Idiots guide to freesat in 2 rooms

wordsfan

Got my daughter tv/DVD player for Christmas. Is it possible to connect her tv to freesat dish/box in living room? And she can watch different programmes?

PLEASE bear in mind I am no good at techie stuff. Yes I know there are other posts on this but I can't understand the answers. I dunno what a coaxial what's it is so please keep as simple as poss thanks

Avoriaz

Where is the satellite dish that feeds your living room equipment? It is usually on an outside wall.

What equipment does it already feed and how many feeds (cables)?

Sky, Sky+, Freesat etc.

The simplest method is to run one or two additional cables from that dish directly into your daughter’s room. One cable will allow her to watch or record one channel. Two cables will give her the ability to record two channels.

You might need to upgrade the LNB on the dish if there are not one or two spare feeds on it but that is an easy and inexpensive option.

I had a dish with a quad (4) LNB with 2 Sky and 1 Freesat feeds to my living room. I bought an Octo (8) LNB and some additional cable and DIY installed two extra Freesat cables to an upstairs bedroom. I spent less than £50 in total.


You can also link from your living room to her room but I’ll leave that to others to answer as I have never done that myself.

PS: As the next poster suggests, you will also need a Freesat receiver or recorder of some type in her bedroom.

headpin

Avoriaz wrote: »

Where is the satellite dish that feeds your living room equipment? It is usually on an outside wall.

What equipment does it already feed and how many feeds (cables)?

Sky, Sky+, Freesat etc.

The simplest method is to run one or two additional cables from that dish directly into your daughter’s room. One cable will allow her to watch or record one channel. Two cables will give her the ability to record two channels.

You might need to upgrade the LNB on the dish if there are not one or two spare feeds on it but that is an easy and inexpensive option.

I had a dish with a quad (4) LNB with 2 Sky and 1 Freesat feeds to my living room. I bought an Octo (8) LNB and some additional cable and DIY installed two extra Freesat cables to an upstairs bedroom. I spent less than £50 in total.


You can also link from your living room to her room but I’ll leave that to others to answer as I have never done that myself.

This will only be of use if you have another Freesat box in her bedroom to connect the cables from the LNB to.

If you want to use the downstairs Freesat box, then the easiest way is if you have an aerial (to receive terrestrial Digital) and your Freesat box has an aerial (AF) input and output (standard aerial jack). You will slo need an aerial splitter/amplifier (less than a tenner from Argos, Maplin, etc) with at leadt two outputs. Connect the lead from your aerial to the Freesat AF in. Connect another aerial fly lead to the Freesat AF out and run to the input of the aerial splitter box. From one of the outputs on the splitter run a cable back to the AF (aerial socket) on your main TV. From another of the splitter outputs run another aerial lead to your daughters TV AF (aerial) input. This will allow your daughter to tune in to the digital terrestrial channels as well as what is on the Freesat box showing on your main TV.

As I Su, the only think is with this is that she will only be able to watch what is on the Freesat box on the main TV and will not be able to change channels - you may be able to buy a magic eye similar to those you can buy for a Sky Box, so she could change channels, but I am not sure.

It is pretty simple to do this. The hardest part is running the aerial lead to the remote TV in your daughter bedroom.

Another option would be to get a remote sender. This comprises two boxes. One you connect to your Freesat box with a Scart lead. The other box you connect to your daughters set again with a Scart lead. This will allow her to watch what is in the Freesat Box on the main TV and with most she could also change channels. Maplins sell different ones and I am sure will advise see - http://www.maplin.co.uk/productsearch?criteria=TV+sender . These are a lot simpler to install and use than messing with and running cables. As before, only downside is that both TV's must watch the same Freesat channel.

Good luck.

Avoriaz

headpin wrote: »

This will only be of use if you have another Freesat box in her bedroom to connect the cables from the LNB to.



As before, only downside is that both TV's must watch the same Freesat channel.

True, I should have also said that a Freesat receiver of some kind would be required. They can be obtained quite cheaply ( a few tens of pounds) unless you want a recording facility, in which case the price is higher but still not excessive, maybe £110 for a second hand Humax Foxsat or rather less for non Humax boxes.

I suggest that extra cables from the dish plus some sort of Freesat receiver or recorder is far neater, far more flexible and useful and probably little more expensive than connecting to the living room equipment.

My opinion, others will disagree. :beer:

wordsfan

This is where you learn I really am an idiot!!

Dish to living room tv is outside with one cable in through wall. I have an old tv with only one scary point my freesat connected to that.

wordsfan

Here's the proof
What's an LNB? Spare feeds? So I need another freesat box in her room?
We're in a flat. I have no idea what input/output are or if I have them. Aerial splitter for satellite? Magic eye? Remote sender?
Told you I'd no idea

bod1467

In which case you'll either have to read up and learn, or get someone who knows what they're doing to do it for you.

Own_My_Own

Ok. I am a Girl. I will explain in my easy terms.

(Please correct me, anyone, if I go wrong)

Look at your dish. In the middle is a black thing that the cable is connected to with a socket.

Does this black thing have one socket, two or more ?

You need one with 2 sockets. So if it only has one you need a new one. They are easy to get and fit.

You then copy what is there.
Cable coming out of socket.
Cable round the outside of house to daughters room.
Cable through wall into daughters room.
Cable with connecter into freesat box.
Scart lead from Freesat box to tv.

OMO

Avoriaz

wordsfan wrote: »

This is where you learn I really am an idiot!!

Dish to living room tv is outside with one cable in through wall. I have an old tv with only one scary point my freesat connected to that.

wordsfan wrote: »

Here's the proof
What's an LNB? Spare feeds? So I need another freesat box in her room?
We're in a flat. I have no idea what input/output are or if I have them. Aerial splitter for satellite? Magic eye? Remote sender?
Told you I'd no idea

No problem. We all knew nothing until we learned about it.

Do you own the flat or rent? You need to consider what you are allowed to do.

Is the dish yours or shared with other flats? I am assuming it is yours.


The following is a bit simplified but should tell you all you need to know.

The dish on your outside wall points to a group of satellites about 25,000 miles above the equator and it can receive Freesat (and/or Sky) with the right equipment.

There are hundreds of channels broadcast from those satellites including all the Freesat channels. Sky also broadcast from those satellites. The same dish works for Sky and Freesat.

Attached to the bottom of your dish is a metal or plastic arm with a black or grey box on it with a cable coming out of the bottom. That is an LNB and it receives the signals collected by the dish and sends them down the cable to the Freesat box in your living room. The Freesat box tells the LNB which of the many hundreds of channels it wants.

LNBs can be Single, Dual, Quad or Octo. All that means is that they can handle 1, 2, 4 or 8 channels (programmes) at the same time.

You probably have a single LNB with a single cable connected to your single tuner Freesat box in your living room. That means you can only receive one channel at a time.

Dual tuner Freesat boxes with recording facilities are available and allow you to watch one channel while recording a second channel, or record two channels at the same time, plus a few other combinations. You need 2 cables for that.

If you want Freesat in your daughter’s bedroom you need to get a new LNB with more than 1 socket. Get a Quad as Duals are now rare.

You need to attach the existing single cable to one socket in the new LNB and install a second new cable from another socket on the LNB and run that into your daughter’s bedroom. She will need a Freesat receiver, similar to the one on your living room, to receive Freesat.

That will give you independent Freesat viewing options in the two rooms. You each choose what you want to watch.

I strongly advise you to run two cables, or a twin cable, to your daughter’s room as that will be very little more money and allows her to upgrade to a twin tuner Freesat receiver/recorder in the future without re-cabling again.

You might consider running a second cable to your living room at the same time to give you the same option.

Unless you know a good DIYer or handyman, you are going to need someone to install all that for you but hopefully you now understand what you need and the various options.

Find a good local installer.

Good luck.



PS: Again I won't comment on the aerial splitter magic eye options as I haven't done that myself and I think a new LNB and cabling is better for you. As above I have DIYed a new LNB and cabling so I understand that ok.

headpin

Avoriaz wrote: »

Find a good local installer.

Good luck.



PS: Again I won't comment on the aerial splitter magic eye options as I haven't done that myself and I think a new LNB and cabling is better for you. As above I have DIYed a new LNB and cabling so I understand that ok.

I would suggest you need a good installer if you are going for the additional Freesat Box and a larger LNB (Low Noise Block). It will offer more flexibility but will be the more expensive option.

The easiest and simplest option is the remote sender option that I mentioned that you could get from Maplins. It is reasonably easy to set up and use.

The other option of using a splitter works well and I have used on a number of occasions. But again this involves running cables and possibly drilling holes, etc. so if you are not confident you would need to get (pay?) someone to do it for you.

Ditto the Good Luck