Newbie Tech Question

[fchall]

I've been reading this and other forums and get real confused with all this talk of switches, lbn's , splitter, di/uplexers and what not.

All I know is there's a dish on my house with a coax coming out of it.
Could somebody give me a dummies trace of what is going on.

When a signal comes down from above what steps/devices does it go thru to get displayed on my TV.

I want to know because I'm getting a 625 dual tuner DVR and have been told I can still use just the one coax coming to my current reciever(301).

Thanks. BTW I have faith in the old saying; There are no dumb questions.

 

[KE4EST]

No such thing as a dumb question. If you have the dish 500 you probably have a dish pro twin LNB. If you leave it that way you will need to run a second coax to the 625. You can use only the one wire you have now, if you change out the LNBF to a Dish Pro Plus(DPP) twin. The 625 will come with a DPP separator, so you only need the one wire, but your LNBF must also be DPP. If it is not(most likely not) then you will need to run another cable. Is cheaper, but if it is a problem then you also need to order a DPP Twin for your Dish.

Hope that helped, BTW all of the above is assuming you have a Dish 500.


Also Welcome to SatelliteGuys

 

[fchall]

Ok; I have dish 500 and two 301 receivers. One upstairs one down. I'm going to leave the 301 upstairs and swap downstairs for the 625.

When we built the house it was prewired with four coax. Two up two down.
Currently one of each pair is being used. I want to keep one of the up pair going to the 301 upstairs and hopefully only need to use one of the down pair going down to the 625.

Sys info says DP-Twin-2

 

[KE4EST]

Ok so you have the reg Dp twin, so what you are going to have to do is, change it out to the DPP twin and use the seperator or change it out to a quad and run two wires two the 625. Or get a dp34 switch and feed to it from the dish, but you will still need two wire to the 625. Looks like your best bet, with prewire and all is to order a DPP twin.

 

[fchall]

Ok but what and where in the signal path are these LNB's, and DPP's and switches you speak of. That was part of my original question. What are all these things and where are they in the signal path from space to my TV?

Thanks for your answer which helps a lot. Now I need some education just to satify my curiosity. I hate to have an installer here and not know or at least have some idea of what he's doing.

 

[Liquidforce88]

With your setup it should be a direct path from the LNB (the part on the end of the arm on the dish) to a ground block (if one was used, and it should have been) to the receivers at the tv's.

If you switch out the DP Twin for a DPP Twin you should not have to change anything other than inserting the DP seperator that comes with the 625.

 

[fchall]

Thanks. Now what is a ground block and how would I find/recognize it?

Oh yeah. Would it possible to have something on the dish for future proofing in case I wanted to feed
four separate dual tuner DVR's from my one dish?