DTV Dual LNBF's and multiple recievers

[drhydro]

I set up a satworks 3618 in my daughters bedroom (her bday present) this weekend and ran into an issue I had never heard of before. I have a dtv dual output LNBF on an 18" dish pointed at 119 for the audio channels, with a pansat in our front room and the reciever I am installing in my daughters room hooked up to it. Both recievers are also hooked to a variety of other dishs, both C and KU, using diseqc switches.

Here is the problem I am having. If I have the Pansat in our front room turned to a music channel on 119, when my daughter is surfing thru the audio channels in her room I keep losing signal on the front room reciever. This happens every time she selects a station that is on the same polarity as the pansat in the front room is on.

I tried two different dual output RCA (circular) LNBF's and that did not cure anything. Just for gits and shiggles I took all switches/ splitters/ dc blocks out of the setup and still had the same problem, so I know its not a switch being flakey.

This is really an annoyance, as during the summer I use my pansat for audio more than I do for TV. It is really irritating when having a bar-b-que to keep loosing the music piped outside as the kid keeps looking for that one song she just has to hear.

Anyone have a clue as to why this is happening?

Thanks in advance,
Doc

 

[Mr Tony]

That is really weird. So as I understand it, you have a line from each output of the 119 dish to the diseqc switches (or even hooked up directly) and when the back bedroom is on a V channel if you are on the same polarity it goes out?

I have never had that issue before

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
Exactly. Also (I forgot to mention in my original post) if I am changing radio stations around on the pansat, the satworks will loose signal when the pansat hits a station on the same polarity. This causes a HUGE amount of squacking to eminate from the back bedroom, its amazing how much noise a kid can make when she looses her satellite radio ;-).

I thought about putting another dish up just for her, but I already have 2 - 18" dishs (119 and 91, the edge rocks :-D ), a 76cm and a P* 40 x 30 on the roof, and I really dont want to mount more dishs up there.

 

[Mr Tony]

doc I am confused as you are on this one.

You've tried more than one LNB and it does the same thing
you've removed the switches
you have 2 lines running in (one to each receiver)

If you have 2 LNB's, unless the LNB's specifically say "v" and "h" (ie: Primestar LNB's) both ports will work with both polarities. The only other thing I can think of is a bad cable somewhere and maybe its shorting out both.

I have a dish at 91 and run 2 recievers (one receiver is setup just for the audio..the other is in a Diseqc setup) and I haven't had that issue.

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
I am going to try the same setup on my dish pointed at 91 and see what happens, luckily all my cable runs go through the basement and its not hard to change stuff around.

I am stumped on this one also, it should work just fine. Heck, one of the LNBF'S is from my old DTV setup and worked excellant with two recievers hooked up to it.

Well, off to the basement, I'll post back in a few and tell you what I found out.

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
Ok, I tried it on my other 18" dish, using different cable runs straight thru to the recievers (belkin must love me). Same result. Now I am really scratching my head.

 

[jerryt]

Strange but my previous post has disappeared!!!!!

Try isolating the lnb with a multiswitch.

 

[global0]

Strange but my previous post has disappeared!!!!!

Try isolating the lnb with a multiswitch.

Didn't mean to divert the conversation, but just thought as an FYI I noticed the same with a post of mine on another thread and thought that it was deleted by mods or something. But maybe the server crashed as we submitted the posts and they went down before the database was updated....

Interesting thread!

 

[Mr Tony]

very possible. I've had that happen to me a few times

but back to the subject at hand...Drhydro, do you have a multiswitch handy? (a 3x4 DirecTV multiswitch?)

 

[john green]

Seen this before.Multiswitch should do the trick as others have said.

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
I dont have a 3x4 switch handy, but check this out. Just for yuck yucks I set up one of my pansats in her bedroom. Still had the same problem. Then, I put one of the recievers with 22 khz on, and the other with 22 khz off. Now I dont have a problem with losing signal, and am even more confused.

I cannot figure out why that works, but it does. 22 khz tone switching should have nothing to do with this setup. If someone could tell me why this works, my head would stop hurting :-D

Now to hook the satworks back up in there and start hooking all the wiring, switches, etc. back up the way they were. As one of my friends would say, Oy Vey!

Thanks again,
Doc

 

[Mr Tony]

so when you turn one receiver to 22k on and one to off it works fine??

That is WEIRD (like Twilight Zone weird)

for fun I hooked up 2 receivers to my 119 LNB (an old DirecTV LNB) and it worked fine...using a Pansat 1500 and Fortec Classic

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
LOL thats what I said. For some odd reason the 22 khz tone does the trick. I have stuff set up on my 119 dish again and it works fine. I checked on every possible combo of radio stations, and it all works as it should. Now my daughter is getting PBS off the p* dish, G10 off the 76 cm, and radio off 119 with no interuptions as I flip through radio stations on the front room system.

What is really strange is I have used 3 different LNBF's in this "test". Two of them are used DTV duals, one is a RCA dual a friend gave me that is brand new (sold as a replacement for single output LNBF's). All three LNBF's had the same problem. Very, very wierd.

Doc

 

[Tron]

Gotta be something to do with that particular combination of receivers.

 

[Mr Tony]

DrHydro

well the twilight zone hit me today

I was redoing some of my setup (the 4 LNB's into a 4x4 switch out to receivers) and I have one receiver with just a feed to 91 for the audio. Well now this is weird

All I get is H transponders
If I turn the LNB power off, I get only odds
If I turn the 22K on, I get both polarities

This is the Viacast 2000 that has just 91. The other 4 boxes get G4, G10, SBS6, NImiq1 via a 4x4 switch. Only thing I can think of is the feed from the dish to the 4x4 multiswitch is "forced" to 13v. So maybe that's screwing it up.

I dunno but its working now and I have audio in the basement

 

[drhydro]

I never was able to figure out why the 22khz switching was needed on my setup, kind of drove me crazy cause I like to know how things work.

 

[mikekohl]

Multiswitches can drive you crazy.

I assume that you are using one that is powered by DC voltages supplied from an AC to DC converter plugged in to the wall outlet. Such a setup provides separate
isolated voltages (13 VDC for RHC and 18VDC for LHC) to the DBS LNBF.
It also ties in the 22 KHz to select a second satellite if necessary.
Proper connection would mean four uninterrupted cables to the LNBFs.

IF you are using your receivers to power the multiswitch, there is a very good
chance of upsetting the locked in polarity on one of your DBS LNBFs, because
one receiver may have the power of being "king of the hill", depending upon
how it is wired.

One solution to consider if your multiswitch is not powered with permanent
settings as above...is to consider a power inserter such as the PICO
SPI-14/18 2150. It will pass proper voltage separately to the two ports
on a DBS LNBF, and lock them in. Outputs from the passive side will then
go to the inputs on your multiswitch, and cannot accidentally switch to the wrong polarity, or be stuck in one or the other.

Good luck!

 

[Mr Tony]

Mike
I'm using a Zinwell 4x4 switch..not powered

13v is G10
18v is G4 C-Band
13v+22k is Nimiq 1
18v+22k is SBS6
There's 4 receivers off that

I have a 2nd reciever that goes directly to the other port of the Nimiq1 LNB. I don't know but its working right now and that's all that matters

 

[mikekohl]

If it works, there's no reason to question or explore the subject any further.
Should someone want to design a system from scratch, there are a number of ways to make it work. I was just speculating why there might have been some problems---and if it ain't broke, listen to the music!

 

[Mr Tony]

and if it ain't broke, listen to the music!

exactly