Tom's Whole-House SD network solution

[tdillon]

I have a Dish 942 and a Dish 625. I have created a whole house network with the 3 SD RF outputs available to me. I just have a question about what kind of signal combiner that I could use to improve the signal quality.

Here's what I did:

On the back of the 625 I took TV1 out (channel 3) and TV2 out (channel 21) I used a dual antenna combiner to combine those two signals and send them down a wire. I took that joined signal and used a another combiner to add the TV2 out (channel 30) from the 942. I then took this super signal and fed it into a 4 way output block. I sent this output to 4 different SD tv sets. I set each of the TV's to tune channels 3, 21 and 30. Presto, each of the sets gets a pretty good feed from any one of the 3 tuners that are available to them.

The 942's HD output just feeds one of my HD tv's. My other HD tv is using my old Voom box to just get the HD Digital OTA channels.

What I would like to do is join all of the SD feeds and also the analog TV channels from my OTA antenna. The splitter / combiners that I have found locally all filter all but one of the inputs, so it doesn't allow multiple feeds onto the common bus. Is there a real combiner that would let me have 4 SD Analog inputs feeding 4 Analog outputs and combine all of the signals without filtering?

 

[Stargazer]

This is something that I would like to do but I think when I tried to do this that channel 3 overode the UHF channels from the tuner 2 outputs of the dual tuner recievers when tuner 1 was on.

 

[tdillon]

The reason that you think channel 3 overrode the signal from the UHF outputs is because you used one of the junky 4 way connectors to attempt to join the signal. The only input that is not filtered on one of those connectors is the one labeled "input". All other connectors which are usually labeled out 1, out 2, out 3 and out 4 have a capicitor to prevent "interference" from leaking to the other tv's. This filters out the signal that you are trying to inject onto the signal bus.

 

[tdillon]

I tried to add the local analog channels into the mixture today. I seriously screwed up the picture quality of all the satellite box provided signals, and the quality of the OTA analog wasn't that great either. When I went back to ONLY the satellite box provided signals the picture is as good as NTSC allows. I think I need to order a couple more UHF remotes for my 942 and 625.

 

[TuxCoder]

Be careful not to broadcast your other distributed channels out of the antenna though.

Out of my 10 distributed channels, only one of them can be a local channel with my current setup because: (a) I'm using a 3-band combiner (VHFlo, VHFhi, UHF); (b) I'm generating in-house channels 3, 4, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and 50; and (c) that only leaves the VHFhi band as unused in-house and my only "primary" local station in that range is on channel 7.

 

[tdillon]

Where did you get your 3 band combiner? I have been looking for combiners all over the place and haven't located a good one yet. All of the combiners that I find are actually splitters that allow you to feed the signal backwards to do a combine, but at the cost of at least 3dB of signal loss.

 

[TuxCoder]

I got it at one of my local RadioShack locations for $2.something (new) as they were just getting rid of them. In fact, I liked it so much I went back a couple days later and got the only other one they had. Not to sound stingy, but I'm not sure I could part with my spare... ($$$$$$$$)

See my HT setup link (in my signature). The ASCII diagram referenced in that page is more up to date than the graphical diagram, but both include the combiner. It is RadioShack #15-1236 but their site no longer has any info on it.

I bet some creative Googling or eBay searching could point you to another source of those or units similar to it.

(As a side note, I similarly lucked out at the same RadioShack location with my two agile modulators for my channels 40 & 50, clearanced new at $25 each. )

 

[bcshields]

I had a complicated install where the customer had the both TV2 feeds from 2-522's combined with his off air channels on the same wire. We used a simple splitter to combine the Channel 73 and 74 (TV2's), but when we used another splitter to combine his local antenna channels with his 73 and 74, and that ran into a power booster into a splitter to feed every TV in the house.... we found that we had some ghosting over the Dish feeds 73 and 74.

We tried a bunch of different configurations but ended up using an old cable band pass filter to block the higher channels from showing on the off air side so that when they were combined with the higher 73 and 74, they wouldn't ghost together.

 

[noremac]

The way to do this with the best chance of success is to use a video distribution system designed for the function. Here is an example of some from Leviton. Shop around - prices vary all over the place.

 

[tdillon]

The way to do this with the best chance of success is to use a video distribution system designed for the function. Here is an example of some from Leviton. Shop around - prices vary all over the place.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

For the life of me, no matter how I googled this, I couldn't locate the equipment that I needed to do this the best. LEVITON is the answer! I have found a company that understands my needs!

I am going through their whole catalog now. I can't wait to get my house hooked up fully. Every DVD player and every video source will be available to every tv in my house after I get done with this.

(I just wish that it wasn't such a short-lived solution. They don't do it for my HD signals yet.)

 

[jssat]

This is what I have been using for 3 or 4 years now. http://www.smarthome.com/7717.html This has been a hassal free system. If I remember it was muck more expensive a few years ago.

 

[Lee Smith]

I also use a channel plus but it does not modulate, it just combines two modulated signals with my OTA. Here is the link: http://www.smarthome.com/7712.html

 

[Ripper]

I personally use a Channel Plus NF-469 filter which filters out channels 14,16, and 18 on my system. I have satellite 1 (510) on ch14, satellite 2 (811) on ch16, and the DVD megachanger on ch18. OTA goes thru the filter, then routes to the combiner with the output from my 3 channel modulator, and then out to the distribution amp. Viola! OTA channels and satellite receivers/DVD megachanger out to every TV. IR control either via the UHF satellite remotes or Xantech.
This way my satellite receivers can be used in other rooms other than the main theater room.