My apologies if this question has been answered many times over. I did some searching but am short on time. My customer has jumped to 9 receivers on their Directv system. They currently have a Terk 5 X 8 multiswitch. I need a spot for the ninth receiver.

She has a triple LNB dish (of course)

All the multiswitches I find that have more than 8 outputs, cost a boatload of money.

Anyone have any suggestions for something less expensive?

OR

Can I place DC power passing splitters on all four of the lines coming down from the dish, and then run two 5x8 switches or two 4x8 switches?

Thanks.

Forgive me for being cruel.

Your customer has nine satellite receivers. Clearly, they have money. Why don't you sell them the correct multiswitch?

Points to consider:
reliability
profitability
her ability to pay

Sell her the correct part.

Just take 4 cables off of the 5X8 output M.S. (ie ports 5-8) and send those to another inexpensive 5X8 M.S. and you will have a total of 12 available.

Plug the cables removed to the new M.S. and add the 9th cable and your all set. Btw HD Sat stations will pass fine. But wait till she has a tizzy when all is naught when she wants MPEG 4 recievers.

I agree with Fred. They obviously have money to spend if they have 9 sat rcvrs. All people will say they want something inexpensively. Just get the right gear, charge accordingly.

Spaun 5X12 or 5X16 aren't "boatloads" of money... they aren't even $1000.00.

I am worried about these new boxes though and I've already gotten flack from people who purchased Spauns this year from me when I told them that these might be landfill fodder soon.

I've got a few customer with some very large expensive houses. 1 of these customers is running 16 satrec'rs. 3 of which are in the media room feedinf his "sports center". What i have found in the past is that the standard 4 output elliptical dish used for directv just doesn't have enough gain to consistantly provide good signal, in poor weather, with more than an 8 way switch connected to it. At least here in NY. What I usually do is install Andrews (formally Channel Master) High gain elliptical dish; which is about 35" wide and comes with separate lnbs for each of the 3 satellites. i.e. 101, 110, 119. We run the 5 downlines into the house where connections won't corrode. Inside we use the B-C sat combiner, then put a high freq. 2 way splitter on each the 4 remaining downlines. The 2 ways are the sent to to 2 - 4X8 switches which can be in the same location or 2 diffreant parts of the house. Like the job i did yesterday where 1 is in the attic feeding 2nd floor rooms & the other is in the basement feeding 1st floor rooms. This set up gives me 16 output at a resonable price. But it is labor intensive> cutting in allthe jompers! Also, if you only need 12 outs, the Andrews dish comes with a 4X4 switch and you could use this instead of 2 - 4X8s for 12 outs.

THose are some interesting fixes...... Hope Idont ever have to troubleshoot one of those....

[Link: bestwaysatellite.com]

$250 for a 12 way doesnt seem like "Boatloads" of money to me.....

Just cascade two 5x8 multiswitches - 4 outputs from the first one go to the second, so a total of 12 outputs. Or you can use high-frequency splitters as per chuch jr post above.
Gwilly has a point you should think about. You should look at getting the new multiswitches which are compatible with the new MPEG-4 satellites (they work fine with the old ones). But so far I have only seen unpowered MPEG-4 compatible switches, to use either the cascading or the splitter solutions you probably need powered ones. I am sure they will be available soon.
And MPEG-4 is not compatible with diplexing the OTA signals on to the same cable so if you need OTA as well as satellite you will need a separate coax run to each room.

Thanks for all the feedback. Used two 5 x 8 multiswitches and it worked great....Next time I'll be more careful when I promise the price of adding another receiever to a system - and more careful in counting in my head how many receivers the person already has.

I agreed that you need to replace the multiswitch to a 12 or 16 output one. But you need to take into consideration before you buy a new multiswitch, the new DIRECTV setup that will allow to receive the HD locals. I haven't check yet so I'm not familiar with any multiswitch compatible with that setup. I remember reading a thread either here or at IP regarding that issue. You might want to do a search.