Wanting to start a neighborhood CATV system.

[norman]

Ok folks, don't toss darts at me. I just want to know how you folks would start up a small neighborhood CATV system. Nothing fancy. I just want to know how to do it. I am thinking about this and want some GOOD insite. Not ragging me.

I'm sure that some of you have built a Mom & Pop system before. You are the folks I want to hear from.


Norman

 

[Todd Humphrey]

First you have to build a headed. The headed contains all the electronics. You will need one satellite receiver and modulator for each satellite channel. With all the power supplies, amps and such, this can cost about $500 to $1000 per channel.
To distribute the channels, you will need to run a trunk line and tap off for side lines or directly to homes. You will need legal permission from all property owners ect....
However, before you can even start adding up the cost, you need to find someone who can sell you programming. That is not hard, but the monthly cost must be known before anything else.
Unless you are planning to cover at least 50 homes, who all have no access to satellite because of no line of site, the numbers will not add up for you.
There will ALWAYS be some channel consumers can get by going to their own satellite TV system which you will not provide. Consumers will want HDTV, that will cost you ALOT MORE. They will want DVR's. Unless you can secure financing from a manditory home owners association (They pay if they do not use it). Keeping subscribers will be hard.

Even for an apartment complex, the cost for a SMATV system runs $50,000 plus, and you have to distribute to homes, which I assume cover a larger area then an apartment complex.

If you are only looking to distrubute local, over the air broadcast, their might be a chance. Please provide more information.

 

[Stargazer]

The cost of the coax on the poles and probably having to pay an x amount of money per month to have the right to use those poles. You probably have to have someone authorized and insured to install the coax wire on the poles. I have heard of television over high speed wi-fi internet becoming possible so that might be an idea. Offer television, internet, and phone service. The cost to do that would probably be less than what the cable alone would cost you.

 

[meldar_b]

I would love to know where (a source) I could get the How-To Information and equipment needed for a headend setup. I live in southeastern Kentucky and I would love to have my own over the air antenna system running from the top of the mountain behind me. the cable run would be at least 1500 feet run from the top of the mountain to my house. with this setup I would only want to receive my locals channels maybe HD if I ever start moving into the HD area and the FM band. I'm not wanting to run a neighborhood CATV system just a very long OTA system. I know it can be done. Before we had CATV companies and Satellite TV some area people would a simple run a ladder line and a TV antenna to get all the area channels and some from cities that are farther away(distance channels) I remember when I was a kid (late 60' early 70's) a guy who had one of these TV mountain lines and he had all the channels ABC,NBC, CBS, and PBS from Huntington and Charleston WV he also had channels from tri-cities of Johnson City Tenn and a Bluefield WV channel. I seen ladder line in one of my ham catalogs and seeing that got me thinking about running the line again and now coming across this string about doing almost the same thing.... weird huh. any info would help. I currently have local digital cable from Inter-mountain Cable. I did consider the DBS but ran into some jacka$$ who said I could not get the 119 birds....but he was wrong. I am going to move into the FTA area in the spring and really thinking about a move to the one of the DBS systems. but I would love to find some info on my OTA question.

 

[Todd Humphrey]

Your best bet is to find a local tech to help you. There is more to it then you might think.

Look here for a tech that might be able to help you www.dbsinstall.com.

 

[cablewithaview]

If your starting from scratch, go ahead and go all digital. That way you are already FCC compliant. Need to make sure you have at least 20 per mile willing to sign up. Anything below 500 I wouldn't worry about anyhow. It's one thing to have a smaller system already in place with 300, 400 or so subs. Those systems with a little TLC can be upgraded with existing plant with maybe some cable replacement here and there or additions. Placement of fibre nodes would be key as well. Are you wanting to do internet? If so, then you would need reverse in your amps and nodes to carry data back along with VoIP. EAS is also something you would have to install according to the FCC. Franchises, got to apply for one or several depending on your local city, county and state. Have to file with the FCC in what your doing, area serving and what type of service. You would have to be able to do CLI's and proofs among other technical stuff. Of course their is the retrans agreements with local broadcasters, contracts to do with programmers. "IF" you could get into something like NCTC, being a member of that cooperative could save you money on programming and equipment. It's doubtful that "just anyone" could get into the NCTC right now and hasn't in over two years. NRTC was talking about setting up something for telephone companies (and other rural cable providers) to go through them for programming like the NCTC but I don't know if that has been done or not. A lot of stuff to consider when getting into something like this.

 

[Todd Humphrey]

There is no FCC requirement that CATV transmit digital signals to subscribers. The FCC rules ONLY apply to over the air broadcasters.

 

[cybertrip]

First you have to build a headed. The headed contains all the electronics. You will need one satellite receiver and modulator for each satellite channel. With all the power supplies, amps and such, this can cost about $500 to $1000 per channel.
To distribute the channels, you will need to run a trunk line and tap off for side lines or directly to homes. You will need legal permission from all property owners ect....
However, before you can even start adding up the cost, you need to find someone who can sell you programming. That is not hard, but the monthly cost must be known before anything else.
Unless you are planning to cover at least 50 homes, who all have no access to satellite because of no line of site, the numbers will not add up for you.
There will ALWAYS be some channel consumers can get by going to their own satellite TV system which you will not provide. Consumers will want HDTV, that will cost you ALOT MORE. They will want DVR's. Unless you can secure financing from a manditory home owners association (They pay if they do not use it). Keeping subscribers will be hard.

Even for an apartment complex, the cost for a SMATV system runs $50,000 plus, and you have to distribute to homes, which I assume cover a larger area then an apartment complex.

If you are only looking to distrubute local, over the air broadcast, their might be a chance. Please provide more information.

you mean a headend right?

 

[Todd Humphrey]

Damn spell checker. Yes Headend

 

[AntAltMike]

A customer of mine is about to abandon its Simulsat-3, which is on its rooftop in Ft Belvoir, Virginia (the city, not the actual Fort). They will be having a crane come to the building for some other work this summer and would like the dish to be removed at the same time. If you are willing to disassemble it, I think I could persuade them to let you have it for nothing, with them paying for the crane time.

 

[webbydude]

Just be real careful about starting a local headend. Look what happened to this guy and the run-in he had with the cable company...

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=96956

 

[Todd Humphrey]

Warning - The above link points to a Youtube video which contains adult language. Make sure children are out of the room before playing. Funny as hell, but not when your 6 year old nephew walks into the room.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Dishstore can help you builld a headend. Just did a 28 channel system a few weeks ago for a motel for around $8000 + Install

We can get it down to around $285 per channel or less!

 

[Stargazer]

We have had a cable system here for around 15 years and it is now only at around 23 channels and there are only around 75-100 people in this area. Everybody has satellite dishes around here. The headend for this consists of 2-3 c-band dishes and a small building and no fence to keep people out. Anybody can go up there and clip the wires or screw it up.

 

[w0en]

I live in southeastern Kentucky and I would love to have my own over the air antenna system running from the top of the mountain behind me. the cable run would be at least 1500 feet run from the top of the mountain to my house. with this setup I would only want to receive my locals channels maybe HD if I ever start moving into the HD area and the FM band.

Ever look into a passive reflector? If you could see the antenna from your residence/tower. works like this: mountaintop antenna pointed to UHF broadcast stations wired to-->high gain antenna pointing towards house <-->high gain house antenna/preamp pointed at high gain antenna LOS below the hill. There are instances where some use "wireless repeater" like this to gain access to wireless I/P networks too, I know I fooled myself on more than one occasion thinking I had exotic DX TV station and was pointed at a source of cable leakage! Of course YMMV

 

[Splicer]

So Norman, what did you find out?

 

[lakebum431]

If you are going to do it talk to Claude at DishStore. He knows his stuff and is as honest and fair as they get.