Sky - can't link it to 2 TVs - help pls!

wimbleQ

Hello

We are having trouble with our Sky TV set up and hope someone can help save our sanity! Apols for the lengthy description...

We have a Sky dish which we use just to receive/watch the free channels, we don't subscribe.

It has two LNBs. One goes to a Skybox/TV at front of house, the other feeds a SkyboxTV at the back of the house.

What we're trying to do is, from the TV at the back of the house, run co-ax cables to two more TVs. We have the co-ax cable in place and it works to feed both TVs fine, no problem.

The problem comes with being able to CHANGE CHANNELS from each TV in each room. We've bought the Sky TV link/eye things. Have tested these with each TV and they work fine.

From surfing the web we know that to get the TV eye links to work for two TVs we need an amplifier with digital bypass. We've bought one of these (it's suitable for up to four TVs, though we are only linking to two). But it simply won't work. It will still only allow us to change channels on one TV but not the other.

Please can anyone suggest what might be wrong?

Set up is:

LNB from dish to Sky box on "main TV".
Small piece of coax cable from RF2 on skybox to "UHF in" port on amplifier.
Coax cable from amplifier TV1 port to TV1 (via the sky link thing).
Coax cable from amplifier TV2 port to TV2 (via the sky link thing).
Sky link plugged into TV1 (this is lit red and works)
Sky link plugged into TV2 (this is not lit red and will not work - it's not the unit as we've swapped them round and it works in the other TV)

Have gone into set up on the Sky box and set RF outlet to "on" and tuned the TV into the RF channel.

It's driving us nuts as we can't see what we're doing wrong - but we're not technical so if anyone can spot a mistake or has any suggestions we'd be hugely grateful!

Ta muchly!

penrhyn

Swap over the connections between the outputs of your amplifier, does the fault move to the other TV? If it does then the DC pass though is being blocked.
If it doesn't then you have a cabling fault, most lightly the screen of the coax is open circuit at one of the plugs, check the cable and any joints.

wimbleQ

Thank you Penrhyn - please can you elaborate on "the screen of the coax is open circuit at one of the plugs, check the cable and any joints".

What does screen being "open circuit" mean - what should I be looking out for....sorry if being dim!

davb

From my basic knowledge of this, for the TV eye to work, then you need a voltage on the cable to drive it. As this voltage (although small) can damage connected equipment it has to be turned on in the Sky box setup (which it sounds like you have). This voltage is then blocked from reaching the second TV by the TV eye - the red light indicates the presence of the voltage.
It sounds like your amplifier is not passing the voltage on your TV2 connection. It should be 8 to 12v DC, and it can be checked (preferably at the amp) if you have a multimeter.
It may be worth trying TV3 or 4 on the amp instead of 2, just in case it's a dry joint.

spike7451

wimbleQ wrote: »

Thank you Penrhyn - please can you elaborate on "the screen of the coax is open circuit at one of the plugs, check the cable and any joints".

What does screen being "open circuit" mean - what should I be looking out for....sorry if being dim!

By screen,he means the copper or aluminium braiding just under the outer covering.If any of that touches the inner copper stinger,it'll short out the circuit.

http://www.sdsdigital.co.uk/Fitting-an-F-Connector-p-6.html