The pros and cons about Siamese Cable??

[The Stone Man]

I've tried to find information about Siamese cable, but have come up empty. On installation day, I had the TV installer here, and the Voom installer. The TV guy was very knowledgeable, and when I told him Voom was coming out with a PVR later this year, he suggested Siamese cable from the dish to the wall outlet.

It was 10 cents extra per foot. With all of the commotion of 2 guys running around installing things, I said sure--go ahead. I can't remember what he said about the advantage of doing that, but it had something to do with the PVR. So the Siamese cable runs from the dish to a wall outlet that has 2 posts, both active. I'm only using 1 of them.

I've read where an additional line will be needed when the PVR comes out, but can't figure out why. Any of you smart people see any advantage of this Siamese idea over the traditional single line installation?

 

[andrzej]

Any of you smart people see any advantage of this Siamese idea over the traditional single line installation?

I don't see any advantage. A single line is all you need for a PVR and a single display unit. The only advantage I can think of is extra $$ for the installer.

 

[rcbridge]

Is it a two tuner PVR? I'm not sure if Voom will require a second line for the other tuner.

 

[FunkyBoss]

Maybe since it has 2 tuners, it will need two lines from the dish. Kind of the same as have 2 STBs each needing their own lines?

 

[bbtkd]

I've tried to find information about Siamese cable, but have come up empty. On installation day, I had the TV installer here, and the Voom installer. The TV guy was very knowledgeable, and when I told him Voom was coming out with a PVR later this year, he suggested Siamese cable from the dish to the wall outlet.

It was 10 cents extra per foot. With all of the commotion of 2 guys running around installing things, I said sure--go ahead. I can't remember what he said about the advantage of doing that, but it had something to do with the PVR. So the Siamese cable runs from the dish to a wall outlet that has 2 posts, both active. I'm only using 1 of them.

I've read where an additional line will be needed when the PVR comes out, but can't figure out why. Any of you smart people see any advantage of this Siamese idea over the traditional single line installation?

You will probably need two lines for the PVR. Since there are two sat receivers in the PVR and each can be viewing channels in either horizontal or vertical polarization, running one line for horizontal and one for vertical would be ideal. There are ways to run both over one cable, but that gets more expensive and incurrs more signal loss. Also, given that you should avoid diplexing the OTA antenna onto the dish line, you would ideally have 3 lines - one for sat horizontal, one for sat vertical, and one for OTA.

The current receiver only needs one sat line and it sends a signal up the line to the dish to select polarity. With multiple receivers, you need two lines to the dish so you get both polarities all the time.