Newbie to OTA and Diplexers

[sammy]

Hello, newbie here.

I currently have two HD TV sets (one in living room; one in bedroom). Dish Network provided two 811 receivers.

I got tired of not having my locals in digital, so I put an antenna on the roof. I put in a diplexer on the roof and hooked up my OTA. (By the way, there are two cables running into my house from the dish). I put the diplexer on one of the lines.

I put another diplexer on my HD TV in the living room. After that, I got ALL of my local digital channels (18) at great strength (90% most).

I then tried putting a diplexer in the bedroom. I got nothing when I tried to add the digital channels using the 811.

Did I do something wrong. Seems like it should work? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Liquidforce88]

You would have to Diplexor into both lines from the dish to the receivers. First you would have to split the line from the antenna to feed both diplexors so both receivers get the signal. Then you would have to dipleor back out at both the receivers to feed the signal into the antenna connection.

 

[sammy]

So would I put another diplexer on the cable coming from the dish that does not currently have the diplexer. Then run a cable from the antenna cable (after splicing it) into that diplexer?

 

[SimpleSimon]

You do NOT splice coax. EVER.

You need a splitter on the single cable from the OTA antenna.

That will feed 2 diplexers - one headed to each 811.

Then, at the back of each 811, you put another diplexer so that you have your SAT & OTA feeds again.

 

[ZandarKoad]

... Define "Splice" for me please.

 

[SimpleSimon]

... Define "Splice" for me please.

Manually connecting two pieces of coax cable without using an external piece of hardware such as a barrel connector.

 

[ZandarKoad]

Manually connecting two pieces of coax cable without using an external piece of hardware such as a barrel connector.

AWESOME! I never thought of doing that!

 

[SimpleSimon]

AWESOME! I never thought of doing that!

Huh?

You never thought of using a barrel connector (or ground block for that matter)?

I mean, that's their sole purpose in life - to connect two cables.

 

[ZandarKoad]

No no no no. I never thought of connecting two cables WITHOUT using a barrel. I'd never heard of a 'splice' before.

 

[bweiteka]

I've seen that done before! I was on a trouble call and customer wasn't getting locals from her superdish. signal fine outside, only 119 inside. After replacing a couple fittings and doing a visual scan of her cable outside she said "Oh, my dog chewed through the cable inside, but my boyfriend fixed it!"
He had fixed it by stripping down 3 inches of copper on each side of the chewed through cable and twisting the copper together! What I couldn't figure out is how she was getting ANY signal?

 

[SummitAdvantageRetailer]

I've seen that done before! I was on a trouble call and customer wasn't getting locals from her superdish. signal fine outside, only 119 inside. After replacing a couple fittings and doing a visual scan of her cable outside she said "Oh, my dog chewed through the cable inside, but my boyfriend fixed it!"
He had fixed it by stripping down 3 inches of copper on each side of the chewed through cable and twisting the copper together! What I couldn't figure out is how she was getting ANY signal?

If that was a 301, I wouldn't be surprised. The 301's maintain signal best from my experience.

 

[SummitAdvantageRetailer]

Split the antenna signal into two with a 1 - 2 splitter (one input, 2 outputs). Then diplex that with each satellite line (so 2 diplexors for your 2 HD sat feeds). Then you put another diplexor to bring out separate signals for sat. and OTA antenna. Now remember, you don't want to use dual power-passing diplexors. They don't work well with OTA and satellite.