home wiring setup

[jonathan399]

HIya folks, i'm new to the satelite area and am just after a bit of advice, so if anybody can help, i'd be thankful. I've just bought a new house in a non-cable road( bye bye funcard) so i'm looking to drive down the sky/dreambox road.
I'm getting the house rewired and want to install coaxial outlet points and LAN points in each room and connect them all up with a home distribution amp and router in the loft....unless theres any better ideas out there?
i want to make it all as future proof as possible. Whats the best way to go about it.
ie whats the best cable to use? how many cable runs to each room? Whats the best outlet points to use?any distribution amp recommends?
Thanks for reading folks...
...MODS if i've posted in the wrong place

[Jimdefruit]

Hi jonathan399, how many rooms and do you want twin tuner facilities in each room or just one?

If it is only three rooms then it is easy to allow for a twin tuner in the main room and a single tuner in the other using a quad lnb. Also I expect you want a multi-satellite setup and with different rooms wanting different satellites at any one time you would need a multi lnb setup on one or more dishes. A motorised dish setup would mean that all rooms watch channels on the same satellite and only one receiver could control the dish position.

The setup for lan is much simpler. As you say, a router set up in the loft with a lan cable to each room would be fine.

[jonathan399]

thanks for your reply Jimdefruit. Yeah i would prob go for a twin tuner PVR facility in the main room and single tuner in the other rooms. Would i therefore need to drop 2 coax leads down to the main room to carry twin signals or can the STB create 2 signals off one downlead? Whats the best quality of cable to use?
Can you recommend any particular dish/receiver setup, and channel listings for each satelite.

[nvingo]

Originally Posted by jonathan399

...a twin tuner PVR facility in the main room and single tuner in the other rooms. Would i therefore need to drop 2 coax leads down to the main room to carry twin signals or can the STB create 2 signals off one downlead?

Robbo has posted that there exists a device to combine two feeds on one downlead, and separate them out at the receiver(s). It is understandably likely to be far more expensive than simply running one coax feed for each tuner.

[Robbo]

Yes, it is called a stacker/destacker, but only as a last resort, if that is the only option.


Jonathon, you have not answered 'how many rooms?' as this is an important question, and without the answer, a solution cannot be suggested.

But basically there are two options regarding wiring.

1. Get quad or octo LNBs and run a separate cable to each room for every receiver, for a twin LNB run two. An octo limits you to 8 in total, a quad 4.

2. Get quattro LNBs and use in conjuction with a mutiswitch, again one output of the mutiswitch for every tuner.


It also depends how many satellites you want to receive from. A motorised dish is difficult for multi receiver use. A fixed dish is best.

So depending on how greedy you are, maybe a 1m fixed dish with say 4 lnbs on it, either using quattros through a multi switch or quad or Octos through Diseqc switches.

Either way, it is going to get expensive for mutisat use, because of the hardware needed.

cable wise, webro wf100, would be fine.

Robbo

[jonathan399]

yeah sorry about the lack of info gents, i'm prob lookin at 2 living rooms and 3 bedrooms so that'd be 5 in total(pretty good at mathematics me!)
or 6 if i twin tuner the main living room.
would i need to run all 5(or 6) co-axials to the dish. i suspect i'll just be looking at a sky/astra/freesat reception for the time being so a fixed dish would be best.
if i used an octo LNB, does the reception quality suffer as opposed to a quad setup. If i'm only using 6 out of 8 lnb's will it still recieve ok or do all 8 need to be utilised?
whats the best dish/lnb setup to go for?
i'm not too sure what sort of STB to go for. i take it i'll need an official skye box to recieve there channels. is that the only option available. what difference does a dreambox/technomate type of set-up offer in comparison.
i assume wf100 cable is the same standard as pf100 etc, just a different brand.
Thanks for the time gents.

[Robbo]

Yes, with an Octo LNB, all receivers would need to run right back to the dish.You don't have to use all outputs. I would imagine that there would be a bit more loss with an Octo, but 28E is a strong satellite, and fitting a zone 2 minidish rather than a zone 1 would give a better signal.

Or, you could use a 5x8 multiswitch, with a quattro LNB. You only need 4 cables from the LNB, then as many as you need from the switch, up to 8.

The multiswitch is going to be a neater option I think, but more expensive.
more info here:- http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/multiswitch.htm

Also with the quattro, I'm not sure if you can get them for minidishes, so a standard 60cm dish could be used.

Yes for Sky subbed channels you need a Sky box or some other receiver that can read the card.

For FTA channels, a Freesat box (has full EPG) or a FTA receiver (eg Technomate) can be used, you can put the channels in any order, but only get a limited EPG.

The advantage of Sky boxes is that you can pick them up cheap on ebay and you can get channel 5 with a card. Also Sky boxes and Freesat boxes are plug and play and you have not got to retune channels when transponder/channel details change. Could be useful when you have a number of boxes to look after.

Yes, the PF100 is specced the same as wf100 as is also CAI approved.

Robbo

[jonathan399]

thanks robbo, some good advice given. It looks like the multiswitch option might be the best way to go. Can't quite figure out how the multiswitch works, but then i am a noob to the sats. How do four LNB's feed 8,12,16 or 32 recievers. where as if i connect straight to the recievers i can only feed 4? the labgear distribution unit i was looking at would only feed the 1 satelite signal around the house from the main reciever in the living room. there's not much difference in price between the labgear and triax things.
so all in, some good advice all round.

[Robbo]

With the multiswitches you can use a very large number of receivers. For some example wiring diagrams have a look at the spaun.de website.

It is possible because the quatto LNBs have four outputs, hi band-vertical,hi band-horizontal, lo band vertical and lo band-horizontal. Because each output is separate, they can be amplified and split a number of times. The switch just chooses which output it feeds to the receivers, depending on which transponder each one chooses.

So to wire up, you just run the 4 outputs from the quattro to the multiswitch, and then the outputs of the switch to the the rceivers. For more receivers, you get one with more outputs. For more satellites, you need one with more inputs, eg for 2 satellites, and 8 receivers, you need a 9 x 8 multiswitch.

Obviously before you bought anything, it would be a good idea to seek technical advice from an intelligent retailer.

Robbo

[jonathan399]

Thanks Robbo, just pick your brain a bit more if thats ok?
So i think i'm looking at maybe an 80cm fixed dish with 4LNB's fed to a multiswitch (is Triax equipment reliable?) i'm not too sure of terminology gettin tossed about, whats the difference between "quad" and "quattro", and diseqc switch and multiswitch?
if i'm thinking of a sky+ or some other twin-tuner type setup, do i need to run 2 separate co-ax to my outlet plate or does the outlet plate split the signal from a single cable?
can you recommend any intelligient retailer?