Two receiver feed from one satellite cable

softmind82

I have got sky hd box which is subscribed and watching hd channels ,I also got one sky free open box which plug in time by time on same frequency 28.8E, question is how can I feed both these receiver together as I have only one cable coming from satellite dish. Actually it's a dual while cable installed by sky.

I'm unable to install new cable to fit my purpose and need to know if I can install and plug/splitter/duplex in for both receiver. I just want to see one receiver at one time.

Pls comment.

Thanks

penrhyn

The LNB on you dish gets its power and control signals from your Sky Box. Its not possible to feed two boxes from a single LNB.

onomatopoeia99

While it's quite difficult to understand what you currently have, it seems likely that you need an additional cable to the extra receiver.

As penryhn has explained, the receiver talks to the dish over the cable and tells it information about what channel is wanted (that's a massive simplification, but it will do). It is not like an aerial signal where everything arrives from the aerial and the receiver decides what it wants, so an aerial feed can be split and still work.

So, if both of the cables in the "dual cable" you describe are connected to the HD box, you will need a new cable from the dish to the second receiver. If the LNB on the dish has no extra connectors available, you will also need a new LNB with more outputs (you can get them with 1,2,4 and 8 outputs). You don't have to get Sky to do this, a local satellite installer could also do it.

ilikewatch

If I understand your post correctly, you only need to use one receiver at any one time? In this case you could use a "magic eye" to send the signal from your subsription box to another TV. This would mean that you wouldn't need a second box, and would be able to watch and control all your subscription channels on a second TV (and use Sky Plus) - you just wouldn't be able to watch a different channel on each TV.

There are ways to split the Sky cable from the dish so that it can supply 2 different boxes (but only one at any given time), but using a magic eye would be a much simpler and cheaper solution.

gjchester

If the HD box is Sky Plus (and most likely is) then it needs the two feeds.

If the HD box cannot record you may be able to use one of the feeds.

The LNB (Bit on the end of the arm the wires go into) comes in various versions, some of 1, some 2, some 4 and some 8 outputs. Usually Sky Plus installs have twin outputs but many will be quad outputs as the LNB's are not much more and it makes life easier if the customer then wants to add more receivers. You need to look at the LNB and see if it seems to have spare outputs, (Try zooming in with a digital camera, and then zooming in on the computer screen) If it has its just a case of wiring them up, and getting the cable in the house. Its not hard to add cables if you a reasonable DIY person and have the laddered.

Take a look at http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/skylnb.htm (not a recommendation just a set of images) for how the LNB may look, in some cases there will be a pull down hood but you should be able to see how many holes it has and if there are spare holes that could be used. Its not a guarantee it will have spare outputs (they could be faulty) but a good indication.

Moneymaker

penrhyn wrote: »

The LNB on you dish gets its power and control signals from your Sky Box. Its not possible to feed two boxes from a single LNB.

Yes it is. You can buy an LNB with up to 8 outputs - enough for EIGHT standard receivers or FOUR twin-tuner PVRs.

(I suspect you meant to type "from a single-output LNB" or "from a single LNB output"?)

penrhyn

Indeed, worth noting that Sky tend to install Quad LNNs as standard, so maybe OP may just have a bit of cabling to do.

Heinz

I have a dish aligned on 19.2ºE and a single coax from that feeds my Skybox FTA satellite receiver (no, not a BSkyB receiver). The Skybox has a coax loopthrough on the back and I run a cable from that to my TV's FTA satellite receiver.

Both the Skybox and my TV's satellite receiver receive multiple channels from 19.2ºE but, as they're connected to the same TV screen etc., only one at a time.

So, in my case, the answer is a qualified, "Yes."

gjchester

Heinz wrote: »

I have a dish aligned on 19.2ºE and a single coax from that feeds my Skybox FTA satellite receiver (no, not a BSkyB receiver). The Skybox has a coax loopthrough on the back and I run a cable from that to my TV's FTA satellite receiver.

Both the Skybox and my TV's satellite receiver receive multiple channels from 19.2ºE but, as they're connected to the same TV screen etc., only one at a time.

So, in my case, the answer is a qualified, "Yes."

Its a sort of..

I know you said 19.2 but I'm going to use Astra as it may make more sense here than using references to German channels (and 19.2 is great as RTL show the F1 live in SD )

Satellite signals are sent in Vertical or Horizontal polorisation. The reciever sends a signal up to the LNB to tell it to choose V or H polorisation.

Tuning is done in the recieving box, All signals from all channels pass down the wire. The only thing done in the LNB is setting polorisation which acts as a filter of sorts.

Lets say the SkyBox is on Sky1, its at 12285 V which mean Vertically polorised. The Sky box forces the LNB into vertical mode. The pass through will allow all signals down the wire, but will block the polorisation signal going through it in reverse.

So the 2nd Reciever can see any Vertical polorised signal ie E4 at 10729 V but cannot seen any H polorised signal so would not see BBC signals on 10773 H


Each LNB can only be set to one polorisation mode at a time, which is why there is often multiple seperate LNB's in the housing on the end of the arm you see.

gjchester

alexanderwhite wrote: »

At this method you can watch only the one tv channels for both tv. My advice is that you can your service provider customer care it will came to your home and install it properly then you can watch different channels to both tv sets.

Unlike the US, many UK people use satallite as a free system, Freesat is the UK free to air service designed to be a close relative of Freeview (the UK terrestrial service) where people cannot recieve a Terrestrial broadcast system. It also allows free to air HD on more channels as Freeview has limited bandwidth and cannot support many HD channels.

In many cases there is no service provider to call other than an independant installer.