Splitting a Satelite cable for two boxes

Football Friend

Hi, apologies if this has been asked before but basically I have a sky box set up for Eirsport and a freesat box for general tv. I want to hook both of these up on the one tv.

What would I need to do this? I read about splitters not being every good as you could only watch one box at a time due to the different frequencies but in my scenario that would be fine and changing the lnb and getting the cable into the house would be a lot of work.

Im hoping someone could confirm that a splitter would do the job (I know there may be potential signal strength/quality weakening) and what else I'd need, I'm thinking a splitter, two pieces of cable and 4 ends for the cables to connect each box to the splitter.

Im a complete novice with this so could be way off the mark but thanks for any advice anyway.

dowtchaboy

Football Friend wrote:

Im hoping someone could confirm that a splitter would do the job (I know there may be potential signal strength/quality weakening) and what else I'd need, I'm thinking a splitter, two pieces of cable and 4 ends for the cables to connect each box to the splitter.

Unfortunately there's a basic problem with trying to split a satellite signal. The signals arriving at the dish are in 2 groups, either horizontal and vertical polarisation, and the LNB (the block the cable goes to on the dish) decides which group passes on down the cable to your box. The voltage going UP to the LNB tells it which to select. That's simplifying it a bit, but the result is while you can split the signal between 2 or more boxes, only one of the boxes will control which group of channels you can watch at any particular time. What you have to do is have multiple cables coming from a dish,/LNB with multiple connectors, one to each box.

Football Friend

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Unfortunately there's a basic problem with trying to split a satellite signal. The signals arriving at the dish are in 2 groups, either horizontal and vertical polarisation, and the LNB (the block the cable goes to on the dish) decides which group passes on down the cable to your box. The voltage going UP to the LNB tells it which to select. That's simplifying it a bit, but the result is while you can split the signal between 2 or more boxes, only one of the boxes will control which group of channels you can watch at any particular time. What you have to do is have multiple cables coming from a dish,/LNB with multiple connectors, one to each box.

Thanks for the reply. If I'm only ever going to be using one box at any given time this shouldn't be an issue though would it? I'm planning on having both boxes set up on one tv. I really don't want to go down the extra cable/new LNB route unless I really have to.

Gerry Wicklow

AFAIK Sky boxes send power to the dish continuously. To do what you want, you will need to unplug the Sky box from the mains each time.

swoofer

have a look at this gadget but you must use the most frequently used receiver as the master. Its not great but could save you a bit of hassle. If you dont watch a lot of channels you can easily remember which channel the master has to be on to enale you to watch a channel on the slave.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/2-way-satellite-splitter-bm90x

The Cush

Smart Priority Switches

Master output take priority when main receiver is switched on, slave output takes priority when the main receiver is switched off.

http://www.pulsat.com/products/Digiality-Smart-Priority-Switch.html

or

2 Manual Two-Way A/B Satellite LNB Switches

http://www.pulsat.com/products/Manual-Two%252dWay-A%7B47%7DB-Satellite-LNB-Switch.html

Football Friend

The Cush wrote: »

Smart Priority Switches

Master output take priority when main receiver is switched on, slave output takes priority when the main receiver is switched off.

http://www.pulsat.com/products/Digiality-Smart-Priority-Switch.html

or

2 Manual Two-Way A/B Satellite LNB Switches

http://www.pulsat.com/products/Manual-Two%252dWay-A%7B47%7DB-Satellite-LNB-Switch.html

Cheers, that first link looks to be exactly what I need, connect my freesat box as the master, sky box as slave. Just make sure when I'm watching one box the other is switched off which would be the case anyway as it's one tv. Thanks.

Lastly, do you know which F connectors I'd need, there seems to be 3 different ones on the site. I just have a standard sky HD box and a Humax freesat box. I'm assuming I'll need 4, 2 to connect to the receiver and 2 to connect to the switcher. I should be ok for cable as I can just cut some from the one coming in from the dish, there is around 5ft extra on that.

machiavellianme

Football Friend wrote: »

Cheers, that first link looks to be exactly what I need, connect my freesat box as the master, sky box as slave. Just make sure when I'm watching one box the other is switched off which would be the case anyway as it's one tv. Thanks.

Lastly, do you know which F connectors I'd need, there seems to be 3 different ones on the site. I just have a standard sky HD box and a Humax freesat box. I'm assuming I'll need 4, 2 to connect to the receiver and 2 to connect to the switcher. I should be ok for cable as I can just cut some from the one coming in from the dish, there is around 5ft extra on that.

I have that Smart Priority switch. It's a great piece of kit. I use it as Master for my TNTSAT French channels, as soon as I turn that box on, it takes over. Turn the box off and it reverts to Sky. The only thing is to remember to put the TNTSAT box back to a satellite on 28e as there is no diseqc on the sky box, but you wont have that problem on a single sat setup.

I just use the cheap and cheerful twist on F connectors. Otherwise you need tools to put on some of the more elaborate versions.