Apartment Wiring

[Bender]

I just moved into a brand new apartment and I need to install my Dish network satelite sytem in the new place. I have a 508PVR and a 301 reciever. I can do a straight wiring, but since it's a new place I thought I'd be smart about it. I'd like to modulate the signal out from the PVR (and maybe even a DVD player) and distribute the signal to all the TV's in the apartment. Can I do this over the exisiting cable installed in the apartment? I have no idea how the cable is wired (where it is split, etc.). How can I figure this stuff out. (I'm kind of a newbie). ANy help or advice is appreciated.

[HTguy]

You're going to have to find the cable's central distribution point. If you have a feed coming to your apt, then split & distributed room-to-room you can easily do what you want.

But in most apt houses the dist system is for the whole bldg. So you would need permission to get into it & reconnect the feeds to your apt the way you want them.

[Nick]

In apts I'm familiar with, one cable feed comes in to a given wall jack & is split out to other wall jacks in the apt. You may well find the splitter behind one of the wall plates. Also, there are wireless a/v senders available. Check out www.x10.com for lower prices than RS, WM, BB or CC. I have been using them for some time now with good results.

Good luck & let us know what you find in your walls. ;)

[Bender]

Thanks for the tips. I'll open the plates tonight and hope to get lucky. Then I'll explore the building and see what I can find. I'll let you know how it goes.

[boba]

Watch out for TAPS instead of SPLITTERS they are not the same. Taps look much like splitters but they only tap off 3Db of signal from the trunk line instead of split the signal. You can mess up the whole apartments distribution system and cost yourself some money playing with their property.

[Bender]

Well, I checked behind my wall plates last night, and no luck. No splitters there. I'll have to look around the building this weekend to see if I can find anything else. Maybe I'll call the landlord and see if he knows anything useful...

[apc1]

I think what boba is referring to is a directional coupler. It does not "tap off" 3 db. It may lose 3db on the tap port. It will "tap off" the full bandwith they are pumping through. In this case, if they are using DC's, it would be referred to as a "loop system". This is where one apartment is fed from the unit before it on the trunk. this is, however, old technology.
Bender said it was a brand new apartment. Most cable providers are smart enough to home run everything back to a distribution point. And if you know anyone using this wiring method, smack 'em.
Bender, if you found nothing behind the wallplates, check your closets or your utility area if you have one. If they were smart, that's where they'd put it. Though there is a possibility they could have home ran every outlet to the lockbox and put your splitter there.
Good luck.

[Cheyenne]

Most "newer" apartment complexes have a distribution box located within apartment somewhere.
Mine has a box in the closet. This is also for all the voice and data lines too. What is interesting, is that thee is a electrical outlet in there too. I was told it was setup for DBS, but never got implemented. So, all they offer now is cable, but will allow tenants to put up there own dish. Out of approx. 250 apartments I see only maybe a dozen dishes, all DISH.

[AntAltMike]

Actually, a tap does "tap off 3dB" or whatever, but the meaning of that is not clear. A riser line has a certain signal strength, and a tap bleeds of a small portion of that and passes the rest. At the top of a tall building, the riser wire signal strength might measure 24dBmv, so the system would use a -20dB tap, which develops a port signal strength of 4dBmv (trunk strength minus tap value) and the through loss is about .5dB.

On the next floor down, the signal has lost maybe .7dB of coax loss, so it is now at 22.8dBmv, so a -20dB tap develops a 2.8dB port. At the next floor, the riser wire is down to 21.6dB, so it is now time to use a 16dB tap, which develops a 5.6dBmv port. But the insertion loss for the 16dB tap might be .6dB, so the next floor input level is 20.3dBmv, meaning another 16dB tap, for a port level of 4.3dBmv.

At the next floor, the riser strength is 19dBmv, so we might go with a 16dB tap to develop a port strength of 3dBmv, or we might pick a -12dB tap, just because we know that by the time the coax has been spliced half a dozen times, one or more of the connections may have a little more loss than we expect, so we switch to a -12dB tap, which nominally develops a port strength of 7dBmv, but which has an insertion loss of .9dB. The next floor input strength is now 17.4dBmv, and so we use another 12dB tap, which develops a nominal port strength of 5.4dBmv.

You'll notice that Radio Shack does not sell taps, or directional couplers, as the newer ones are aptly called. That is surely because if they did sell them, they would have too many returns and customer complaints because the customer didn't understand how to use them.

But this is not relevant to any apartment wiring that any of you are likely to use. If the apartment has one home run wire that goes from a common junction area to one apartment, then it has one or more splitters in the walls, which are nearly always accessible, but if the apartment has so-called "loop" riser wiring, as I have just described, then it cannot be made suitable for satellite use. You would have to go into every apartment above you and replace their taps with special high frequency directional couplers, you'd have to find a way to inject your signal into the top of the riser line, and then you'd be at the mercy of anyone remodeling an apratment above yours, as the wallplates often get disturbed during painting and remodeling.

[Bender]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the info. I poked around this weekend and found the distribution box in the garage. It only had one cable going out to each apartment so I figured there must be a splitter somewhere inside my place splitting the signal to the three rooms. As it turns out, apc1 was right, there was a splitter behind a blank plate in one of the closets. Using that splitter I was able to successfully deliver the signal from my PVR to the other rooms. Now I just have to figure out the best way to connect some of my other inputs. What do you all suggest? I was considering Channel Plus all in one modulator/distribution system, but I'm not sure if I should spend the money.