Sky Q LNB question?

Doltanian

This Sky Q has my previous older Satellite knowledge totally dumbfounded as I never came across it before until this weekend.

Do Sky Q use a new type of Special Dual output LNB?

My brother has Sky Q and wants to move the Box into the Living room and use a Magic Eye in the Kitchen, problem is Sky seem to have got rid of the feature so today we attempted to replace the Sky Q with a SkyHD box.

So today we replaced the Sky Q box with a normal Sky HD box and IO RF out interface to use Magic eye, CAT5 cabling and a HDMI splitter and Balun are planned to be used to transmit the HD picture to the kitchen.

When I connected up the SkyHD box I was only getting one feed and even then not all the channels, I presumed this to be a faulty LNB and changed it to a SkyHD Quad feed LNB, then when I tested the Sky Q box it was receiving nothing off the Quad LNB which led me to think the SkyQ box was faulty but now I think this assumption was incorrect.

Would I be correct in this assumption?

• The Sky Q box will not work with an older Quad LNB that would normally feed a SkyHD box?
• Will a SkyHD box receive only one feed off a Dual-output Sky Q box and then only in one polarisation leading to a loss of channels?

The Cush

Doltanian wrote: »

Would I be correct in this assumption?

• The Sky Q box will not work with an older Quad LNB that would normally feed a SkyHD box?
• Will a SkyHD box receive only one feed off a Dual-output Sky Q box and then only in one polarisation leading to a loss of channels?

The Sky Q LNB is new tech. It's a full band capture (FBC) wideband LNB where all channels are sent down the 2 cables simultaneously, 1 cable carries the Hor. band channels the other the Vert. band. The LNB converts the full frequency range down to 290-2340 MHz via a single LOF of 10.41 GHz, legacy I.F. range is 950-2150 MHz. No Hi/Lo band switching or polarisation switching is done at the LNB, like the old LNBs. Legacy LNBs send a quarter of that range to a legacy satellite receiver down each cable with the selection done at the LNB when the selected tone (band) and voltage (polarisation) is received.

This is the standard SkyQ LNB fitted at installation but isn't compatible with legacy satellite receivers.

Using this new technology allows multiple tuners to be fed from just 2 cables in much the same way as a standard terrestrial aerial works but with 2 polarisations in the case of satellite. The SkyQ silver box has 12 tuners and the basic SkyQ 8 tuners. Legacy sat receivers would require a cable for each tuner.

Also, SkyQ incorporates another technology, dSCR (digital single cable routing) for multiswitches, apartments etc. A discussion for another day.

Local oscillator frequency
- existing legacy LNB twin LOF 9.75/10.6 GHz (10.7 - 9.75/12.75 - 10.6 I.F. 950-2150 MHz
- new SkyQ LNB single LOF 10.41 GHz (10.7/12.75 - 10.41 I.F. 290-2340 MHz

Sky do supply a 6 output (smart) Hybrid LNB which will work with both types of receiver. Not advertised and the are reluctant to use it unless you insist at installation, recent thread here - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057756612

Magic eyes won't work, all remote viewing is done via their SkyQ mini multiroom boxes, connected wirelessly from the main SkyQ box

A point to note, because of the wider I.F. range (290 MHz upwards) it's no longer possible to diplex the terrestrial Saorview channels on the same cables, as could be done with legacy satellite receivers (950 MHz upwards). The two frequency ranges will interfere with each other in the range 470-790 MHz, depending on which Saorview/Freeview frequencies are used locally.