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HELP Inexpensively run more than 8 Directv receivers?
This thread has 9 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Tuesday December 20, 2005 at 09:15
andrewinboulder
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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.
Post 2 made on Tuesday December 20, 2005 at 11:32
edmund
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You're a Moron to the 5th power. whats the purpose of posting this same question 5 times in the same forum, and never responding to the suggestions a few have had?
Post 3 made on Tuesday December 20, 2005 at 20:16
Ernie Bornn-Gilman
Yes, That Ernie!
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Edmund, he is just using you, using you and discarding you like the cheap rag that he thinks you are, never caring that you have worked your entire life to be able to contribute to a site like this, never caring about the children, or little fluffy puppies, or for that matter kittens either.


Let's hope he's doing the same thing to the attitudinators at avs.
A good answer is easier with a clear question giving the make and model of everything.
"The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." -- G. “Bernie” Shaw
Post 4 made on Thursday December 29, 2005 at 19:46
Fred Forlano
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On December 20, 2005 at 11:32, edmund said...
You're a Moron to the 5th power. whats the purpose
of posting this same question 5 times in the same
forum, and never responding to the suggestions
a few have had?

Any chance of pointing me in the direction of the pre-posted 'help'?

I have a similar issue with a customer who upgraded to HD, went to the new dish, and now I have a room with 3 runs from the dish location (2 for the multiswitch we put in for the old 2-lnb dish) and an OTA antenna (he lives on a ranch WAAAAY out in the sticks).

I need to get those 3 wires to feed me both the new HD-TiVo and the original TiVo. There is also another receiver in a different part of the house with a direct line running from the dish to that receiver.

So to summarize, I have 5 tuners, 4 of which are in 1 room with only 3 COAX runs (running another wire is a REAL pain in the arse), and a 5th tuner in a remote location with it's own dedicated line to the dish (which, btw, is 3-LNB with built-in multiswitch). Price isn't the issue here, but running that 4th line is. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Fred Forlano
Higher Definition

p.s.: I read suggestions others post :p
"I have been marked once, my dear and let me assure you, no needle shall ever touch my skin again." -- Erik Magnus Lensherr (Magneto)
Post 5 made on Friday December 30, 2005 at 12:45
texasbrit
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Yes, you have a real problem here!
I know I am probably telling you things you already know, but for completeness let's start from the beginning. You have five tuners and you are looking at all three satellites (because you have HD) so you need five outputs from the dish. No getting around it. That means a 4x8 multiswitch, taking the four outputs from the built-in multiswitch and giving you 8 outputs.. The new 4x8 (most are 5x8 so they can diplex an OTA signal onto the same outputs, but let's talk about that later) could in theory be at the dish or in the house. A lot depends on the length of your cable runs - using an unpowered multiswitch might allow you to have the switch at the dish but may not work because of your cable length. If you have to use a powered multiswitch then putting it at the dish would require power there.
Once you have solved the multiswitch problem then we come back to the "only three cables" issue. I can't tell from your post whether the problem is getting four cables to the house or getting a fourth cable through the house exterior/interior walls to the room where the TiVos are. Just for the moment I will assume that you can get four cables to the house somewhere and put the 4x8 multiswitch there. You will have to run the cable for your fifth receiver from this multiswitch (instead of from the dish) to the remote receiver. This leave you with four cables to get to the two TiVos. Two of the cables will go to your HD box leaving two outputs for the other TiVo. It is possible to "piggyback" the two outputs onto a single cable using devices called stackers/destackers. Not cheap but possible. I have not used these myself so you will have to do more research on suitable devices.

I did see a special 3lnb replacement dish with built-in stackers (TSAT242) which allows you to connect the dish with just two cables without the need for multiswitches. At the house you then need a stacker router which seems to be a combination destacker and multiswitch - some of the outputs are already destacked and some are left stacked - you would use one of these stacked outputs routed over a single cable to your standard TiVo and then have a destacker at the TiVo. This would mean: only two cables from the dish to the house, and only three cables into your equipment room. Still need the fifth cable to be rerun so it goes to the stacker router. Probably cost about $1200 in total. Go look at
[Link: 9thtee.com]

A word of warning. DirecTV is in the process of adding new satellites and moving to MPEG-4 compression and away from the existing MPEG-2. All new HD channels, including local channels over HD, will be on MPEG-4. This will require a new dish and new receivers. At present DirecTV is rolling out MPEG-4 HD locals in a few major markets and will move to cover most of the largest markets during 2006. The conversion will apparently be "free" (some people are reporting installation charges of up to $99). There will be a new DirecTV HD PVR (not TiVo) some time in late 2006. These new dishes and receivers will almost certainly not work with the stacker/destacker solutions currently available.. No doubt someone will develop stacker/destacker technology that works with the new dishes but I haven't seen anything yet.
If I were you I would bite the bullet, run a fourth cable to the house to connect to a 4x8 powered multiswitch, reroute the fifth cable and somehow get another cable to the TiVo room. Then you might be able to get the installation upgraded to the new technology (replace dish, receivers and multiswitch through the DirecTV upgrade program) free or at low cost, if the installation is in one of the areas that DirecTV is upgrading). Any other solution is messy, expensive and short-term.

Hope this helps....
Post 6 made on Saturday December 31, 2005 at 12:00
Fred Forlano
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Not what I wanted to hear, but it answers the question.

Sorry for the confusing post. The problem is getting the additional wire from the dish/multiswitch location to the room where the TiVo's are. Currently, there are 2 RG-6 being used for DirecTV (pre-HD), 1 RG-6 being used for Dish Network (still in use), and 1 RG-6 being used for OTA antenna. The old setup had a 2-in/4 out multiswitch for the DirecTV, and it worked fine. The new HD TiVo won't play nice though, so that's where the problem lies. Running additional cables to the room will be tough, but not impossible.
"I have been marked once, my dear and let me assure you, no needle shall ever touch my skin again." -- Erik Magnus Lensherr (Magneto)
Post 7 made on Saturday December 31, 2005 at 16:37
texasbrit
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You can diplex the OTA signal onto the satellite RG-6 by using a 5x8 multiswitch, four satellite cables from the dish plus one OTA connected into the five ports of the multiswitch, that will allow you to use four cables into the TiVo room all carrying satellite and OTA. Then just use a diplexer on one of the cables to break out the OTA signal from the satellite signal.
This will work until you have to upgrade to the new dish/receivers for MPEG-4. Then the diplexing won't work because the OTA signals are in the same band as some of the new satellite signals so you will be back to solving the four wire problem. But at least diplexing will give you a year or more before you have to run an additional cable.
Post 8 made on Sunday January 1, 2006 at 11:10
ingvey
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are you feeding an apartment complex??? 8 units???
Post 9 made on Sunday January 1, 2006 at 14:14
Fred Forlano
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On December 31, 2005 at 16:37, texasbrit said...
You can diplex the OTA signal onto the satellite
RG-6 by using a 5x8 multiswitch, four satellite
cables from the dish plus one OTA connected into
the five ports of the multiswitch, that will allow
you to use four cables into the TiVo room all
carrying satellite and OTA. Then just use a diplexer
on one of the cables to break out the OTA signal
from the satellite signal.
This will work until you have to upgrade to the
new dish/receivers for MPEG-4. Then the diplexing
won't work because the OTA signals are in the
same band as some of the new satellite signals
so you will be back to solving the four wire problem.
But at least diplexing will give you a year or
more before you have to run an additional cable.

The problem is only 2 of the coax are DirecTV, the 3rd is Dish Network and the 4th is OTA. That only give me 3 DirecTV feeds (diplexed), and 1 Dish feed.

I think I've resigned myself to running a new cable.

Oh well...time to do the ol' attic crawl....

Have a great new year, and thanks for the input.

Fred
"I have been marked once, my dear and let me assure you, no needle shall ever touch my skin again." -- Erik Magnus Lensherr (Magneto)
Post 10 made on Monday January 9, 2006 at 00:01
Ernie Bornn-Gilman
Yes, That Ernie!
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30,104
Tonight's email to Andrew:

Dear Andrew,
It was nice of you to ask about how to inexpensively run more than 8 satellite receivers. It was not so nice of you to do so in, if I get it right, five places, then disappear.

So let me speak on behalf of the crowd at remotecentral and say that we hope you are recovering nicely and will soon be able to join us online again.

Ernie
A good answer is easier with a clear question giving the make and model of everything.
"The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." -- G. “Bernie” Shaw


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