Sky Signal Splitter / Distribution

[Digger]

Possibly a question for VEX.

I have Sky HD (twin cable) and a Panasonic plasma tv with a Freesat input, unused.

I wish to somehow feed a reliable satellite signal to the tv so I can use the Freesat if for instance my Sky HD box is recording two channels and I want to watch a third. On a good day weather wise signal level is about two thirds of max according to the Sky box's Signal Level menu.

Is this technically feasible and what kind of tech would I need to be looking at? Let's assume budget is limited.

[illmonkey]

You'd be better off buying a quad LNB and taking a feed from the dish. £15 or so on eBay.

[Digger]

Sorry yeah meant to say lets assume no lnb fiddling.

It's an octo-lnb and whilst it's feasible to run a 3rd cable, the busy-body lady upstairs always sticks her nose in by claiming ownership to the dish when residents connect to it, and she's a full-on pita regarding anything involving her fellow residents. It's also difficult to get access to route the extra cable into my flat, so would rather explore this option first to be honest.

[Digger]

So for an F connector Home Distribution Unit it seems like I need a minimum of a quad lnb input of four cables, even though I'm looking for only one extra feed for the Freesat input on the telly. I assume this is to do with maintaining optimal voltage?

Is that right?

[megaphone]

Ideally you need a third feed off the dish. You could use a Stacker, this allows the Plus features down one cable, however you'll still need to get to the dish vicinity to install the kit.

[VEX]

Sorry Digger, it can not be done.

The Sky Boxes push is control signal to the dish to tell it to what groups of channels to select (there are four possible options)

So obviously, if you try to split a signal and both the box and the TV send different group requests then you won't get anything.

Only real option is another feed off the dish I am afraid.

V.

[illmonkey]

In the block of flats I lived in there were 8 feeds from a big dish, that went into 2 splitters, and fed 12 flats, some with dual cabling. But, the splitter was ~£500

[VEX]

That isnt a splitter, it is a switch. It will be pulling in the 4 groups from the dish to it (8 in your case) and then the switch does the selection.

Pah, 8 cables.

I have an apartment block in Knightsbridge with 8 dishes and 27 cables! That is a nightmare of a mess for us to trace, id and test as the engineering team have no drawings!

Took me 4 hours last week looking for one cable, and I didn't find it! Another 5 this week and we just about managed to trace it all.

V.

[illmonkey]

Fair enough, but its possible.

He could stack them, but he'd need access to this dish, may as well run the cable in.

[Digger]

Thanks chaps. Yep VEX, that was the gist of what the nice chap from Satcure was telling me know over the phone earlier.

So, a third cable it is. . . somehow!

[VEX]

Looking forward to it!

Hehe.