Two Dish Setup

[JRL]

Hi

I have a question for the group and I hope you can help me. I have a lot of trees surrounding my house. I am not able to use one dish for all the 3 satellites for DirecTV. I currently am aimed at the 101 Sat. I just bought an HDTV and HDTV Sat receiver. I am able to get the 110 and 119 sat in another location, which is about 50' from the 101 Sat. My question is, if I buy the old style oval dish and just put the 119 LNB in and buy the 110 upgrade kit and run them to the multi-switch behind the dish will it work. My concern is that the 101 Sat will be over 50' away. I have been told that all the lines from the LNB's to the switch must be close to the same length.

Thx
Jake

 

[Darin]

There's no need for the lines to the multiswitch to be the same length (mine aren't). You can do what you propose, or you can just get the current Phase III dish and a separate cascadable multiswitch.

 

[VOOMER]

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[JRL]

There's no need for the lines to the multiswitch to be the same length (mine aren't). You can do what you propose, or you can just get the current Phase III dish and a separate cascadable multiswitch.

I have not seen a stand alone triple muliswitch just the old 2X2's they require two dual LNB's one for the 101 and the other for the 119 with two ports each the 110 I believe is cut in to the 119 with a special LNB and switch. Are you saying that there is a stand triple and would that mean the four lines from the triple dish goes to the 110/119 and the other two lines for the dish that sees 101 goes to the other ports. Do you know a place where I can see a picture of this multi-switch that I can cascade to.

Thx

 

[Darin]

The 2xN multiswitches were only for single-sat reception (101 only). You need a 4xN (or 5xN if you want to diplex an OTA signal). There are plenty of examples at http://www.solidsignal.com/multi-switches.asp#4x8 . They don't always explicitly say they are cascadable, but if it says that it's compatible with the Phase III dish, or "any" DirecTV dish, then it's probably cascadable (the two 4x8 switches they list don't say cascadable, but I'm quite sure they are). Yes, the 110 and 119 signals are combined upstream of the multiswitch, which is why you only need four inputs, instead of five (there are no odd transponders at 110, which is why it wouldn't be six). If you put a Phase III dish where you can see 110/119, you'd only need two lines from it to the multiswitch (connected to the two 119 or 22khz ports), and two lines from a single-sat dish (or even another phase III, if that's what you happen to have) to the regular 101 ports on the multiswitch.

 

[VOOMER]

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[Darin]

? ? ? ?

I dont think that will work 2 lines from 2 dishes and the Phase III wants all 4 to a multiswitch.

Sure it will. The multiswitch that he adds looks just like a receiver to the dishes... two inputs from the multiswitch "ask" for 101, and two ask for 110/119. Each Phase III will supply what's asked of it.

All in all if he has the Phase III dish and can find 110 and 119 there is no reason not to be able to get 101 on the same dish.

Sure there is. If there's not one location that he can get all three, he'll have to split it up. That's my situation.

 

[VOOMER]

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[Darin]

It's not uncommon to need multiple dishes if you have lots of trees. I've got a big tree on the SW corner of my house... a dish on the SE corner of my house can barely see 101 around it, and a dish on the NW corner of my hosue can barely see 110 & 119 around the other side of it. I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes time to get 99 & 103.