Tv ariel help please

S

sparkmanc

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Hi,

In my property I have a single co-ax cable coming from the ariel, down the front of the building and through the wall into a co-ax socket (Like you usually find.) I want to send the cable through the attic, into a splitter, and then a cable to each room, So each room has an arial, and the cable isnt visible.

What I want to know is if i were to get Sky in a few months, would they need a seperate cable, hence another cable on the front of my house? Or would it be worth running two into my loft, ready to be connected to?

Cheers.
 
If you want to have Sky at some point in the future, your best bet is to run two CT100/WF100 or equivalent satellite grade coax cables to each outlet position, and fit tripled/quadplexed dual satellite and TV/FM outlets. One cable carries sat1, TV and FM, the other carries sat 2 only. See http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CX241M.html

If you only want to have one Sky+ box to start with, a LoftBox or similar amp will usually allow you to do that, which will allow you to have Sky run their cables from the dish straight into the loft at high level, then into the LoftBox. If you ever want more than one satellite decoder, you can replace the LoftBox with a multiswitch and have a Quattro LNB fitted at the dish, which will allow you to feed as many satellite decoders as you want from a single dish.

EDIT: Also worth a look > http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MXHDU681.html
 
Really appreciate the hasty reply, and your time.

But that went straight over my head pal...

Can you dumb it down ha :lol:
 
It would be worth doing that for the sky supply, you could get away with using your intended set up to do this and transfer them over when sky gets installed.
 
sparkmanc said:
Really appreciate the hasty reply, and your time.

But that went straight over my head pal...

Can you dumb it down ha :lol:
Click to expand...

Have edited my post to include links to some of the products I refer to.

I'm not sure I can simplify it much further - run two good quality coax cables from the loft to a single gang backbox at each location you want a TV and Sky. Fit a quadplexed output module over each backbox, and fit a suitable amp in the loft that will allow you to combine TV, FM and Sat signals down the same cable.

Remember, a Sky+ box requires two feeds from the LNB, which is the small block mounted at the end of arm on the dish and is where all the magic happens. You can combine a single feed from the LNB with TV and FM all down a single coax, but what you can't do is combine more than one LNB feed down a single coax. This is why you must run two coax cables to each TV/Sat outlet if you plan on having Sky+.

Alternatively, if you want to keep it dead simple, you can run three cables to your lounge, two for satellite and one for TV/FM. You will then need to fit separate TV/FM and Satellite outlets, and leave plenty of spare length on the two sat cables to allow some flexibility in locating the dish. However, this doesn't allow an easy expansion route if you decide that you want an extra Sky box in another room at a later date.
 
If you are getting Sky they will install what you need for Sky so I'll forget about that.

However you will likely want to view sky in bedrooms etc. So I would leave the cable you have and take an extra cable from your main TV to a box in the loft and from there to each bedroom.

At the moment you would also need a two way booster in your main room and the original aerial will go to that box and then one to local TV and other to booster in the loft.

Once Sky is fitted the the two way booster local to your main TV will no longer be required as the Sky box has two outputs.

Points to be aware of are if you want to control Sky from the bedrooms you need a loft booster with DC through and no de-coupling capacitors in any of the wall plates.

However if your not fitting Sky but free to air satellite then you need to fit cables and also if you want cables hidden you will need to fit your own cables but Sky fitters are not allowed in your loft and also have rules as to what roofs they can go on etc. So although it may seem a good idea to fit the cables yourself it may be to no avail if they then refuse to use them. Plus sky quality cable is not cheap so why provide it yourself if you don't need to?

When the Sky guy came to my house he opened my garage and uncoiled the two cables in entrance and snipped off one and lead other to new Sky+ box but this cable was not connected direct to the LNB but to my Free to Air box and it took 6 more visits by Sky before I got it all sorted so I would get Sky first then fit your own cables. Then there are no cables they can snip off.

P.S. Sky+ and SkyHD uses two cables to LNB but normal Sky only one. And if you don't intend keeping up your subscription then better with Free to Air box as you can receive programs on free to air box that sky can't receive. I have both.
 
what you need to remember is theres no point in trying to distribute sky from the attic
you either need to distribute from the main sky box to the rest off the house where they watch exactly what your watching in the main box
or you fit boxes in each room where they will then have individual choice but at extra cost
 
big-all said:
what you need to remember is theres no point in trying to distribute sky from the attic
you either need to distribute from the main sky box to the rest off the house where they watch exactly what your watching in the main box
or you fit boxes in each room where they will then have individual choice but at extra cost
Click to expand...

I would agree normally one would install the Sky box with the main TV and normally you would feed any distribution unit from that point.

But the distribution unit could well be in the attic. And in theory you could install the sky box in the attic and use RF link to all TV's but since the SCART link gives a better reproduction it would not be my preferred method. But with Digi-eye there is no need to have the box in the main viewing room.

When my dish was at the back of the house and I was having problems with signal loss on the long run of feeder cable between LNB and Sky box I did consider that option. But in the end I installed a second dish to front of the house.

There are of course 100's of ways to distribute TV through the house and I have tried just a few. But with Sky to avoid problems if anything goes wrong latter I would not alter the Dish to Box set-up from what sky has installed. As once you change it to get Sky to correct any faults without charge is going to be problematic. So I would only install after the Sky box.
 
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