Barrel Connectors

[tknopf]

Quick question...I have 2 lines running to my daughter's receiver and we just moved her TV. Of course one of my sat. lines is too short. I used a barrel connector to add a six foot coax to get the line to the receiver. Problem......it worked fine UNTIL I had a new multi-switch installed this last week. Now I get a "searching for sat. line 2" message and am unable to get the receiver to work with 2 inputs. It will work when I get it set up with just 1 line in. Any thoughts???

 

[tds4182]

Quick question...I have 2 lines running to my daughter's receiver and we just moved her TV. Of course one of my sat. lines is too short. I used a barrel connector to add a six foot coax to get the line to the receiver. Problem......it worked fine UNTIL I had a new multi-switch installed this last week. Now I get a "searching for sat. line 2" message and am unable to get the receiver to work with 2 inputs. It will work when I get it set up with just 1 line in. Any thoughts???

It would help us to help you if we knew:

Which model multi-switch?

Which receiver is in your daughter's bedroom?

 

[vurbano]

It shouldnt matter

 

[TNGTony]

vurbano, it actually does. The DP switches stack the signal and use a wider frequency range. Some barrels cannot carry that higher frequency. The legacy LNBs and switches do not do this.

Another thing has to do with whether the switch has a power inserter or not. A barrel connector may attenuate the signal and power just enough so the power needed by the switch is only just met and causes partial or odd failures and error messages. It doesn't look like this is the case here, but if you should never use a barrel connector on a cable going from the power inserter to the switch.

The quality of the 6 foot cable could also be a problem. I once had all sorts of strange behavior out of one of my receivers with a wire on a barrel connector. I changed the 12 foot RG59 extension with RG6 and all was well.

Not all barrel connectors are created equally either. It could be replacing the 50¢ barrel with a $1.50 barrel rated to handle the higher frequency pass-through.

See ya
Tony

 

[Bob Nielsen]

Directv question Tony, so no DP involved. Still, it could be any of the things you mentioned. Most barrels will work fine (regardless of the color or frequency rating) but paying a bit more will probably make success more likely.

 

[Ace68]

It could also be crappy f-connectors on the cable that you used to extend it.

Ace

 

[Van]

This is an issue with dish also wich is why they went with a higher rated barrel connection on the wall plates and ground blocks and loose ones as well. If you used an older style non colored barrel you would see the difference on the dish pro and dish pro plus system right away or very soon.