Need a Satellite Guru

[Rickg]

Can someone confirm an install I am looking at for my home. Due to trees/hills I need to locate dish approx 500' from house (receiver) and would like to use a Winegard 30" dish with RG-6 single strand and 12 db inline amps every 100'. I believe I will loose about 25db in 500' or is there a single amp I can put at house? Also what LNB do I need I plan on purchasing service from Directv. Do they provide receiver & LNB if customer supplies dish?
I do not have electric where dish will be installed. Thanks

 

[brentb636]

I wouldn't do it. I'd use RG-11, instead, which is more expensive, but a single run of RG-11 will have less loss, and be much less likely to have connection problems, compared to a long spliced run of RG-6 . I don't see that using RG-6 for that installation will be a good long term solution. If you simply must use RG-6, consider trying it out without the inline amp first, before breaking the cable and creating just one more possible problem.

 

[updatelee]

RG11 would be best, RG6 will work but not recommended for that length.

putting inline amps every 100ft will destroy all resemblance of usable signal, like obliterate it into a pulp lol.

maybe one amp at the 300ft mark, but even then I doubt you'll need it. try without first.

more important will be voltage switching issues at that length, use a bandstacked lnb to solve that.

use a good quality coax with a solid copper core, not a copper plated core. Goto your local electrical wholesale store, they'll know what you mean.

 

[Rickg]

Thank You! You guys know your stuff. I am a sponge. RG-11 solid strand it is!! If this was your house what would you do? Dish type/size, LNB, voltage switches? (I don't know what they are) RG-11 coax, any other devices I need etc etc. Right now I just need tv so I was going to get Directv to provide service. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[brentb636]

You'll need to set a pole on the spot where the dish will reside. I don't see any reason not to try to get a free dish and lnbf from DirectV. That's usually the way to go. If you use RG11, you'll need some crimpers for it and at least 2 male f style connectors for it. At the end points, for ease of use, plan on short lengths of RG6 to connect to the receiver and lnbf. You'll need a couple f-style barrel connectors to transition from RG11 to RG6 . Connectors and crimper for the RG6 are another point.
You might check and see if you can qualify for a free install. If that were the case, you might get away with just running the RG11 cable run, terminating it with connectors at each end, and setting the pole in the ground.

 

[pendragon]

I know it's fashionable here to recommend RG-11 universally over RG-6 for long cable runs, but have any of you calculated the numbers? Given this is a DirecTV installation, the cable may have to pass everything from 250-2150 MHz. The low end is no big deal, but compare the attenuations of both cable types for 950 and 2150 MHz with a 500' run:

RG-6: 32 and 48 dB
RG-11: 22 and 33 dB

Of course RG-11 looks better in this comparison, but it would still be very poor engineering practice to make a run this long with such uncompensated attenuation. Another issue is cost. For simplification I'll assume non-flooded cable, ie. this is pulled in buried conduit. RG-11 easily costs 2-4X what RG-6 does. I'll be gracious to RG-11 and compare the cost of locally bought 500' rolls: $100 for RG-11 and $40 for RG-6. I'm going heretic to say copper-clad cable will be fine - the RF performance will be the same and see my parting comments on DC resistance.

Given 35 years of dealing with long cable runs, I would absolutely recommend the use of amplifiers for this application. Single, decent consumer units are around $10 apiece. Let's compare three configurations with price estimates:

RG-6 + 1 amp: 19 and 28 dB for $50
RG-6 + 2 amp: 6 and 8 dB for $60
RG-11 + 1 amp: 9 and 13 dB for $110

The second choice is clearly superior in my book. I would place one amplifier at the dish and a second at the 250' mark. There will be those who will throw a hair ball over DC power loss through RG-6, copper-clad no less. I'll again be fairly generous for the second option and estimate the LNB draws 200 ma, while each amplifier takes 50 ma. For simplification, I'll take the worst case where two amplifiers and the LNB are at the very end of a 500' run of copper-clad RG-6. The total current draw is 300 ma and the total DC resistance of the cable is about 19 ohms. This yields a worst case loss of 1.7 V, which will be negligible for a DirecTV installation.

Given the engineering facts, I believe the choice is obvious.

 

[brentb636]

RickG,
You'd have to be crazy NOT to take Pendragon's advice. When he weighs in, there's not much room for anything else. Good homework, Pendragon.

 

[perazzimx15l]

Try gosatellite.com sometimes they are cheaper than homedepot they are offering free shipping untill December 5, 2010.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Is it possible for you to locate the dish North of your house and shoot over it? I'm guessing your elevation to be in the 33-36 degree range, if you have a spot 50'-75 north of your house you may be OK, and avoid a long run altogether. If you have to make a very long run, do as Pendragon recommends.