BEV Home Signal Switching/Splitting/Cabling Discussion Thread

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I also went the route of getting 4 high bandwidth splitters (5-2400Mhz) ahead of my 2 SW44's. Works perfectly. Funny thing is that I got my splitters for $1.50 each from the local dollar store!! :) I couldn't find small cables so I just bought the smallest cables I could find (3') and went with those.

-=Shaq=-
 
We've recently finished building a B&b in the High Arctic (north end of Baffin Island). I have planned on having Satellite TV in each of the guests rooms, and ours of course. To that end I installed our Express VU dish (4 foot) and ran cable runs into the house. From there they attached to a Leviton 3X8 Enhanced RF Distribution Module (2Ghz) which sends the signal to the rooms and the individual receivers. I've been unable to get a signal (there may be other problems as I may have moved into the shadow of the hills).

I recently found out that this Leviton Distribution Module may not work between a satellite dish and receivers. Does anyone know if that in fact is the case, and if so would something like the TERK 5X8 Multi Switch work with Express VU.

Help. My wife needs to watch Canadian Idol & my guests are getting bored.
 
Gouie,

I bought the Ideal brand from Home Depot ( $ 30 ?). These things work great ! I did however buy the wire stripper from the Source $12 - 16 ? It, also works great to prepare the wires.
The electrician at work looked at them and the fittings and loved them. He said it gives you a connection as good if not better than factory. They work for both RG59 and RG6. Plus the Ideal brand work with atleast 5 -6 brands of connectors.
 
yeah, the installer said the last resort would be to use a 2nd dish... but wouldn't my monthly bill be huge??? And running more wires from the roof to the basement would be a huge hassle.

The guy was at least friendly enough to talk to me about what he was doing and didnt assume that i was an idiot. Anyway he said that the whole thing about sat feeds is that the voltage has to stay the same in the wires, hence the powered mulitswitch. Now maybe im wrong but wouldnt putting a splitter in the sat feed before the mutliswitch cut the voltage?

The single is going to have to be split somewhere so we can use SW44s. Skyway are you suggesting using the 4 HF splitters on the feeds coming from the dish? Then into switches (it would be an SW44 and a SW22, 6 boxes, 2 of which are HD)?

I was thinking maybe splitting the single after the switch? but reading around that seems like a no no, the split comes before the switch... am i right?

Do you guys recommend any Hardware for this? anything i can get at the shack?

Thanks for the replies, maybe i can solve this before the installer comes to finish! hah
 
You may need these for DishPro equipment but not the Dish legacy equipment EV uses. 2 GHZ splitters work quite well. The wiring diagram is included with the Dish SW44s that EV sells.
 
I assumed that if I bought the Bell packeage that has four boxes for four TVs (one being the PVR) that there would anly be one dish. Am I wrong?

So the Bell SD signal is superior to the Shaw SD. That's interesting.

Ringmaster: I don't want to pay for both Bell and Shaw. I'll stick with one or the other. On another issue, I recently found out that some Shaw programming coming through a Shaw box can be protected from being recorded on a box like your Panasonic recorder. You get a "can not record" signal. This likely doesn't occur when you are just recording straight from the cable in analogue (no Shaw box). My concern is that if I get Bell Expressview with it's digital signal some of the SD programming will be protected. Have you ever seen this?

Thanks
 
I'm no expert as I just powered up my sw44. I read in an post from 2003 a method that that worked for someone else. He connected the LNBs, then Power Inserter, then receivers to Power Inserter and other receivers. Lastly, he plugged in the power supply. This didn't work for me so I tried something different.

I hooked everything up including the power, EXCEPT the LNBs. I hooked up one LNB input at a time and read what the switch found. If it didn't register an input, I moved the input to a different connection on the switch. When I was done, I found that 91 was on the 2nd and 3rd input and 82 was on 1st and 4th. To me, this would be different than the connections shown on the switch - 1B, 1A, 2B, 2A. It was slow checking one at a time but it is working.

Anyway, I know it sounds confusing but hope it helps.
 
With a *choice dish on your house, no wonder people would think you're watching porn with that suggestive LNB...
 
Hi all,
I've spent about an hour going through the archives here, and this topic has been well covered. I'd just like to offer up what I plan to do, and get a confirmation that it'll work:

I have (and sorry I don't have exact model numbers here),

From a dual LNB/ dual output dish:
The first two outputs from the 91 & 82 sats go to a SW21 switch in the basement, which then outs to my HD receiver. Yay, all is good and I don't want to touch this part.

The second line comes from the second LNB (picking up the non-HD sat....92?) and goes directly to the (non-HD) receiver in the bedroom. This is want to share with my old receiver (also non-HD) that is kicking around.

Everything I find says I can do this with a SW21 switch, but doesn't that switch 2 LNBs to one receiver?

What am I missing? Can this be done for under $40. I see how a SW44 switch would do it, but that kinda overkill (I need to add one receiver, not several), and it's quite costly.
 
The Leviton 3X8 Enhanced RF Distribution Module will not work with satellite. The TERK 5X8 Multi Switch will not work with EV either. This Aspen switch will work. Most people use two SW44s with these splitters (ordinary cable splitters will not work.) The wiring diagram is included with the Dish SW44s that EV supplies. These switches are designed for use with two dual LNBs. You should be able to use just one side for a one dual LNB.
 
Yes, I see what you mean. It could be done, but at a cost and knowing how things work for me, some heretofore uinknown glitch will arrive and thwart my efforts.

So if I'm going to be drilling again for the sake of two more runs of RG-6, I may as well make bigger holes and put in 6 runs of RG-6 because next year I'll no doubt want another dual-tuner PVR and from my reading here, the easiest way will be to throw up another dish and another SW-44.

IWMHDTV & Interceptor, thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

Chuck
 
A couple of easy and inexpensive alternatives:

1. IF you have all newer IRDs (3100, 6100, 4100 etc.) replace (but check them) the two LNBs with DishPro ones and then add two DP34 switches. The DP switches have three SAT inputs, four IRD outputs and three CASCADE to another switch outputs. You can cascade at least 12 DP34 switches together and run 48 IRDs off that chain.

2. If you have older (legacy) IRDs buy a three SAT input six IRD outs (there are many of these made) switch.

3. If you have older (legacy) IRDs buy two RCA three SAT input six IRD outs (there are many of these made) switches. The RCA switches have three SAT inputs, four IRD outputs and three CASCADE to another switch outputs. You can cascade several RCA switches to get at least 16 IRDs.

DP34s sell for roughly $15 to $20 on E-Bay. Dish Pro LNBs sell for the same.

# 2 is the simplest of the alternatives.
 
Vic

You can connect up to four receivers with one dish. (the dual tuner models count as two). You should get whats called a multi switch that splits the signal in two. As far as recording, there are no restrictions to stop recording of your programs. I have even recorded PPV movies on my Panasonic DVD recorder. The only issue you might have is when/if you try to dub that recording to another DVD/VHS recorder.

Enjoy
 
Thanks for the input. Still thinking about what I'm going to do but leaning towards the cheapest solution. ;) The dishpro quad looks tempting.
 
The simplest way would be to add a second dish. One pointed at EV Sat 91 and one pointed at EV Sat 82. This would ensure that you have access to all channels BEV offers.

If both Dish's have a dual LNB, you would have a total of 4 cables coming into your house from the two dishes.

You would then run those 4 cables into an SW-44A. Out of the SW-44A into a regular SW-44. This would give you the capability to hook up to 8 receivers.

My current setup includes 4 receivers, using two 18 inch dishes, one for EV91 and one for EV82. They go through one regular SW-44.

I am thinking of adding the 5200 dual-tuner unit, which will require two more connections (totalling 6 receiver connections for me).

This link shows you a setup for up to 12 receivers, but again, all you would need is one SW-44A and an SW-44.

http://www.microyal.com/sw-44a cascade daigram.jpg
 
I went with option 1 and all is fine, i have 5 recievers all working great, one of the 5 is a hd pvr, so i actually have 6.

i got the splitters at home depot for 9.99 each

i also broke down and bought a crimper and cable cutter at the same time,

i already had 2 sw 44 switches.

there is a diagram in the manual that comes with the sw44.
 
Might I suggest you read through the 9200 installation 101 thread? http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26721

With only four RG6 lines from the dish, you can connect four, eight or even 12 receivers using a variety of methods. The thread details most of them. I don't think six wires from the dish is going to buy you anything.

-Mike
 
Cheapest way to do this is 2 lines from 91 into a cheap multiswitch, 1 line from 82 by-passes the multiswitch and goes into an sw21, one line from output of multiswitch into the sw21, this then goes to your hd, now 2 more lines out of the multiswitch each going to the non-hd receivers.
 
Just for everyone's information, I talked to a company that does most of the BEV installations for Alberta. They sold me the "both ports power pass" splitters, but they did say that both will work. They indicated that if you use the ones with "one port power pass", that you MUST be careful with the installation and insure that input 1A from the LNB goes to 1A on both SW44's, 1B from the LNB goes to 1B on both SW44's, etc. (they said to wire it this way either way). Also, ensure that the "power pass port" on each input is connected to the same SW44, basically making one of the SW44's a master and one a slave.

I hope this helps everyone that has had this question, but couldn't find anyone to answer it. I contacted BEV several times and they seems surprized to find out that there are switches with single or all port power pass.

I will be installing my second SW44 this weekend and will advise if there were any problems.
 
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