inadvertently shorted the braid to the central core when making up the F connectors at either end. Even a whisker of braid will short out the current to the LNB and will cause issues with the RF signals also. I'd say to carefully check all the F connectors to see if you have an issue - just a thought:)

Landoflemon

Thanks for the replies and the suggestions, and this is the image of the mixer/splitter I have:

http://www.worldvu.net/au/products_images/SAT_CATV%20Signal_Mixer.jpg

I went into Urlan TV again today and they were nice enough to test the mixer/splitter units and proved they were working. When I was putting the different F-connectors on I could have been a little rough with it upon retrospect and I was not thinking about them shorting so I'll just spend a few more hours tonight double checking everything. Thanks again.

Booms

Make sure you put the cable from the satellite to the sat input, and the aerial cable to the catv input. Easy to get mixed up.

Landoflemon

If anything I've been obsessive with checking I've not mixed up the Cat5 and sat ports every five minutes to make sure it's not my mistake! I brought the PC up to the attic again there. Plugged the Sat and terrestrial lines into the mixer, joined that onto the splitter and put both outputs into the computer and both signals were working fine, so now I've ruled out any incompatibility with the mixer/splitter and the HTPC, so it must be a problem with the other wiring in the house. I'm going off reattaching the F-connectors now...

Landoflemon

I've solved it with the help here on this forum. I cut off the ends on the coaxial cables, reapplied the f-connectors more carefully and now both signals are working fine downstairs in the living room! Thanks for the helpful suggestions :-)

My only problem now is that when watching the satellite stream the audio sounds like it's clipping every few seconds, it's probably a codecs problem or maybe a driver issue on my AMD 6770. I'll also try some different viewing software to see if that fixes it.

fat-tony

Sometimes it's just the simplest of things that cause the problem! Glad to be of help.