Splitting signal from dish

andyeire

Would it be possible to split a signal from a dish with a single LNB.
What i want to do is keep a signal going to a FTV box to keep BBC card active .Only really use BBC card in Irish box for UTV and C4.But it stops working when it is out of its home box.I want to be able to watch Irish box while waiting for update.

Mossy Monk

pretty much useless doing that. you'd be better off with a dual lnb

lawhec

Would it be possible to split a signal from a dish with a single LNB?

The answer is yes, but only in a very restrictive way. You could only watch a channel that has the same polarity and band (either high or low as Astra call it) on the main Irish box as is on the FTV box. This is quite tricky and restrictive as the output can be either of four states - Low band vertical, low band horizontal, high band vertical, and high band horizontal. For example, BBC1 NI is broadcast on 11.720GHz H, therefore if your FTV box is tuned to that channel, the channel that you want to watch on the Irish Box must also be on a transponder which transmits with Horizontal polarity and also a frequency the same or higher than 11.720GHz (because 11.720GHz is the lowest frequency in the "high band")

In the days of Sky's analogue service this was more feasible as all the transmissions were in the low band, therefore there were only two states, horizontal and vertical polarity. Tech minded people would have probably coped with this as there were fewer channels, you were probably more likely to remember what "polarity" each channel was and you could group such channels together e.g. vertical channels tuned in on 1-32, horizontal on 33-64. Because Sky doesn't allow manual tuning into it's EPG, and there's more channels it's harder to remember and the EPG takes care of all the tuning, so you're less inclined to remember it's settings!

Also splitting the signal from the LNB will weaken the signal to both receivers by 3db min. This may not effect it most of the time, but you will be more likely to lose the signal in heavy rain (and killing off any chance of late night TV3 Prague ), and interference may occour if an unshielded splitter is used.

IMO it's not worth it. If you can try and get the four output LNB for Sky Digital Dishes for use with Sky+ in the UK. If not, there are no twin output Sky Digital LNBs available (a normal twin LNB will not fit a standard Sky Digital dish) so the best idea would be to get a standard 60cm Dish (or an old 80cm Sky Analogue dish, even better) and buy a twin output LNB with it. A note about the twin LNB, you will need a double run of cable into the house, but it is a true output - it is not split and acts like two seperate independent outputs.

If all this is too much then try and leave the FTV card in the digibox overnight for the card to be updated. It may not happen in one night but others with experience here would be better to listen to.

CivilServant

Sounds like a lot of complicated messiness I couldn't put up with, is there a simple way of getting two signals from a twin or quad LNB without purchasing another sky receiver and subscription?

shabbyroad

I have a Triax dish and a 4-output LNB connected to a 10 way active splitter. The splitter also has a VHF/UHF input.

The NTL and Dish feeds to this splitter are combined and go to various points around the house so I've got my regular Digibox in one room and a UK Box + card (purchased on eBay) in another. 3 way boxes (splitting TV,Sat & FM) are located in each room.

Bought everything at Electroplus in Beaumont, Dublin.

So, yes it can be done - it costs a little more but if you're looking at using mulitple Sky boxes around the house then it's the way to go.

John R

You do not need to involve sky in it at all. Just buy a quad lnb yourself and carefully replace the existing one with it then run a second cable to your FTV digibox. This also gives you the advantage of being able to watch a channel on the subscription box while recording from the FTV box.

As far as I know there isn't anywhere in Ireland that sells twin/quad lnbs for minidishes but they are both available on the net from Britian.

http://www.brymar.co.uk have a quad with fittings for minidishes for £55 Stg.

http://www.satcure.com also have minidish quad lnbs but they are more expensive. Although the lnb they offer is a proper minidish one wheras the brymar offering looks like it is a standard quad with minidish fittings, I am not certain though just guessing based on the photograph. Both shoud work but one designed for minidishes would be better with a weak signal.