BUD Reality Check

[dunnsept]

OK, just want to run this past you guys as a reality check for myself before I dive in and start buying equipment:

I have a 10' mesh dish, C/Ku LNB in the yard already. Been sitting idle now for a few years.

The plan:
purchase a 4dtv receiver first. Gotta move the dish and there are certain channels SWMBO & the kids won't do without (Discovery health, TLC for SWMBO & noggin for kids)
Then I want to add an FTA to the mix (maybe one with PVR functionality)
One of the things I liked with the old setup I had was poking around thru the feeds on ku band.. some crazy stuff could be found. FTA can be the replacement for that, but the rest of the family wouldn't tolerate having to poke around to find stuff. When my daughter wants to watch noggin, she wants it NOW!

I went in the basement the other day, the old wire from the dish coming into the house has been cut. I sure dont remember doing that.. could have been a contractor, not sure. anyway, I'm going to have to splice it back together. I did see now that what looks like a 4 conductor flat, is actually just the sheathing. Inside each are the "real" wires. One has 3 for the motor, 2 are coax and 1 has (I think) 2 wires, I assume for V/H switching.. so as long as I can splice them back together properly, I should be good to go

anything I'm missing? Anybody see any glaring errors or omissions?
thanks!
Paul...

 

[gabshere]

to the group paul

several things before jumping in

one do a search here on 4dtv's , there are do's & don'ts on them mainly dealing with the unit id / battery especially when buying used off ebay ( and all the units are used now, no new ones available)

depending on how you set it up a 4dtv is usually good for one channel at a time , so say your wife wants to watch discovery and you kids want to watch noggin, only one channel at a time can be displayed.

to add a dvb receiver to the mix will be easy , with a kit sold by one of the sponsors or make up your own kit. but unless you have several dishes will be limited to watch the same satellite & same polarity that the 4dtv is watching. so you might even want to consider setting up a seperate dish (and it could be ku only) this way you would have free reign ... a look around your local area might reward you with a old primestar dish not being used ...perfect for FTA and a seperate setup just a thought..

the wire should be ok to splice there could possibly be a a slight loss in signal with a coax splice.

 

[zaxxon]

Best start by running new wires, you never know what has happened to the old ones.

Use RG6 Quad cable, it's better than just plain old RG6. Price??, Compare to regular RG6, about twenty bucks more for a thousand foot roll off of ebay.

You may be able to find ribbon cable, that gives you all of the wires you need .

I just use RG6 quad and sprinkler cable wire rather than ribbon cable.

It's what works best for you.

Good luck

 

[dunnsept]

OK.. thanks guys.
We only have 1 TV anyway.. and during the day the kids take priority. Then swmbo gets it after the kids go to bed, and I get the late-night shift on the thing. so a channel limit is no big deal.. it's what we deal with now with dishnetwork anyway.

I thought about running new wires from the dish to the house, but a) the ground is starting to freeze already and there's snow on the ground
b)the wires are in the house already.. so I can work on the splices where it's nice & warm (right next to the furnace) ;-)

Instead of splicing, I'm thinking about crimping ends on and then using a barrel connector. not sure if that's a better connection or not.. for that matter I could solder them too, if that gives me a better signal (can't be worse than dishnetwork I guess)

 

[Corrado]

I would just splice the pre-existing wires for now to get up and running.

For the kids programming...do they watch Nick? It's not currently available C band since it went away from analog in the past. I'm feeling the pressure from the household to get it. It's like "Dad, all my friends get Nick".

As far as who cut the wires...my bet was the installer for Dish. I helped a friend reconnect his BUD after his wiring was deliberately cut in multiple places after he had his Dish installed several years before. I certainly hope that's not a general practice to competing services.

 

[sergei]

I use both a barrel connectors on all my dishes both at the dish for setup and in the box coming into the house and I can't detect any signal lose, but there will be whenever you break the cable so with a good tuned dish and strong sign it shouldn't be no problem.
Just make sure you go out and get some water proofing filler for coaxial connectors if you have any outside and it's also good for using on the LNB connectors.
The problem with splicing is maintaining a good shield