Motor dish for FTA and DTV

[tenndave]

am DTV subscriber and want to hookup DVR to my FTA system. have 31" dish with motor& quad
Invacom LNB. using viewsat ultra 2000 to drive dish with circular lNB @ 11250. can not get any signal strength on dvr. appreciate comments, guidance.

 

[Anole]

basic rule:

Basic rule of thumb for users - never mix pay TV with FTA.
DishNetwork, DirecTV, Shaw, whatever else there is.. those receivers all like to own their dish, and be able to update their guide whenever they like.
(and other things, as well)

People also ask about sharing coax. Not happening, either.

 

[putney]

Try coming out of your FTA box into your ANT. In on your DVR and see if it works. It's likely that the ANT. in bypasses the DVR function. Keep a fixed dish for your sub.

 

[delta_charlie]

am DTV subscriber and want to hookup DVR to my FTA system. have 31" dish with motor& quad
Invacom LNB. using viewsat ultra 2000 to drive dish with circular lNB @ 11250. can not get any signal strength on dvr. appreciate comments, guidance.

HI, as Anole posted FTA and Sub TV do not mix well but perhaps you are limited to just one dish and have to make it work.

Here is some info that might help, the (C port) on the quad Invacom would act the same way to the DTV receiver as an old single 18 inch DTV dish. To make it work the first thing to do is to use the Viewsat to move the dish to the satellite that would be used with the old 18 inch dish. Make sure you bypass any switch when trying to use the DTV receiver. Unplug the Viewsat and hook the coax direct to the DTV receiver and then you would need to run a check switch. I do not have a DTV box so I do not know how this is done but it should be some place in the setup memu. after that is done you should have some of the programming on the DTV box. One of the problems is the newer DTV stuff uses a dish with 3 LNBs so you will be missing a lot of the programming but you might be able to get most of your favourite channels at least in SD if you can figure out what satellite they are on and point the dish at that satellite. Also be aware that some of the DTV channels (HD I think) use the Ka band so you would not be able to get them with the Invacom.

If you can get the DTV receiver to work with the direct connection you might be able to get it to work by using the loop out from the Viewsat. Just move the dish to the correct DTV satellite then turn the Viewsat off then try the DTV receiver.

I think the best way to make this work the best would be to run a second coax direct from the C port on the LNB to the DTV receiver. Hook the DTV receiver up to a cheap surge strip and use the switch to turn the DTV off when you want to use the Viewsat on different satellites. Another words the DTV receiver should only be powered up when the dish is on the DTV satellite.

Hope this helps, DC

 

[tenndave]

Folks thanks for all the good advice. As a newbie this sounded like an easy tasks, wrong. Took
easy way out and rain line from DTV switch to DVR. Wife was thrilled to hear drilling of another
wall bore in bedroom, lol. Thanks again for help.