Sky+ feed split

[k.jacko]

Guys,

my friend who moved into a communal accommodation block was sold sky+. It was installed but the engineer said "there is already a dish installed, but it will no doubt be split between multiple users in the block."
He set up the sky+ box and connected 2 coax cables to each of the connections in the sky+ box. He then only connected the one feed into the wall, as it only has one coax socket. Thereby NOT connecting the 2nd lnb to allow sky+ to work.
He said "all you need is a splitter, put a single cable from the wall into the splitter and the other 2 cables coming from the sky+ box go into splitter also."
He did also say that it MAY not work, in which case my mate is paying for a service he aint receiving.
He tried a brand new splitter i gave him, the ones that VM use. But lost all signal. Even just introducing the splitter into the existing feed from the wall loses signal.
I know that joints/splitter etc can cuase about a 2-3dB loss of signal, do you guys think this is just enough to completely lose signal bearing in mind he may have just been on the edge of a dropped signal anyway? Its possible the splitter is faulty, but unlikely imho.
So far he doesn't have sky+ because of this issue.
He's already given Sky a round of f***s for selling him a service they almost certainly knew he couldn't use.
Any other advice you may have to offer would be most appreciated.

[jonathan399]

i'm no expert but it may be something to do with the differing frequencies that satelite and cable operators transmit at. If its a cable splitter then its possible it blocks the signal from satelite fromgetting through.

[mortmaru]

If you split 1 feed then that is pointless you will still get the same functions as the one cable which is you can only record what you are watching.

This is a problem with communal dish there tends to be rules that only 1 feed for each apartment.

[nanochickin]

It cant be done i'm afraid

The system will be fed from one port on either a compact multiswitch or a cascadable multiswitch. Each port can only operate in one polarity state at a time as instructed by the receiver

Your receiver will request one of the four polarities at any one time. Vertical Low, Horizontal low, Horizontal high and Vertical high. If the one tuner asks for a VL signal and the other tuner asks for a HH signal one of them is going to be disappointed.

The switch cannot operate on two polarities at the same time making the splitter more useless than our current government.

As usual the Sky engineer is talking out of his arse trying to baffle you with a system that he knows nothing about.

I'm surprised he didn't say the dish was out of line, thats the usual response you get from them when they can't get it to work

Open the plate on the wall and check the cables. They won't have put a twin output on if it didn't require it as they are more expensive than the single output plate. Its probably one of the cables hasn't been fitted correctly

The only other alternative is if the second output is on either 13e or 19.2e



Nano

[nvingo]

If the installer was payed to supply a Sky+ system, then said there's already a dish installed (albeit a communal system), he has gone away with a minidish and quad LNB (and two runs of coax/fitting time) instant profit.

The Sky+ recorder has two separate tuners, to enable recording / viewing of two channels simultaneously.
Each tuner will output a DC voltage to the LNB, of about 13v or 17v to power the LNB, and switch the LNB between horizontal and vertical polarisation. Additionally, the tuner can output a 22khz tone which will select the higher tuning band (the LNB will downconvert a higher block of frequencies to the range the tuner can see).
So simply combining the tuners opens the possibility of damage to the equipment when the DC power meets, total meaningless of the switching voltage, and the selection of high band when either tuner presents the 22khz tone.
(A distribution system, each output simulates a single LNB, picking the requested signal from a quad LNB set to supply each of the four permutations to the distribution device).

The only way out is to seek landlord/management permission to install a dish/LNB for the one flat, or have two feeds from the communal distribution to two sockets on the wallplate.