Satellite & Freeview Distribution

[cpetzny]

Hi,

I'm about to move into a house in North London with the opportunity to put in a SAT, Freeview, FM/DAB radio distribution system while the house is still in pieces. The back of the house is south facing, so should lend itself well to installing a dish (there are also no trees in the way). In an ideal world, I would like to connect the terrestrial aerial and satellite dish to a distribution amp (multiswitch?) from where it would be sent to various rooms in the house. Each room would be equipped with a satellite receiver, Freeview box or TV and FM/DAB tuner to allow independent viewing/listening. Only two rooms are ever likely to be used simultaneously...

I'm mainly interested in German channels, so only really need to point the dish at 19.2E. Being in North London and wishing not to upset the neighbours too much, what size dish am I likely to need? Also what sort of LNB do I need and how many wires do I therefore need to run to the multiswitch? Is there a multiswitch that will allow me to distribute all the signals to a single coax per room? (Saw this and though it might work: http://www.sateuropa.co.uk/product_o...id=1&subcat=11) Can I use triplex wallplates to tidy up the installation?

So many questions

Thanks in advance for all your help,

Chris

[Yorks]

Hello cpetzny :welc1:,

I'm sure one of the experts on here will be able advise you on your array of questions, but with regard to dish size for 19.2E, you should be well inside the footprint, and a 60cm dish should be enough -Zone 2 Sky dish may be worth considering.

Take a look at Analoguesat's work in progress here:-

http://www.satellitehelp.co.uk/forum...ic,5112.0.html

Regards,

Yorks

[Analoguesat]

60cm should be fine for Astra 19E down in southern England

That should give plenty of signal - apart from in the heaviest rain. In fact if dish size is a problem a zone 1 sky dish (43cm) should be adequate for most situations now the older & lower power birds have been pensioned off.

[BGonaSTICK]

What is the total number of rooms to which you wish to distribute satellite TV? Will each of these boxes have only a single tuner?

There are quad and octo LNBs (4 and 8 outputs respectively) to feed receivers directly, or you have the option of a quatro LNB if you want to go mad (). That breaks the satellite signal down into it's four basic components which you can then run into a multiswitch along with a UHF signal.

If you want to run a dish on Astra 28.2E as well, you can add another quatro LNB and shove the whole lot into a 9-in/8-out multiswitch or even a 9-in/12-out or 9-in/16-out switch!

That's far more telly than is good for you in a domestic property though :roflmao:

If you do that, then even a humble Sky digibox can hang of the multiswitch, whilst a DiSEqC-enabled receiver can switch happily between the two satellites.

[cpetzny]

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

What is the total number of rooms to which you wish to distribute satellite TV? Will each of these boxes have only a single tuner?

There are quad and octo LNBs (4 and 8 outputs respectively) to feed receivers directly, or you have the option of a quatro LNB if you want to go mad (). That breaks the satellite signal down into it's four basic components which you can then run into a multiswitch along with a UHF signal.

If you want to run a dish on Astra 28.2E as well, you can add another quatro LNB and shove the whole lot into a 9-in/8-out multiswitch or even a 9-in/12-out or 9-in/16-out switch!

That's far more telly than is good for you in a domestic property though :roflmao:

If you do that, then even a humble Sky digibox can hang of the multiswitch, whilst a DiSEqC-enabled receiver can switch happily between the two satellites.

Current plan is to distribute to four bedrooms, lounge, dining and kitchen, so eight outlets in total. As for receivers, it would be good to have one double tuner with PVR box in the lounge to allow for viewing and simultaneous recording. I already have a Topfield 5800 for Freeview (loving that box...), which would also go in the lounge. The other rooms will eventually have Freeview TVs and cheap and cheerful single tuner SAT boxes.

I am looking at a quattro LNB feeding into the multiswitch I linked to in my original post above. Plan is to have each cable into the rooms terminating in a triplex outlet. Will I need two cables to feed a dual tuner SAT box, or can they work off a loopthrough (like my Topfield)?

Finally, is anything on 19.2E being broadcast in HD? If not are there plans to? And is it worth getting an HD SAT box or should I wait?

Also been told that I should go for an 80cm dish to make up for losses in the multiswitch. Comments on that would be most welcome.

Cheers for everyone's help so far, it's been very, very useful...

Chris

[BGonaSTICK]

Just looked at the link you posted at the top of the show, and yes - that'll do nicely.

So four bedrooms, lounge, dinning room & kitchen is seven - plus an extra satellite cable to the lounge for a twin-tuner sat box is eight.

You should be able to take an RF output from whatever twin tuner sat-box you buy and run it into your Topfield 5800 for Freeview OK - so make sure the sat-box has an RF output! Either that or run an extra terrestrial cable to the lounge. I'm not really a terrestrial kind of guy ( ), so I'll not pretend to be. Confirm your terrestrial requirements with an expert before splashing out.

I'm assuming that you'll take any terrestrial feed from the output of your many sat-boxes, so I don't know why you want triplexed faceplates unless you're going to distribute your Freeview separately.

I'm also not an electrician, so I have no idea about your earthing requirements - again, please check with someone that's qualified.

Sat-boxes require two cables - one for each tuner - it doesn't work like terrestrial as the box has to both power and control the LNB on the dish.

There is some HD stuff on 19.2E, but most of it is encrypted. The encryption is broken though if you choose to go this route. Premiere is what I'm talking about.

The Topfield TF7700 is a nice HD box, but it's only single tuner and doesn't have a hard disk. The market hasn't really caught up with HD yet, so there isn't much choice.

The multiswitch will possibly drop anything up to 3dB. A 60cm dish should still be OK, but go bigger if you want to make absolutely completely totally sure. I'm never going to advise people to go for small dishes when they want to go large!

You've just about extracted all my knowledge on this subject now - I hope it's been of some use.

STICK

[Gav]

Wow, seems like a nice setup you're getting. We're getting a new house build when we can be bothered to move & we'll have a nice AV setup too.

I'd also build Home Automation into it:
x10europe.com

Make sure you post back with the complete setup and pics

[cpetzny]

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

You should be able to take an RF output from whatever twin tuner sat-box you buy and run it into your Topfield 5800 for Freeview OK - so make sure the sat-box has an RF output! Either that or run an extra terrestrial c@ble to the lounge. I'm not really a terrestrial kind of guy ( ), so I'll not pretend to be. Confirm your terrestrial requirements with an expert before splashing out.

I'm assuming that you'll take any terrestrial feed from the output of your many sat-boxes, so I don't know why you want triplexed faceplates unless you're going to distribute your Freeview separately.

The multiswitch seems to combine the terrestrial signal with the dish signal and then pushes both down a single cable for each distributed outlet. I would like to use the triplex wall plates because I want to connect SAT, Freeview and FM/DAB. Plus I think it makes for a neater installation.

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

Sat-boxes require two cables - one for each tuner - it doesn't work like terrestrial as the box has to both power and control the LNB on the dish.

OK, two cables into the lounge it is, one into triplex outlet to also connect Freeview and FM/DAB, and one into single outlet to supply second tuner in SAT box...

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

There is some HD stuff on 19.2E, but most of it is encrypted. The encryption is broken though if you choose to go this route. Premiere is what I'm talking about.

The Topfield TF7700 is a nice HD box, but it's only single tuner and doesn't have a hard disk. The market hasn't really caught up with HD yet, so there isn't much choice.

OK, looks like I will hold off on the HD kit for now...

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

The multiswitch will possibly drop anything up to 3dB. A 60cm dish should still be OK, but go bigger if you want to make absolutely completely totally sure. I'm never going to advise people to go for small dishes when they want to go large!

You've just about extracted all my knowledge on this subject now - I hope it's been of some use.

80cm it is...

All this information has been fantastic (from everyone), thank you so much...

Chris

[cpetzny]

Originally Posted by Gav

Wow, seems like a nice setup you're getting. We're getting a new house build when we can be bothered to move & we'll have a nice AV setup too.

I'd also build Home Automation into it:
x10europe.com

Make sure you post back with the complete setup and pics

At the moment this is all a bit of a dream. In reality, the SAT setup will probably have to wait, but the cables will go down, so I need to plan ahead

I'm thinking about putting in some X10 bits and pieces, but they can be retrofitted much more easily without the need for removing floorboards and putting outlet wallplates in

I'm also putting in CAT6 structured cabling, which I did in my current flat and is actually really straightforward, much more so than all this satellite stuff with it's multiswitches, LNBs, db, attenuators, triplexers, duplexers, dishsizes, polarities, 19.2 this way, 28 that way It's all a bit mindboggling, but the help on this forum alone has been extremely useful, couldn't do it without you lot...

Will try to take pics as I go...

Chris

[Gav]

Hey, just wondering if you can give me the low-down on cat 6? I've always used cat 5/ cat 5e that supports 10Gigabit.

Are there advantages to Cat 6?