Help need please - thinking of a dual-dish, 10-room, twin-tuner setup

[Amardeep]

Hello everybody, newbie here! I'm currently in the process of re-wiring my house as we have building work going on.

I wish to set up a multi-room two-dish setup, but I'm having a little trouble working out how I'm going to do it.

I will have a fixed Sky minidish for 28.2E Sky UK, and another motorised dish for other satellites for watching football and stuff that isn't on Sky.

I want to have have two cables in each room (10 rooms altogether for future-proofing's sake) so that I can potentially put a twin-tuner receiver anywhere I like.

I will set up one Linux box as a server with my Sky card in it, and all other Linux boxes will share the card details. This is all in-house and I will not be sharing my card details with others or sharing anybody else's Sky card.

All receivers should be able to connect to the fixed Sky minidish, but I also want to give every receiver the ability to connect to the motorised dish, too, while other receivers are connected to the Sky Minidish.

Do I need to use some sort of multiswitch or a number of multiswitches?

If anybody can shed some light on how they would set up a complete dual-dish, 10-room, twin-tuner setup, I'd really appreciate the input.

Thanks!

 

[nistleboy]

I no expert but I'm sure you could get an Octo lnb for both dishes and then use diseq switch for every rec. But thats eight rooms and not ten.

 

[Amardeep]

Hey thanks!

As I said, I'm a TOTAL newbie to all this. Just been reading about diseqc switches, definately seems the best way to go.

If I use an octoLNB on each dish, I'll still only have 4 rooms as I'm want to have the option of a twin-tuner receiver in each room. Not sure how diseqc switches work when you have two tuners... would you have use 2 diseqc switches on each receiver (one on each LN?

I guess I could live without having satellite TV in two rooms if I went for 2 octoLNBs per dish, mounted using a bracket like this: (?)

=http://www.pulsat.com/products/Triax-Flexiblock-Feedholder-for-2-LNBs.html

 

[Adam792]

You need a multiswitch to do what you're suggesting. Then you use special 4 output LNB on the dishes (a quattro LNB, not a quad). Putting 2 octo LNBs on one dish won't work as you can't make it so they're 'looking' in the same direction, which is essential.

You need to look at a 9 input and 24 output (I've never seen a 20 output one, they seem to come in multiples of 8) multiswitch - the 9th input is just for an aerial connection if you want to distribute terrestrial TV over the same system (with the TV + Sat output wall-plates you can get that split the signal back into the satellite and terrestrial frequencies).

 

[Lazarus]

You need a multiswitch to do what you're suggesting. Then you use special 4 output LNB on the dishes (a quattro LNB, not a quad).

There are multiswitches that will work with Quads, but the common route is the Quattro, of course.

 

[Amardeep]

Thanks a lot for your input, guys.

I've drawn up a little diagram showing what I'm thinking about doing now:



I have seen that Spaun (spaun.de) have 20-way (SMS 52003 NF) and 24-way (SMS 52403 NF) multiswitches. I think they will work for my system, but not entirely sure. Might have to drop them an email to make sure they are the right multiswitches for me.

 

[Adam792]

You don't need to go that complicated - the 9 input multiswitches do the DiSEqC for you so each of the 20/24 outputs gives access to both satellites. You plug both sets of dish feeds into the one switch.

 

[davemurgtroyd]

You do realise that you will be highly unlikely to be able to control the motorised dish via a multiswitch and certainly not in combination with a quattro lnb. You will also have extreme difficulty setting up more than one receiver to control the motor.

 

[Amardeep]

Hmmm thanks Adam, seems like a 9x20 multiswitch is what I need then! How would I select which satellite I want to connect to? Or would my receiver pick up the channels from both dishes? If it will pick up channels from both dishes then I won't need the extra four outputs for the Sky+ boxes as they will pick up channels from the fixed minidish no matter where the motorised dish is pointing.

Dave, thanks for that info. I'm learning so much on these forums, I didn't know a single thing two days ago. I've just had a look around trying to find a work-around and found this:

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/...ystems/191690-motorised-dish-quattro-lnb.html

In the third post, rolfw says "Saw one the other month where the quattro LNB ran into the switch, then one of the outputs of the switch went back up to the motor LNB connection and then the motor receiver port went to the controlling receiver. Worked fine."

I reckon I could get the motor working with one receiver (and forget about controlling it with all the receivers) if I connect one of the outputs from the 9x20 multiswitch to the LNB connector on the motor, and then connected my main receiver to the Receiver port on the motor.