Terrestrial + Sat distribution advise

KerranJast

Hey all,

Apologies if this is in the wrong place or answered already. I couldn't find an exact match to my issue anyway.

We're wiring up a renovated farmhouse for TV & Satellite. There will be 5-6 rooms with TV points.

The plan I have is run coax from the TV aerial to the main sitting room where we'll have a combo receiver. Also we'll run twin coax from the dish LNB to that receiver (1 lnb connector on the dish atm but we plan to change it to a dual LNB at some point).

From research online, we would then run coax back from RF out of the combo receiver to a suitable powered distribution amplifier which would feed a combined saorview feed + a UHF channel from the Satellite system around to the other rooms.

Am I correct in that so far?

Also a further question, to save us running redundant coax all down the house, can we use a simple 2 way splitter at the far end to split 1 cable to 2 TV points?

I assume there will be some signal loss but the main question I have is can such a splitter be used after a distribution amp?

Thanks.

Loos

No problem splitting the output of the distribution amplifier, provided you end up with enough signal after the split. This will be dependent on what the signal is like at the input to the amp, the gain of the amp & length of cable to the splitter.

Most of these amps have gain over & above what is needed for splitting losses within the amplifier itself & any cable losses likely to be encountered in the typical domestic setup. Some also have a full gain output, specifically for the purposes of extending the distribution system, though this tends to be a feature of models with 6 outputs & up.

The Cush

KerranJast wrote: »

The plan I have is run coax from the TV aerial to the main sitting room where we'll have a combo receiver. Also we'll run twin coax from the dish LNB to that receiver (1 lnb connector on the dish atm but we plan to change it to a dual LNB at some point).

From research online, we would then run coax back from RF out of the combo receiver to a suitable powered distribution amplifier which would feed a combined saorview feed + a UHF channel from the Satellite system around to the other rooms.

Am I correct in that so far?

Yes, that should work. A point to note not all combi receivers have an RF out, they are disappearing from products now in favour of connecting directly to the TV via HDMI. Even now the newer Sky boxes come without an RF2 out and require the user to buy an attachment to allow this to happen.

KerranJast wrote: »

Also a further question, to save us running redundant coax all down the house,

Any extra co-ax cable you install now may be redundant but who knows what you'll require in future, maybe separate satellite TV points in the other rooms if everyone doesn't want to watch the programme being watched on the main TV. Once the cabling is buried behind the plaster there's no easy way to upgrade. If you need the extra feed in future it's better to be looking at it than for it.

When my brothers built their houses this is what we did
- All TV points were wired back to central point in the attic
- Aerial wired back to central point in the attic
- 4 co-ax cables from a quad (4 output) LNB on the dish to the central point in the attic
- 4 co-ax cables from the main room (2 for satellite PVR, 1 aerial, 1 spare/Sky RF2 return)
- 2 co-ax cables to to the other TV points (1 sat/1 aerial or 2 sat + aerial combined)
- Aerial distribution amp feeds each TV point with Saorview
- Satellite feeds wired direct to the required TV points, in future if more than 4 feeds are required the LNB is repaced with a quattro to feed a multiswitch which would feed multiple sat receivers.

KerranJast

Thanks for the info guys.

I'll consider adding a second coax run to one of the other rooms for future proofing as suggested.

kbell

If you're going to run 1, it's just as handy to pull 2 through, for the cost of an extra roll of cable €20, it's fat cheaper than paying someone to do it later on.
Also run phone/cat 5 to each point too.

Johnboy1951

I would suggest you wire all locations to a central point such as "The Cush" has posted.
Personally I would not have this in the attic, but in some location convenient to the householder .... both from a safety point of view as well as easy access.

In addition I would wire at least one Cat5e cable to each room along with the coax.

It is hard to predict what your future use might be, but is not unreasonable to expect a lot more devices providing data based on an internet (and/or LAN) connection ..... so Cat5e cabling would be a must in my view.

Also with all connections to a central 'media press' there would be a location for the placement of a NAS or Server for storage, not only of media files but also storage/backup of all user data.

You have one chance to do it right so put in a lot more than you think is necessary now and save a lot of hassle and 'work-arounds' in the future.

There are many people using 'homeplugs' and wireless presently, who would be very glad to have distributed ethernet available in their homes
Retrofitting is a nightmare in lots of cases .... I know I am attempting it in small steps


I now have client devices at a couple of TVs that have no coax used (there but unused), only Cat5e in use, and have LiveTV (Sat & DTT) available at each TV, as well as access to recorded media files, internet streaming etc etc.

I would love to be starting again - clean slate .........