One dish, one outlet, two decoders. Possible?

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steve98

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#105223 29-Jun-2012 14:47

We've just moved in with my wife's parents while our house is being built. They already have SD Sky, and we've brought along our MySky HDi box and we're wanting to use it there but in a different room to them. I *thought* they had two separate outlets as they can move their decoder from one room to another, but what they actually have is an ugly mess that Sky actually installed for them:

The feed comes in from the dish to a standard outlet, and when they're watching in that room their decoder goes on the end of it and bang job done. When they're in the other room, they take the coax cable from the sky outlet, screw it in to the end of another piece of coax that is sticking out of a hole in the floor, that then loops under the house to another wall mounted outlet in the other room, which they then connect their decoder to.

With me? Phew!

What WE are wanting to do, is take that feed where it comes out of the first outlet, put a splitter on it with two outputs, and connect one to our MySky HDi box and the other to the cable sticking out of the floor so that the other decoder can continue to receive a signal in the other room.

Will this work?

Cheers

Steve

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#648245 29-Jun-2012 14:50

Yes, that should work fine.

Do it properly though, with a decent splitter and F connectors, ideally of the compression fitting type.

Watch the LNB settings in the new controller, just in case it was different at the last location.
IF Sky boxes have a loop out, you could do this without a splitter, but the first box would always need to be powered on, which it probably is if it's a mysky unit waiting in case it needs to record something....

Jaxson

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#648247 29-Jun-2012 14:51

And depending on how long you'll all be camping out together, it might be cheaper to cancel a subscription and multiroom the other one of them.

Niel

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#648292 29-Jun-2012 15:45

My experience with the duration of building on a guaranteed completion date from a particular GJ Gardner franchise is 6 weeks late and they did not know it, and now 6 months later we still do not have code compliance. Apparently 1 more document requested by council, as if the builders do not know what paperwork the council would require. Good luck with camping as in-laws.

If you have paid $600 for the MySky, don't cancel your account and get multiroom for the in-laws as you will have to return the MySky (actually TheirSky) and waste your $600 payment. Instead cancel your in-laws account and you get multiroom. Or put one account on hold, there must be an option for that.

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Jaxson

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#648302 29-Jun-2012 16:11

All good points Niel.
Surprising though, as the GJ TV ad's don't show any delays like you have suggested, it's all smiles and flowers on there....

Niel

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#648339 29-Jun-2012 17:15

Just want to point out our experience is regarding one GJ franchise. Also I'm told similar issues occur with other brands as well.

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mxpress

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#648349 29-Jun-2012 17:53

steve98: We've just moved in with my wife's parents while our house is being built. They already have SD Sky, and we've brought along our MySky HDi box and we're wanting to use it there but in a different room to them. I *thought* they had two separate outlets as they can move their decoder from one room to another, but what they actually have is an ugly mess that Sky actually installed for them:

The feed comes in from the dish to a standard outlet, and when they're watching in that room their decoder goes on the end of it and bang job done. When they're in the other room, they take the coax cable from the sky outlet, screw it in to the end of another piece of coax that is sticking out of a hole in the floor, that then loops under the house to another wall mounted outlet in the other room, which they then connect their decoder to.

With me? Phew!

What WE are wanting to do, is take that feed where it comes out of the first outlet, put a splitter on it with two outputs, and connect one to our MySky HDi box and the other to the cable sticking out of the floor so that the other decoder can continue to receive a signal in the other room.

Will this work?

Cheers

Steve

Won't both dishes be trying to power the dish? One will have to be disabled from feeding output voltage. Just a thought.

mxpress

Niel

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#648372 29-Jun-2012 18:37

The splitter takes care of the DC pass through.

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Jaxson

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#648380 29-Jun-2012 18:47

Essentially the splitter (assuming a quality satellite all ports power pass type unit) only allows one boxes power to actually reach the LNB at a time.

If you do this via loop out then yes, the second box should have the LNB power turned off, and this will also require the first box to be turned on at all times to power the LNB.

steve98

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#649455 2-Jul-2012 11:25

Thanks everyone for your help. I've ordered a splitter and will let you know how I get on.

Steve

tkr001

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#649468 2-Jul-2012 11:56

It will work fine with the splitter. I have done it myself in the past.

steve98

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#650223 3-Jul-2012 20:04

Hmmm what am I doing wrong. I went ahead and bought this splitter:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=486898477

I have the SD Sky decoder connected to one port and it is working fine, but the MySky HDi decoder is connected to the other port and it will not pick-up a signal - just gives the 'atmospheric conditions' error message. I have it connected to Input 1 on the back of the unit.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Steve

steve98

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#650283 3-Jul-2012 21:34

Jaxson: Watch the LNB settings in the new controller, just in case it was different at the last location.

Hmm... how do I get to this on a MySky HDi unit...

Jaxson

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#650308 3-Jul-2012 22:15

Do both units work at the one location that is working?

steve98

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#650312 3-Jul-2012 22:26

Jaxson: Do both units work at the one location that is working?

Hmm after a bit of experimentation... no. If I connect the SD Sky decoder directly into the 'first' feed, it works. If I unconnect it and connect the MySky unit instead... no signal. So it seems to be an issue with the MySky HDi box only... I do remember that when we had MySky HDi installed at our old house Sky came out and made some change to the dish... could that be it?

tangerz

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#650346 3-Jul-2012 23:49

Sounds like maybe your HDi box has different LNB settings to the SD box and that there is probably a very old or non-standard LNB on your dish.

Here's what to do:

Hook both the SD box and the HDi box up to the splitter. Get into the 'system setup' menu of the SD box (the process differs depending on the box) and look for the LNB settings. My guess is it will be 11300 MHz, but whatever it is note it down.

Now get into the installer menu of the HDi box.

To do this press Active, 1, 4, 0795 Select. (I think 'Select' needs to be fairly quick after the 0759)

Now in the installers menu select 'LNB Setup'.

With 'High Band LO Frequency' selected, use the numerical keys to enter the number you got from the SD box but now in GHz instead of MHz. ie 11300 MHz = 11.30 GHz.

Once entered, scroll down to 'Save New Settings', hit 'Select' then use the 'Return' button to make your way back out of the menus. Hopefully you now get picture... ;)

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