Satellite & Freeview Distribution

[BGonaSTICK]

Cheap wall plates with multiple outputs are designed to have multiple cables fitted. The multiswitch is mixing the two (or three, if it includes radio, but as I said it's normal to have a separate radio aerial) signals on one c@ble, and you can separate these out again using a device which does the opposite thing - but these are normally a separate device and not built into the wall plate itself. I would expect a combined device to be quite expensive, if one existed.

I've not seen one, but then it's not something I've looked into in great detail.

You're paying quite a lot of money for the quality electronics in the multiswitch, so if you want to filter the different frequency bands out in each of the eight rooms before the wall plate then it really is going to add a significant cost to the project. I would avoid cheap decombiners if I were you.

It really depends on how badly you want to only run one c@ble I suppose.

[BGonaSTICK]

Just looking around at some of these wall plates and it appears that some do include a decombining filter, so I apologise that this has probably created some confusion here - but I personally wouldn't like to use such a cheap filtering device.

If you want to do it this way, I would invest in something better - at least in your lounge or other main viewing rooms.

[cpetzny]

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

Just looking around at some of these wall plates and it appears that some do include a decombining filter, so I apologise that this has probably created some confusion here - but I personally wouldn't like to use such a cheap filtering device.

If you want to do it this way, I would invest in something better - at least in your lounge or other main viewing rooms.

You are absolutely right, so I've been doing some more planning

So here it is: dish with quattro LNB feeding multiswitch housed under the stairs, From there run two coax leads into lounge (for dual tuner SAT PVR), one into study (for PC), one into master bedroom, one into second bedroom, one into back reception, one into loft (ready for future loft conversion) and one spare (maybe run that one into the study too).

Only question now is whether to put in separate distribution for DTT and DAB, some more research will be required on that front...

Thanks for all your help so far...

Chris

[BGonaSTICK]

That will certainly all work very well.

I'm not sure what sequence you're planning to install stuff, but installing decent quality coax up-front and bringing it all together in one location is something you should do for sure. That will give you maximum flexibility. You can play around to your hearts content later on, and use cables for different purposes even.

Make sure the coax is CT100 grade - this will do satellite and terrestrial TV, but cheap TV coax won't do satellite very well - so make this modest investment up front.

If you end up installing your terrestrial first and want to add satellite later, at least the cabling is already in place.

Before investing in your 8 x satellite setup, you can try one 'leg' off the multiswitch and see what sort of results you get before multiplying your investment up. Only you will know if the quality you get from one of these triplex de-combiners gives you a satisfactory output quality.

I don't know what sort of cabling headaches you'll be up against, but if you can run extra cables to the lounge etc. up front - do it - even if you don't end up using them just yet.

Good luck m8, and let us know how it goes.

[cpetzny]

Yep, the plan is to flood the house with cables, hopefully running them all under the floorboards. We need to rip out existing carpets and redecorate everything, so running the cables should be fine. When I did the CAT6 wiring in my current flat there weren't too many headaches, apart from where cables had to run across floor joists, which just means endless drilling.

CT100 grade cable will be used for all the DTT/SAT/DAB distribution, though I am still in two minds over using triplex outlets just to keep it simple.

hmmm, I fear this will require more thought, but it'll have to wait until we're actually in the house...

Thanks again for your patience and all your help...

Chris