Extremely Long Cable length problems

[jdieter]

I live in a woods and had to run 450ft of rg6 to the dish in an open pasture. DTV told me this would work and it has till I started adding HD and DVR's. I ran two DTV supplied dual rg6 w/ground cables in buried conduit so I have 4 lines going to a slimline dish. Then DTV came out replaced my round dish with the slimline and we purchased the protection plan.
Last week we had DTV out to add another receiver and add a second 8 port multi-switch and that's when everything went downhill. The tech's couldn't get my 2 HDVRs, and 4 regular recievers to all work. The techs were constantly on the cell phone then coming back to me with,"we've got it figured out now" after pistol whipping me over the long RG6 run to the dish and having a receiver outside but out of the weather. Had 3 different techs out over a 2 day period and they finally left us with no multi-switch, but direct connections to the sat lines so we could only use 4 ports (1HDVR & 2 regular recievers).
After a weekend of my calls to DTV they elevated this from the tech level to an area supervisor coming out today. The DTV answer is I need a 6 x 16 multiswitch to get everything working normally.
This is my first post so I'm hoping somebody has experience with an installation similiar to mine and what I need to make everything work and can advise me as at this point I have very little confidence in DTV solving this problem.

 

[Jimbo]

I live in a woods and had to run 450ft of rg6 to the dish in an open pasture. DTV told me this would work and it has till I started adding HD and DVR's. I ran two DTV supplied dual rg6 w/ground cables in buried conduit so I have 4 lines going to a slimline dish. Then DTV came out replaced my round dish with the slimline and we purchased the protection plan.
Last week we had DTV out to add another receiver and add a second 8 port multi-switch and that's when everything went downhill. The tech's couldn't get my 2 HDVRs, and 4 regular recievers to all work. The techs were constantly on the cell phone then coming back to me with,"we've got it figured out now" after pistol whipping me over the long RG6 run to the dish and having a receiver outside but out of the weather. Had 3 different techs out over a 2 day period and they finally left us with no multi-switch, but direct connections to the sat lines so we could only use 4 ports (1HDVR & 2 regular recievers).
After a weekend of my calls to DTV they elevated this from the tech level to an area supervisor coming out today. The DTV answer is I need a 6 x 16 multiswitch to get everything working normally.
This is my first post so I'm hoping somebody has experience with an installation similiar to mine and what I need to make everything work and can advise me as at this point I have very little confidence in DTV solving this problem.

Welcome to the Site !!!

450 feet ????
WOW, that IS long.

Personally, my FIRST thought would have been to change out the RG6 for RG11, that would cost you as I doubt D* would do it for free, but thats where I would have started right from the start.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

A couple of thoughts:

1. A SWM LNB might have a bit more gain and the frequencies used don't go as high (cable loss is frequency dependent).

2. Sonora has a line of amplifiers which are designed for longer cable runs.

 

[harshness]

I suspect the real problem is more likely voltage drop.

RG11 is probably the solution to the voltage drop problem with its greater (more than double that of RG6) ampacity.

 

[willager2]

RG11 is the answer. I have a similar installation with 3 HR24s and one H24. My skimline dish is in a pasture 450 ft from the house. I used RG11 and it works great. Ony used one cable as it's runing SWM In fact have 5 RG11 cables running as I use it for StarChoice and was using it with satellite internet until DSL became available. DTV installer was funny when he showed up to put in the dish. Told me he couldn't use my RG11 as DTV's policy is that they have to put new ends on any cable the use, and he didn't have ends to fit my cable. Took two calls to a supervisor to clear that up.
I bought a couple of 1000 ft rolls on Ebay. Shipping hurt but the cable was reasonable. Then I found a friendly cable installer who got me another roll and some RG11 ends

 

[MikeinBaja]

While I agree that RG11 is the right answer - I'd certainly have the DTV techs change you to SWM and see what happens. Assume your "upgrade" work ticket is still open - that would be on their dime.

The 450' run is yours though. If the SWM change works (and it's easy for the tech to do) might save you from pulling long runs of pricey cable.

 

[Jimbo]

While I agree that RG11 is the right answer - I'd certainly have the DTV techs change you to SWM and see what happens. Assume your "upgrade" work ticket is still open - that would be on their dime.

The 450' run is yours though. If the SWM change works (and it's easy for the tech to do) might save you from pulling long runs of pricey cable.

That would be a good thing to start with as the Power inserter with the SWiM sends the power to the LNB that runs a higher voltage, I don't know how touchy it is, but yes, it would beat replacing the RG6 with RG11.

I can't imagine what that would cost to buy $ 500 ft of RG11.

I wonder if you told D* and the installation company about it, if they would supply the RG11 (at a better cost), seeing the warehouses probably have it already.

I know we will often do something like this when working with the sub dealing with a different type of wire in the phone business.