Minimizing cable runs for apartment complex install

[gjhangiani]

Hello all, and thanks for creating and maintaining such a valuable knowledge base.

Amusing History:
I live in an apartment building, and was told I cannot install dish. Being the type that loves to overcome any and every challenge, I kept cross questioning the management as to why, until they said that I could not make holes in any exterior walls for installation. I took that as their "written in stone" rule, created a workaround, bought a few shelf arms and sheet metal from Home depot, and made holes on the air conditioner unit's casing(thats not an exterior wall, ), created a shelf, installed the dish, and lived happily ever after.

As usual, this isn't a movie and the story doesn't end here. This was just one dish, on my window, facing 61.5 so I could only get international channels. Then after discussions with a neighbor who lives on the diagonally opposite end of the building and facing 110/119, I convinced him to install the dish 500 on his ac unit. Now, I needed a feed from his dish, and he from mine. We somehow managed to tip the super to help us run 2 hidden cables in the building shafts, and the length was 500 feet each since we're on different floors and on opposite ends of the building. After days of hidden work, we managed to accomplish this. We have our own accounts, but we share the dishes.

The Present dilemma:
His window has a legacy twin 500, and I have a 300 dish with legacy dual lnb. One cable carries 110/119 from the twin to my place, and the other cable carries the 61.5 from mine to his place. We both have SW21 switches in each apartment combining the 2 feeds. I have a DishPro 811, and my neighbor has a DishPro 301 Now I have decided to add a second receiver to my account for my bedroom. Is there a way for me to add a second receiver in my apartment, without having to run a third cable from my place to his? I am willing to change any and every switch, and LNB's if necessary, but running additional cable will be next to impossible.
Ideas?? Comments?? Snide remarks??
All appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ShadowEKU]

My mother always said if you dont have anything good to say dont say anything but holy crap.

The only option I can think of is to somehow swap out the Lnbs to Dish Pro's, you have 1 feed from your 61.5 dish going to his apt... make that cable go as close to his dish as possible. He will have to switch to a Dish Pro as well. take the 2 feeds from his dish and the 1 feed from the 61.5 and run them into a DPP44 (Pricey). now you have 1 line left to your apartment. Attach a Pish Pro Plus Seperator on it. This will only feed the 522, 322, and 921. So you would have to get one of those recievers and run your tv2 wire creatively. This should work unless I missed something. But it is quite pricey

 

[gjhangiani]

Thanks for the info. Do you know where i can buy the DPP44? I looked online and cant find it.
Regards

 

[gjhangiani]

What about 811

Does that mean i have to loose my 811 with HD channels? Thanks!

 

[ShadowEKU]

unless you want to make an extra run (would be alot cheaper as well) yep

I missed the HD part... sorry

 

[gjhangiani]

Building common dish scenario

Ok thanks.
I think i can start a new topic then, and that is how to centralize the building's dish setup. After my bold stunt with the building management, at least 5 other apartments followed suit, and now we have about 8 windows with dishes on them. I am thinking about taking the lead once again, and suggesting to the building that we get rid of all these window dishes, install 2 dish 500's on the roof with stackable switches in the cable room downstairs, and use the existent cable wiring to feed signal to whichever apartment chooses dish over cable. Is this a possibility? How would we set it up such that people can either get cable or dish through the current in wall wiring (all apartments are currently wired to get cable from control room), and or get dish from same wire, whilst getting cable internet on the same wire using available filters, and how to we do multi room installs? is that technologically possible?

Where there's a will, there's a way (and of course, web forums).
Thanks again.

 

[ShadowEKU]

will reply in new thread but you have a couple of impossibles.

 

[ajohnson]

You should probably look at the Dish Install Diagram thread over on dbstalk and take a gander at the pdf file in the first message. You want the last page, 16.

If you really want to try and run dual-tuner receivers with the dpp separator so you can use single cable runs (this only works with the 322, 522, and 921), you would need to replace the relativly inexpensive dp34 switches with the more expensive dpp44. The separator WILL NOT WORK with any other unit, don't even think about it.

 

[SimpleSimon]

OK. It looks like you didn't start a new thread - and that's fine.

Your concept is admirable, but reality intrudes. The building is probably wired with el-crapola RG-59, with 237 splitters per foot.

If by some miracle, each apartment has:

• their own dedicated 2150MHz RG-6 cable
• it runs to a central point
• and has maximum distance of 100' or so

then you've got a half-decent chance of pulling this off - if you spend enough money.

LNBFs must be DishPro. They must be within 100' of the central point. More accurately, the total of dish-to-switch ad switch-to-receiver must be 200' or less.

Users that only need to 'see' 3 satellites (110, 119, 61.5) and only need one receiver can be attached via lower-cost DP34 switches. A user that needs a dual-tuner (322, 522, 721, 921) box or needs to access a 4th satellite (don't worry about that now) needs to be hooked up to the DPP44 switch. You can cascade 3 switches from a single set of LNBFs. This means between 12 and 24 tuners available - depending on the mix. More than 3 switches means an extra set of dishes.

You don't say how big the building is, but now you've got an idea of the scale involved.

Finally, if this plan moves forward, you need to consider the E* MDU offerings - and they may still have the special receiver designed to work with RG-59. I think it's a 3750, but don't quote me.

 

[Neutron]

Why didn't you just have DISH run new RG-6 lines when it was installed?

I live in an apartment and I had Directv run 4 lines (3 receiver 1 OTA) through 2 windows. They used flat coax to go through the windows so I can close them and not worry about the cable.

Works fine for my HD.

 

[dulzen]

well, u might wanna go with wireless video transmitters. but will need multi switch to run more than 2 recievers with 3 sat input. u will have set up your reciever in your neighbor apartment. depending on where u buy it, range on wireless video transmitter is 100~500 feet.

 

[dulzen]

1 more thought, or u can set up reciever his apartment and diplex your line going to your place, and use uhf remote. then u don't wireless video transmitter. might be more economical. than u only need to get UHF upgrade kit and multi-switch.