combining saorview with sky

beebaw

i have 2 sky boxes in the attic with a spc4 combiner, the hd sky box is using channel 68 and the standard box is using channel 60. i have magic eyes in the rooms and the signal is being pushed through to rooms using a 8 way distribution amp with bypass. All the tv's have built in DTV tuners for saorview so i have mounted a saorview aerial on the house, when this is plugged directly into the single uhf input on the distribution amp it works perfect but when i want to distribute this through the spc4 combiner along with the 2 sky rf inputs it will not come through to the tv's in the rooms.

so basically i want to be able to view the 2 sky boxes in each room and also have the saorview channels on all the tv's as well. what do i need to make this work?

cheers!

Peter Rhea

What did you plug the UHF aerial into? The combiner or one of the Sky boxes?

According to this diagram, you connect the aerial to one of the Sky box RF-ins.

MarkK

Is it just the Saorview signal you have a problem with?

Do you know what channels are used by local transmitters? Are you sure 60 and 68 are not used?

I would try putting the cable from the Ariel you are using for Saorview should be going into the RF in of one of the Sky boxes rather than directly into the SPC4.


Do you have a multiroom Sky subscription or are you just using the Sky boxes for free to air channels?

beebaw

When i connected the saorview aerial directly into the distribution amp and then tuned in 1 of the tvs the saorview cahnnels came in on ch30. I am living in north dublin. This is why i put the sky box channels onto ch60 & 68 to avoid interferance. After tuning in the tv for the saorview i then disconnected the feed and put back in the output from the spc4 into the single uhf input on the distribution and then tried putting the saorview aerial feed into the spc4 and also into the aerial in on the standard sky box but no dtv channels came in on the tv's

Peter Rhea

Try bypassing the distribution amp: connect the combiner output directly to one of the room cables. You might have too much amplification in the system when the Sky box RF passthrough is taken into account. Wouldn't explain why the problem occurs with the aerial feed connected direct to the combiner, unless it also provides some amplification.

You don't need the SPC4 anyway, if the Sky boxes are different types, as the remote signals are different. You could probably just 'daisy chain' the RF-out of one to the RF-in of the other & on to the distribution amp.

MarkK

Were the Sky boxes powered on?

The Saorview signal on channel 30 may not pass through the Sky box, if the box is turned off.

beebaw

Ok i will try this connected directly to a tv feed from the combiner. With the saorview aerial in the combiner also.

Just thinking when i connected the saorview aerial directly to the distribution amp the channels appeared on ch30. I then disconnected the saorview feed and put it into the sky box with the combiner connected back to the distribution. The sky box with the saorview now directly connected has a rf output on ch60. Would this mean that i dhould have retuned the dtv channel on the tv to ch60 and not ch30?

Also yes both sky boxes are always on.

Thanks for your comments

beebaw

Ok so i just tried putting the saorview feed into the sky box snd retuning the tv and again no saorview signal only the 2 rf sky channels on 60&68.

I also tried this with the saorview connected to the combiner and the combiner connected directly to a tv feed but again no look. Only the 2 sky channels.

Btw we have a multiroom sky subscription as well.

I was thinking if i connected the saorview feed to a rf modulator and had this set to ch50 i could then put this feed into the combiner. Would i then be able to get the saorview channels with the sky?

Peter Rhea

I presume you're doing a digital scan for the Saorview channels?

beebaw

Yea doing a full scan, it usually pauses on the digital scan at ch30 where the saorview channels usually come in if not combined with the sky,

Just doing a bit of looking there online and would a digitiser 35-37 work here for me? The fact the saorview comes in on ch30 and the sky are on 60/68?

Peter Rhea

Try changing the RF output channels on the Sky boxes, or disconnect each from the system in turn.

Their modulators can produce spurious output on channels well away from the set channel: these would usually be too insignificant to have an effect on a decent signal, but if you're using the aerial mentioned in this thread for reception from the Three Rock transmitter, then you probably don't have anything like a decent signal.