Freesat channels in all room - How?

[Cupotea]

Hi all,
Hoping to get some info in this minefield! Pic attached to help provide context

What I need
View freesat channels on all tvs

Context
Have 4 tvs, 1st tv has freesat, 2nd tv will eventually use freesat box (freesat box isn’t currently used). 3rd tv is stream only. Would like to use my freesat box, and old sky box (left behind by previous owner along with 4th tv)

My home
• A total of 6 cables from the external Antenna & Sat Dish go into the loft. 2 cables are from Antennas & 4 are Sat cables. 2 Sat cables go to another part of the loft. This might go to another bedroom (or maybe nextdoor, but unlikely right?)
• Unsure if all cables go directly into cellar
• Currently each bedroom has coax cable coming out of the wall
• Signal quality is generally average/low
• One of the Antenna cables has bad signal

Questions:
• How best to use my existing satellite dish/antenna to send signal to 4 tvs?
• Am assuming I need some sort of satellite distribution amp, what do I need to look out for?
• Does the frequencies range matter?
• Does the freesat box really need antenna cable going into it?
• Will the above distribution amp work for my requirements or do I need a different one?
• Im thinking about plugging all existing Antenna/Sat cables into 2x diplexers then plugging the diplexors into the distribution amp. then taking the cables to all tvs/stbs. Will this work, is there a better budget conscience method?

I think I Need to buy:
• Distribution Amp (which one and ideally lowest price)
• Di, Tri, Quadplexer, and how many?
• F-Type Cables/Connectors
• Anything else?

 

[Captain Jack]

If there was a tutorial on how to write forum questions - this is it!

Can't help you much - except the LNB should be a quad rather than a quattro. The loft amp you mention seems to take a universal LNB rather than a quattro one, so unsure how you can get more than two satellite outputs, given that it only has two satellite inputs. If you are not going to use Freeview (you don't mention it), I'd get rid of the terrestrial yagi altogether.

Someone more informed will no doubt be along shortly.

 

[Cupotea]

If there was a tutorial on how to write forum questions - this is it!

Can't help you much - except the LNB should be a quad rather than a quattro. The loft amp you mention seems to take a universal LNB rather than a quattro one, so unsure how you can get more than two satellite outputs, given that it only has two satellite inputs. If you are not going to use Freeview (you don't mention it), I'd get rid of the terrestrial yagi altogether.

Someone more informed will no doubt be along shortly.

Thanks for the compliment, learnt quite late that clear questions really help!

I've attached a few photos of my dish, is it possible to tell from photos if I have a quad or quattro dish?

Also attached photos of the antenna(s) one is redundant and cables going into loft are cut

Last pic shows diagram of the distribution amp for ref

One of the Tvs currently uses freeview, (apologies forgot to mention this)

 

[a33]

Welcome to the forum, @Cupotea !

Of the four LNB cables, I cannot see all four entering the wall. Looks like just two. Can you confirm?

Do you in future want to use only SAT, or also the terrestrial antenna's? What do you want us to focus on?

I don't know about the Labgear. It seems to be also/specially for Sky?

Greetz,
A33

 

[Cupotea]

Welcome to the forum, @Cupotea !

Of the four LNB cables, I cannot see all four entering the wall. Looks like just two. Can you confirm?

Do you in future want to use only SAT, or also the terrestrial antenna's? What do you want us to focus on?

I don't know about the Labgear. It seems to be also/specially for Sky?

Greetz,
A33

Hi A33, thanks for replying, answers to your questions:
LNB cables - you're right it looks like 2 but there are 4 cables appearing in the loft
Sat or Ant - Would like to use both, I have 2 stb (Sky box & Humax) and 1 tv has freest built in, the 4th tv is really old Panosonic Viera (20kg monster) but still works perfectly and would like to use Ant for this tv

I have just found a Labgear item for £20?! seems like bargain so I'll try this out

 

[ozumo]

That Labgear switch isn't really suitable, it's more for distributing the video from one satellite receiver to multiple televisions. A 5/8 type multiswitch (5 inputs - 4x sat + 1 terrestrial, 8 outputs) would be better and allow each receiver to work independently.

The white LNB cap looks like it could be damaged? If it's letting water in it won't last long. The dish looks like a mk2 or 3, finding a replacement LNB with the correct bracket could be an issue, the LNB can be swapped but you'll need to know if it has a 38mm or 40mm neck. You'll also need to ensure the multiswitch can work with a quad LNB, otherwise you'll need a quattro LNB.

 

[Cupotea]

That Labgear switch isn't really suitable, it's more for distributing the video from one satellite receiver to multiple televisions. A 5/8 type multiswitch (5 inputs - 4x sat + 1 terrestrial, 8 outputs) would be better and allow each receiver to work independently.

The white LNB cap looks like it could be damaged? If it's letting water in it won't last long. The dish looks like a mk2 or 3, finding a replacement LNB with the correct bracket could be an issue, the LNB can be swapped but you'll need to know if it has a 38mm or 40mm neck. You'll also need to ensure the multiswitch can work with a quad LNB, otherwise you'll need a quattro LNB.

Thanks Ozumo,
I've seen the Labgear at nearer £100 so £20 is fine for me to try out even if it doesn't work.

Wouldn't be surprised if the white LNB is damaged, I've realised I need to expect nothing in this house works as it should and needs updating/regular maintenance. However last year-ish the sky box did work but signal was quite bad.

Your question about 38/40mm neck is beyond my scope of finding out, I think a new dish might be easier to install than finding parts?

If I get a new dish from sky or anywhere else is quad or quattro more easier to work with?

Are there any easy signs from my photos to see if I have quad or quattro LNB?

Thanks all!

 

[ozumo]

The current LNB is a Sky quad LNB. In the last photo of the dish at 12 o'clock on the white cap there is a black mark that could be a hole. I can also see at around 1 o'clock at the rear of the cap it looks like there's another bit missing.

With regards to quad or quattro it depends on what mutiswitch you are using. If you buy a new dish it will likely come with a quad or wideband (Sky Q) LNB which won't work with televisions and older (non 4K) Freesat boxes.

As mentioned by Captain Jack above you will only ever get 2 satellite outputs from that Labgear and as it needs two inputs there's almost no point using it, you could feed each satellite receiver directly from the LNB. If you need more than four outputs you could use an octo LNB with eight outputs.

An old Sky SD receiver won't get many channels as it isn't DVB-S2 compatible. I'm not even sure they'll work at all once Sky stop updating the EPG in the near future.

 

[Cupotea]

Of the four LNB cables, I cannot see all four entering the wall. Looks like just two. Can you confirm?

Hi A33,
There are 4 cables in the loft.

However just a thought: The are deffo 4 cables coming out of the LNB, if they're not all going into the loft from the LNB, where else can they go?

 

[Cupotea]

The current LNB is a Sky quad LNB. In the last photo of the dish at 12 o'clock on the white cap there is a black mark that could be a hole. I can also see at around 1 o'clock at the rear of the cap it looks like there's another bit missing.

With regards to quad or quattro it depends on what mutiswitch you are using. If you buy a new dish it will likely come with a quad or wideband (Sky Q) LNB which won't work with televisions and older (non 4K) Freesat boxes.

As mentioned by Captain Jack above you will only ever get 2 satellite outputs from that Labgear and as it needs two inputs there's almost no point using it, you could feed each satellite receiver directly from the LNB. If you need more than four outputs you could use an octo LNB with eight outputs.

An old Sky SD receiver won't get many channels as it isn't DVB-S2 compatible. I'm not even sure they'll work at all once Sky stop updating the EPG in the near future.

Thanks Ozumo,
I will eventually be forced into buying a new dish/antenna. But I'd like to make do with my current set up for as long as reasonably possible.
If I can get the current system to offer live tv to the 4 tvs then I'll be happy with that (for now)

Have started looking into alternative solutions and found this 5/8 multiswitch, could this be better?

 

[Channel Hopper]

Any multiswitch will only output what it has coming in, in your case that is two polarities out of the four available.

 

[PaulR]

If you can redirect the two lines out of the LNB that go to places unknown into the attic alongside the other two (maybe you'll need to run two new cables) then you should be able to use that multiswitch to do the job.

One word of caution, I once had a multiswitch which supposedly would work with a quad LNB and found it wouldn't. In the end I put a traditional quattro LNB in and the system then worked. The only reason I could think of why a quad wouldn't work was that the 22KHz signal was becoming attenuated or bleeding into other ports, it was rather a long run for the cables between the switch and the LNB.

 

[Cupotea]

If you can redirect the two lines out of the LNB that go to places unknown into the attic alongside the other two (maybe you'll need to run two new cables) then you should be able to use that multiswitch to do the job.

One word of caution, I once had a multiswitch which supposedly would work with a quad LNB and found it wouldn't. In the end I put a traditional quattro LNB in and the system then worked. The only reason I could think of why a quad wouldn't work was that the 22KHz signal was becoming attenuated or bleeding into other ports, it was rather a long run for the cables between the switch and the LNB.

Hi PaulR,
The 2 mysterious cables come into the loft, go off in a different direction from the other 4 cables (2x sat & 2x ant). The 2 mystery cables then go back into the wall at the other end of the attic possibly going into the 3rd bedroom? highly unlikely to go into next door neighbour, (might be complete coincidence but my neighbours have only recently installed a sky dish - what have they been using up till now hey?!) only kidding!