Distribution amp

PauloMN

Looking at getting this for distributing Saorview, Freeview and the output from my Sky+ box around the house. I've no experience of the Sky eye setups, and I'm wondering the following:

This unit takes the RF2 out from the Sky+ box and distributes to each output, which you can use a Sky eye thingy on. Now I only want to have a Sky eye in say two of the rooms, not them all.

My question is, given that there's a DC voltage on the line to power the Sky eye, if I do not have a Sky eye in some of the rooms, will this voltage damage any of the TVs or boxes in those rooms? I could have this totally wrong here, but I'm guessing that those feeds with a Sky eye do not have the DC on them when the coax enters the TV, but without the Sky eye on certain other feeds, is there potential for the DC to damage TVs or decoders?

zg3409

OK, I see you have opened two threads, but anyway..

There are 3 questions here:

1) Sky Eye
With a Sky eye EVERY TV MUST WATCH THE SAME CHANNEL (unless they are getting it from Saorview or Freeview)

The quality of the picture is not good, it is worse than SCART, and on large TVs it looks bad. You should be connecting the main TV with HDMI not using a Sky eye.

There are guides on how to set up a Sky eye with one TV, you need to go into menu on the Sky box and enable hidden settings ETC. In your case you need to set the channel number the Sky sends it signal on to a local free channel (I.e. NOT freeview Divis or Saorview Clairmont Cairn, or it will blot them out) This is a hidden setting. You must find a local clear UHF channel number.

After setting up the menus and connecting things up, you need to do an ANALOGUE tune on each TV, and it should then find the Sky channel (like the way VCRs are set up)

One thing worth noting is you really need an extra Sky remote for every TV with an eye.

2) Recommeneded Sky eye compatable distribution amplifier
-I would not recommend one with VHF, satellite, just UHF only. This is because a Sky eye and Saorview and Freeview is UHF only. The other features/frequencies will just weaken the quality of the signal you want to let through. You want the box to only allow UHF and not anything else, with the least losses, and possibly a slight gain per TV.

-There are loads of units that will do this. Generally one with F connectors are better as they make a better connection. Do not get more outputs than you need, as it wastes signal.

3) Will I damage non Sky eye TVs
-Yes, power is applied to all outputs, so ideally you need a Sky eye on every TV (they are not expensive) or something to block the DC, some wall outlets have a DC blocking capacitor or you could use something like:
http://cpc.farnell.com/1/1/437-dc-blocking-f-plug-33-0020.html

PauloMN

zg3409 wrote: »

OK, I see you have opened two threads, but anyway..

There are 3 questions here:

1) Sky Eye
With a Sky eye EVERY TV MUST WATCH THE SAME CHANNEL (unless they are getting it from Saorview or Freeview)

The quality of the picture is not good, it is worse than SCART, and on large TVs it looks bad. You should be connecting the main TV with HDMI not using a Sky eye.

At the moment, I'm using 2.4GHz wireless senders. They are absolutely useless with the amount of wifi devices in this house. UHF modulated Sky box output would be a dream compared to what I have at the moment, believe me.

zg3409 wrote: »

There are guides on how to set up a Sky eye with one TV, you need to go into menu on the Sky box and enable hidden settings ETC. In your case you need to set the channel number the Sky sends it signal on to a local free channel (I.e. NOT freeview Divis or Saorview Clairmont Cairn, or it will blot them out) This is a hidden setting. You must find a local clear UHF channel number.

After setting up the menus and connecting things up, you need to do an ANALOGUE tune on each TV, and it should then find the Sky channel (like the way VCRs are set up)

One thing worth noting is you really need an extra Sky remote for every TV with an eye.

I get all that. I'll get a Sky remote if needs be, not that pushed tbh. What usually happens is I want to finish off watching something in the bedroom, so I just bring the Sky remote down to the bedroom.

zg3409 wrote: »

2) Recommeneded Sky eye compatable distribution amplifier
-I would not recommend one with VHF, satellite, just UHF only. This is because a Sky eye and Saorview and Freeview is UHF only. The other features/frequencies will just weaken the quality of the signal you want to let through. You want the box to only allow UHF and not anything else, with the least losses, and possibly a slight gain per TV.

-There are loads of units that will do this. Generally one with F connectors are better as they make a better connection. Do not get more outputs than you need, as it wastes signal.

Could you post some links to some examples of these, as I can't find any? The Labgear looks the part as it has a UHF input and a separate input from the Sky box, which is what I'm looking for. I don't know how I'd manage the wiring off the UHF Saorview/Freeview feeds AND a Sky box output into one UHF input, that would also handle the Sky eyes.

zg3409 wrote: »

3) Will I damage non Sky eye TVs
-Yes, power is applied to all outputs, so ideally you need a Sky eye on every TV (they are not expensive) or something to block the DC, some wall outlets have a DC blocking capacitor or you could use something like:
http://cpc.farnell.com/1/1/437-dc-blocking-f-plug-33-0020.html

Perfect, those DC blockers look the job. I'll only need a Sky eye in two rooms (for the time being). The DC blocking F-plugs will do the job on the other outputs.

Peter Rhea

PauloMN wrote: »

I don't know how I'd manage the wiring off the UHF Saorview/Freeview feeds AND a Sky box output into one UHF input, that would also handle the Sky eyes.

The usual way is to route the aerial feed via the Sky box RF-in & then RF2 will have the aerial signal, along with the Sky RF output. RF2 then goes to the distribution amp.

In 'SAT.' mode, the Labgear unit works as 2 separate amplifiers, with the 'uplink' port providing the UHF input for the distribution part. Presumably if it is switched to 'UHF & CCTV' mode to pass the aerial signal direct to the numbered outputs, the uplink is disabled.

According to http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/loftbox5.htm, the HDU681 has been superseded by a newer model.

Peter Rhea

The usual way is to route the aerial feed via the Sky box RF-in & then RF2 will have the aerial signal, along with the Sky RF output. RF2 then goes to the distribution amp.

This kind of 'daisy chaining' might not provide satisfactory results. Articles here, http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/articles/index.shtml: 'A simple domestic distribution system' & 'Domestic RF distribution systems for television and radio' explain some of the pitfalls & suggest alternatives.

zg3409

Peter Rhea wrote: »

This kind of 'daisy chaining' might not provide satisfactory results. Articles here, http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/articles/index.shtml: 'A simple domestic distribution system' & 'Domestic RF distribution systems for television and radio' explain some of the pitfalls & suggest alternatives.

That article does make some sense. For the OP the normal recommendation is to use FreeSat to receive UK channels in Meath. If you insist on using a terrestrial aerial for Freeview instead, every part of the system will need to be optimised in order to to get as reliable a setup as possible.

Regarding the distribution amplifier it does seem as if only VHF and UHF amplifiers compatable with Sky are available. In simple terms it is probably best then, to just leave the VHF connection unconnected to anything. One like this should work:

http://www.tvtrade.ie/proception-6-way-tv-amplifier.html

However with weak (freeview) and strong (saorview) signals combined, sometimes a distribution amplifier can be hard to get right. In a perfect world you would just use one amplifier (a mastead one) and not have one amplifier (masthead) then connected to another slight amplifier (sky box) and then into the distribution amplifier. The reason is each amplifier adds a little noise to each signal, and cascaded amplifiers amplify the signal and the noise of the amplifier before it.

Depending on the signal levels where you live, and the levels after the masthead amplifier, a distribution amplifier may make pictures worse, and without proper test equipment it can be hard to be sure you are squeezing out the max signal to noise ratio.