Converting to Unicable

sligojoek · 22-04-2021 10:34pm #1

My sky dish with quad LNB has seen better days. I've been looking at getting unicable LNB to use with another sky dish I have in the shed.

I saw in a few places that it won't work "properly" with an oval disc and should be used with a circular one.

What would be possible pitfalls with an oval disc?

Also would anyone have a recommendation for a 4 way splitter?

Any other relevant info or tips would be welcome.

TIA

swoofer · 23-04-2021 9:42am

A dish is a dish. If you have a good strong signal with existing dish then you will have no problems. What people refer to as a problem is the fitting of a non sky lnb to a sky dish. The unicable collar is 40mm so you will need an adaptor. Look here.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SKY-DISH-MK4-HOLDER-ADAPTER/dp/B00FX7QAPE

For the splitter look here.

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/gt-sat-gt-sp41-4-way-satellite-unicable-splitter

If I was going unicable I would use world of sat and buy matching bits. All my sky dishes failed over the years so were replaced with triax ones, 68cm or slightly bigger. I still use an old sky wall mount for one dish.

Get a unicable with a legacy port for peace of mind.

I don't think many on here have a unicable so if I was you I would look on world of sat forum. You don't say what box you are going to use with the unicable. I know you have LG tv.

sligojoek · 23-04-2021 9:57am

swoofer wrote: »

A dish is a dish. If you have a good strong signal with existing dish then you will have no problems. What people refer to as a problem is the fitting of a non sky lnb to a sky dish. The unicable collar is 40mm so you will need an adaptor. Look here.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SKY-DISH-MK4-HOLDER-ADAPTER/dp/B00FX7QAPE

For the splitter look here.

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/gt-sat-gt-sp41-4-way-satellite-unicable-splitter

If I was going unicable I would use world of sat and buy matching bits. All my sky dishes failed over the years so were replaced with triax ones, 68cm or slightly bigger. I still use an old sky wall mount for one dish.

Get a unicable with a legacy port for peace of mind.

I don't think many on here have a unicable so if I was you I would look on world of sat forum. You don't say what box you are going to use with the unicable. I know you have LG tv.

Thanks for that.

I've a very good signal. My existing LNB was giving me 95 signal and 60 - 70 quality. It gave up the other night and I swapped the LNB for the one in the shed. Now getting 100 sig and 95 quality.

I knew about the 40mm adapter and have it in the basket. There's a satellite supplier in Sligo. I'll try them today and get what I can there and order anything they haven't got online.

Sat box is tiviar alpha. Hopefully getting zGemma at a later stage.

Johnboy1951 · 23-04-2021 10:16am

The difference between a 4 way and an 8 way splitter from WoS is only a couple of pounds.
https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/gt-sat-gt-sp81-8-way-satellite-unicable-splitter?search=8-way%20Unicable%20splitter

The difficulty these days is the cost of delivery from WoS ....... >£14!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That 8 way plus del and vat would be near €23 for a device which costs <€6

Find a cheaper delivery if not in a hurry with it.

.

sligojoek · 23-04-2021 10:26am

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

The difference between a 4 way and an 8 way splitter from WoS is only a couple of pounds.
https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/gt-sat-gt-sp81-8-way-satellite-unicable-splitter?search=8-way%20Unicable%20splitter

The difficulty these days is the cost of delivery from WoS ....... >£14!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That 8 way plus del and vat would be near €23 for a device which costs <€6

Find a cheaper delivery if not in a hurry with it.

.

Ya. The postage makes it very expensive. I'll try the lad in town later and if he hasn't it might get my daughter to order one on Amazon prime. I found an inverto , same brand as LNB for about a fiver.

The arm on the dish is rotten. I just discovered this changing the LNB the other day. I don't know how it survived the wind we had a few weeks ago.

Johnboy1951 · 23-04-2021 10:49am

I missed your reference to Zgemma previously ........ I have tried an old Zgemma H.2S fed from two outputs of that 8 way splitter, and it works very well.
The only difficulty I had was keeping track of which slots I used on which box

The Zgemma running OpenATV had a nice setup for Unicable ...... it has a list of LNBs and after you select your one, it has the slots and frequencies available for selection. It makes set up a doddle.

.

NewClareman · 23-04-2021 2:08pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

The Zgemma running OpenATV had a nice setup for Unicable ...... it has a list of LNBs and after you select your one, it has the slots and frequencies available for selection. It makes set up a doddle.

The Tiviar, and I'm sure all Unicable-capable boxes have the same setup on OpenATV. I can never understand why people are still recommending legacy solutions with lots of coax cable.

swoofer · 23-04-2021 5:30pm

Its probably for those TV's with a sat tuner that are not unicable compatibile. Also freesat boxes and they are a lot of these about. Sky HD for FTA are not unicable compatible. With quad lnb's cables are already in situ etc so makes sense to use legacy ala the sky hybrid lnb.

dubrov · 23-04-2021 6:17pm

I use a Quattro LNB fed to a Unicable multiswitch (along with terrestrial signal).
The switch can output the signal in Unicable 1/2, Sky Q or legacy format as needed.

I only use Unicable and legacy formats and all works well

sligojoek · 23-04-2021 8:58pm

NewClareman wrote: »

The Tiviar, and I'm sure all Unicable-capable boxes have the same setup on OpenATV. I can never understand why people are still recommending legacy solutions with lots of coax cable.

Yeah. My system at the moment is 3 cables from the dish and 1 from the aerial. 4 cables cable tied down the downpipe then along the house to 4 holes . Over the years they've all sagged and look horrible.

With this system I'm going to use a shotgun cable. One from the aerial and one from the uni able LNB. Much tidier.

I got a splitter today from local shop he said I was the first lay person to specifically ask for this kind of splitter.

Everything else is ordered from satworld in Dublin. Should have all on Monday. Will report on how it goes.

sligojoek · 26-04-2021 2:16am

I was away for a few days. All that stuff was ordered and came Friday evening. Fair play to satworld.ie I unticked or didn't tick the box for the 40mm holder so will go looking for one tomorrow.

I'll do the donkey work with the cables tomorrow and keep the existing system live till I get the LNB holder

sligojoek · 27-04-2021 1:14am

I got the new dish up today with the sky LNB and have it at 100% signal and 98% Quality. I pulled out all the old cabling and it's sitting on the footpath still connected. The new white shotgun cable is tacked up invisibly with a metre to spare at each end waiting for the next phase.

I also got sorted with a 40mm to sky LNB holder. There's a supplier in Sligo that I never knew about. http://sat-planet.ie/. €3 to buy it €5 postage. I can handle that. Should have it Wednesday and finish the job at the weekend.

winston_1 · 27-04-2021 10:38am

swoofer wrote: »

A dish is a dish. If you have a good strong signal with existing dish then you will have no problems. What people refer to as a problem is the fitting of a non sky lnb to a sky dish. The unicable collar is 40mm so you will need an adaptor. Look here.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SKY-DISH-MK4-HOLDER-ADAPTER/dp/B00FX7QAPE

There is more to it than that. The feed horn of a standard LNB is designed to illuminate a circular dish. With a sky dish it will look outside the dish top and bottom and pick up additional noise. That is why a sky LNB feedhorn is specially designed to look at an elliptical dish.The Satcure website has more details and diagrams.

sligojoek · 28-04-2021 8:23pm

I got the 40mm collar this morning. As it was a good day I went ahead and finished everything with a bit of tidying up to do tomorrow.

I've turned the box on now. In tuner settings / advanced, I can't find any reference to unicable tuner.

Any advice welcome.

Thanks

dubrov · 28-04-2021 8:28pm

You'll see "Type of LNB/device".
Select SCR (Unicable/JESS) LNB and then "SCR(Unicable/JESS)" LNB on the next line.
Then select the manufacturer and model of the LNB and all should be good

sligojoek · 28-04-2021 9:41pm

OK that's got me a lot of the way. Thanks.

Once I get to selecting the model mine isn't there.

I have IDLU-32UL42-UNBOO-OPP.

The nearest option I'm getting is IDLU-32UL40-UNBOO-OPP.

The side panel tells me If my model is not listed that I can manually enter the parameters. Any Idea how I'd go about doing that?

Johnboy1951 · 28-04-2021 10:11pm

sligojoek wrote: »

OK that's got me a lot of the way. Thanks.

Once I get to selecting the model mine isn't there.

I have IDLU-32UL42-UNBOO-OPP.

The nearest option I'm getting is IDLU-32UL40-UNBOO-OPP.

The side panel tells me If my model is not listed that I can manually enter the parameters. Any Idea how I'd go about doing that?

The info that came with the LNB will have a list of frequencies against the slots used ........ like this

UB1 1210 MHz (EN50494+EN50607)
UB2 1420 MHz (EN50494+EN50607)
UB3 1680 MHz (EN50494+EN50607)
UB4 2040 MHz (EN50494+EN50607)

sligojoek · 28-04-2021 11:28pm

I tried that and still no luck.

This is my settings screen. Maybe someone can see something I'm doing wrong.

dubrov · 28-04-2021 11:51pm

sligojoek wrote:

The nearest option I'm getting is IDLU-32UL40-UNBOO-OPP.

Try this option out as the frequencies are likely the same.

You'll then need to select a frequency to sign to the tuner (e.g. 1210). You need to make sure each tuner is assigned to a different frequency to avoid a conflict

Apogee · 28-04-2021 11:54pm

Is this your LNB?
https://www.inverto.tv/lnb/373/unicable-ii-programmable-40mm-lnb-with-32-ub?locale=en

It's supports Unicable and Unicable II. Might be better to try on the older standard first.

Try changing the 'Channel' to SatCR 1 (i.e. 1210 MHz freq.). Scan and see what happens.

If nothing, try changing the Diction to EN50494 and scan again.

sligojoek · 29-04-2021 12:30am

dubrov wrote: »

Try this option out as the frequencies are likely the same.

You'll then need to select a frequency to sign to the tuner (e.g. 1210). You need to make sure each tuner is assigned to a different frequency to avoid a conflict

The TV is in use at the minute so I might leave it till tomorrow.

I had a look through the spec sheets and the frequencies / parameters and EN numbers are the same. Some of the figures up above are different but I guess they're more to do with performance moreso than settings.

I'd known about the different SCR no.s per channel. Intend setting 1 and 2 for the Tiviar and 3 for the LG TV. I haven't a cable in there yet. I should have taken my time taking out the old one.

Apogee wrote: »

Is this your LNB?
https://www.inverto.tv/lnb/373/unicable-ii-programmable-40mm-lnb-with-32-ub?locale=en

It's supports Unicable and Unicable II. Might be better to try on the older standard first.

Try changing the 'Channel' to SatCR 1 (i.e. 1210 MHz freq.). Scan and see what happens.

If nothing, try changing the Diction to EN50494 and scan again.

I'll have a go at that as well tomorrow.

Thanks

com1 · 29-04-2021 8:11am

Hi sorry to hijack but I was alf thinking of converting to unicable too, I have a question about the tuners at the stb... do I need to split the unicable into each tuner port or can the box split the signals at the port... I.e. can I watch and record different channels at the same time with 1 cable?

Sorry if its a dumb question... my google-fu has failed me on this one

swoofer · 29-04-2021 8:50am

With a Tiviar box you will need a splitter. NB if you are going to buy a unicablelnb make sure for peace of mind that the box image supports it. Check the makes the box/software supports.

Later boxes are now coming with FBC tuners and an FBC tuner can receive more channels.

To get a good idea read on here.

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?59981-Guide-to-using-Unicable&highlight=unicable

sligojoek · 29-04-2021 9:14am

I think I'm sorted. I bypassed the splitter and went straight into tuner A and it's working perfect. Either a problem with the splitter or it's a wrong one.

dubrov · 29-04-2021 10:15am

com1 wrote: »

Hi sorry to hijack but I was alf thinking of converting to unicable too, I have a question about the tuners at the stb... do I need to split the unicable into each tuner port or can the box split the signals at the port... I.e. can I watch and record different channels at the same time with 1 cable?

Sorry if its a dumb question... my google-fu has failed me on this one

I've a Gigablue UHD UE 4k which has FBC tuners. I have one unicable feed going into it and it provides the equivalent of 8 tuners.
I think the only reason I would need to use the second slot was if I wanted to provide a feed from a second satellite dish.

I suspect, you may need to split the signal for normal tuners though but am not sure.

sligojoek · 29-04-2021 10:26am

I've done a bit of looking up since. The splitter I have has DC pass on just one port. I'm guessing i need one with a DC pass on all 4.

Last night I brought the 2 Tiviar feeds from ports without the DC pass. Just now I plugged Tuner A into the "live" one and B into another. There's a light on the splitter now and I've signal and picture on tuner A but nothing on B.

https://blog.solidsignal.com/tutorials/power-passing-splitter/

swoofer · 29-04-2021 10:44am

This is the type of splitter you need.

https://www.satworld.ie/2-way-powerpass-splitter-all-ports.html

swoofer · 29-04-2021 2:09pm

Out of interest can you link the splitter you bought? For the tiviar you could try loop through to A but you may still only get signals on same transponders.

If you have 2 fbc tuners you split signal and get 16 tuners!!

sligojoek · 29-04-2021 2:59pm

swoofer wrote: »

Out of interest can you link the splitter you bought? For the tiviar you could try loop through to A but you may still only get signals on same transponders.

If you have 2 fbc tuners you split signal and get 16 tuners!!

I bought it in a shop in town. I haven't a link.

I've since ran a cable from the TV in the kitchen to the "live" leg and it's working perfectly. Both tuners on the Tiviar will work through this leg as well and the LED lights up when each one is plugged in.

I'm going into town soon and see does that shop have one with 4 powered out legs.

swoofer · 29-04-2021 3:35pm

sat planet is in sligo and they got one

http://sat-planet.ie/tv-distribution/tv-splitters/outdoor-198

sligojoek · 29-04-2021 7:56pm

I went back into the shop this evening, explained the situation and he gave me a 4 pass model in exchange no extra charge.

Plugged the three cables in there now and all looks good so far. Herself has a few recordings set for this evening and some of them overlap. I won't be long finding out if anything is wrong.

Sat Planet are only doing online sales. If I hadn't got a splitter at Derry Taheney's I'd have ordered from them. They sorted me with the LNB holder.

Thanks for all the replies and aid.

Gerry Wicklow · 29-04-2021 10:06pm

sligojoek wrote: »

.... Herself has a few recordings set for this evening and some of them overlap. I won't be long finding out if anything is wrong. ......

Ah ha so that explains the very loud praying i heard coming from the Sligo direction earlier

:D:D

sligojoek · 05-05-2021 1:31am

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Ah ha so that explains the very loud praying i heard coming from the Sligo direction earlier :D:D

I didn't pray hard enough Gerry.

Two of those recordings were a little choppy in places as if there was wind and rain. Pausing for a second or two with bits of pixilation. I fobbed her off and I said I'd re-check all the connections today. Last night I settled down to watch the end of the snooker on BBC2 while recording ITV1. It started pausing again and I couldn't watch the snooker. I stopped recording ITV and it was fine. I went to the kitchen for the snooker and let herself watch The Chase.

Before doing anything else today I went into settings on the Tiviar and discovered Tuner B was set to "same as tuner A". I thought I'd put it to "advanced".

It seems OK now. Fingers crossed.

Johnboy1951 · 05-05-2021 9:57am

sligojoek wrote: »

I didn't pray hard enough Gerry.

Two of those recordings were a little choppy in places as if there was wind and rain. Pausing for a second or two with bits of pixilation. I fobbed her off and I said I'd re-check all the connections today. Last night I settled down to watch the end of the snooker on BBC2 while recording ITV1. It started pausing again and I couldn't watch the snooker. I stopped recording ITV and it was fine. I went to the kitchen for the snooker and let herself watch The Chase.

Before doing anything else today I went into settings on the Tiviar and discovered Tuner B was set to "same as tuner A". I thought I'd put it to "advanced".

It seems OK now. Fingers crossed.

That is an interesting observation.
I wonder what the cause might be.

I had less than satisfactory results with a similar setting on an old Zgemma H.2S and reverted to separate feeds to the tuners.
I blamed some mis-setting on my part, at the time.

dubrov · 05-05-2021 10:15am

I'm guessing "same as tuner A" just copies the settings from Tuner B to tuner A.
This probably creates a conflict as both tuners would attempt to use the same user band frequency.

Johnboy1951 · 05-05-2021 10:50am

dubrov wrote: »

I'm guessing "same as tuner A" just copies the settings from Tuner B to tuner A.
This probably creates a conflict as both tuners would attempt to use the same user band frequency.

No, what it does apparently is use an internal splitter and feeds two tuners from one coax, by utilising a loop-through connection on the receiver.
Separarate user bands/channels/SCR are set up in the tuner configuration.

dubrov · 05-05-2021 12:33pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

No, what it does apparently is use an internal splitter and feeds two tuners from one coax, by utilising a loop-through connection on the receiver.
Separarate user bands/channels/SCR are set up in the tuner configuration.

Ah ok. Not the problem then

spooner_j · 06-05-2021 10:32pm

sligojoek wrote: »

I didn't pray hard enough Gerry.

Two of those recordings were a little choppy in places as if there was wind and rain. Pausing for a second or two with bits of pixilation. I fobbed her off and I said I'd re-check all the connections today. Last night I settled down to watch the end of the snooker on BBC2 while recording ITV1. It started pausing again and I couldn't watch the snooker. I stopped recording ITV and it was fine. I went to the kitchen for the snooker and let herself watch The Chase.

Before doing anything else today I went into settings on the Tiviar and discovered Tuner B was set to "same as tuner A". I thought I'd put it to "advanced".

It seems OK now. Fingers crossed.

Same as Tuner A won't work correctly for Unicable.

You need to set it as advanced. Make sure all the settings on tuner A and B are the same except for Channel. Set Tuner A to User Band 1 and Tuner B to User Band 2.

If you add any other tuners on any other devices set them to other unused user bands. All tuners need a unique frequency to use to communicate with the LNB, which is what the User Channel dictates.

sligojoek · 06-05-2021 11:18pm

Yeah, that's what happened. I did all that the first day but mustn't have pressed save and it reverted back to "Same as" Which was the default on THHBs image.

It's been perfect ever since.

I'm glad it was such an easy fix. I was dreading pulling everything out and checking all the connections again. At least now there's only one up at the dish.

Must do a back up now or Gerry will kill me.

:D

Gerry Wicklow · 07-05-2021 12:28am

sligojoek wrote: »

...

Must do a back up now or Gerry will kill me. :D

If anything went wrong I'd probably be in a queue behind your other half

Johnboy1951 · 07-05-2021 1:06pm

spooner_j wrote: »

Same as Tuner A won't work correctly for Unicable.

You need to set it as advanced. Make sure all the settings on tuner A and B are the same except for Channel. Set Tuner A to User Band 1 and Tuner B to User Band 2.

If you add any other tuners on any other devices set them to other unused user bands. All tuners need a unique frequency to use to communicate with the LNB, which is what the User Channel dictates.

"Same As" will not work but "Connected to" will work, as the connected tuner is set up in advanced mode in similar fashion to the primary tuner, but the 'Connected' option is enabled; the SCR is different; and a coax is connected between the Loop Out and the second tuner input.

In this way only one cable is needed from the Unicable LNB for both tuners.

.

Converting to Unicable

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