Phase 3 dish, only 2 cables question

[buzzdalf]

I currently have a Phase 3 dish feeding my DirecTivo receiver and everything is great.
I'm thinking about adding a 2nd DirecTivo receiver, but I only have 2 cable runs coming into my house.
It will be very difficult to near impossible to install and more coax in the near future and I'm wondering what my options are to add another TIVO.
Losing 1 tuner on the existing TIVO is not an option.

I did some searching, and it sounds like I could add a 2x4 multiswitch to get the dual tuners working on 2 Tivo's. If I'm reading right, I will lose 110 & 119.
OK, so what's on these satellites that I will lose? I currently sub to TC Premier with Cleveland locals.

Is there any other option?

OH yeah, the dish is installed at the back corner of my lot, the coax runs are probably 150+ feet underground. Is that distance going to be a problem?

[Guesst925XTU]

If I'm reading right, I will lose 110 & 119.
OK, so what's on these satellites that I will lose?

Currently 119 carries:

BYU TV
NASA TV
RFD TV
EWTN
Mariavision
Inspirational Life
CCTV9
HBO Latino (if you subscribe to HBO)

[dswallow]

buzzdalf, I just answered a similar question over on another forum; you need to see the context of my answer to understand it better though, so I can't easily just copy it here... have a look at http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1637592#post1637592 plus my followup post a little further down.

There'd be a slight variation since his application was to feed four different units in a condo, whereas you would essentially just be "one" of those units, so you could skip the part with the (2) 4-way splitters.

[buzzdalf]

Thanks for the link. I'm not going to go through all that expense. I don't really see anything I have an immediate need for in the channel list posted above.
What do I need to buy to hook up 101 only on the 2 Tivos?
Just any old cheap 4 way multiswitch? Or does it have to be something special?
I found some multiswitches on e*bay for like $15. Can I just use one of those?

[dswallow]

Any multiswitch will do it for you... 2xN, 3xN, 4xN, 5xN... you'll only use 2 of the inputs on each of course, but no reason any of them won't do the job you want with just a single dish and two LNB feeds.

[tivosmart]

Is there any other option?
OH yeah, the dish is installed at the back corner of my lot, the coax runs are probably 150+ feet underground. Is that distance going to be a problem?
Sorry, you might not want to consider this option, but if you have 1 of the Tivos nearby an exterior wall why not just run the 2 cables thru the siding of the house (there are several ways to conceal it) and drill a hole and pull the cables to the inside?

Also, for 150 ft you will need an inline booster otherwise your signal will be degraded. You might want to try though, but I'm 99% sure the booster will be required.

[jdspencer]

Did they run all four lines from the dish, but only brought two inside? Or did they only run two lines from the dish? IMO, they should have run all four lines If you aren't having problems with the current long cable run, then two more may not be a problem either. For that long a run you should probably use RG-11 coax which I believe has less signal loss. Get length of dual coax and run it on top of the ground for the time being. You can bury it later.

[buzzdalf]

They only ran 2 lines. When we bought the house it was setup for a DISH 500, i.e. 2 lines.
I've got a 2x4 switch coming to try until spring. I think they did put the coax in conduit out there so I think I should be able to run more in there. I just need to wait until it's warmer outside with no snow on the ground, etc.

[buzzdalf]

What programming exactly will I lose?
I don't have HD so that isn't an issue. The way I understand it from Guesst above, the channels he lists are the only ones I am going to lose. I can live with that for the time being.
Can someone verify that this installation (2x4 switch) will prevent me from utilizing dual tuners?? That is not a viable solution to me. We cannot go without watching one prgram and recording another.

[jdspencer]

You can still use dual tuners as long as both inputs are connected from the multiswitch. Setup the DirecTV DVR for one LNB and dual tuners. Make sure that two lines from the PH III dish are connected to teh inpujts of the multiswitch. You will only get programming from the 101 satellite, which is most of the programming that you seem to be interested in.

[buzzdalf]

Great! Thanks.

[sinnfein07]

FYI, Full channel list at 119 on DirecTV5 satellite:

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/directvusa119.shtml

[buzzdalf]

FYI, Full channel list at 119 on DirecTV5 satellite:

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/directvusa119.shtml

Thanks for the link!

[jwwahly]

Now wait this is my fault i crossed your question with another i got from someone else ignore everything else i said you have a phase three dish with two wires to one tivo and that is it correct? if this is the case then you should have two extra ports on the lnb head this means all you have to do is drop two more wires from the dish to where you want to go.Again sorry about that this is my mistake maybe i should go do some crack to keep my thoughts in line.

[buzzdalf]

jwwahly - I don't understand why you say the 2x4 switch is going to act like a splitter. I know enough to know a splitter is not what I want so doing that test doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If I understand a switch correctly, it is not a splitter, locking a single voltage to each coax heading to the TV.
It sounds like you are saying I cannot cascade switches. That cascading a 2x4 multiswitch will completely fry my system. I don't really understand what will cause that to happen.
BTW - I wouldn't get a service call from direct TV, I'd replace the components myself if something did happen.

Can anyone confirm that cascading a 2x4 multiswitch is a bad idea and will destroy my hardware as jwwahly is suggesting?

[jwwahly]

jwwahly - I don't understand why you say the 2x4 switch is going to act like a splitter. I know enough to know a splitter is not what I want so doing that test doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If I understand a switch correctly, it is not a splitter, locking a single voltage to each coax heading to the TV.
It sounds like you are saying I cannot cascade switches. That cascading a 2x4 multiswitch will completely fry my system. I don't really understand what will cause that to happen.
BTW - I wouldn't get a service call from direct TV, I'd replace the components myself if something did happen.

Can anyone confirm that cascading a 2x4 multiswitch is a bad idea and will destroy my hardware as jwwahly is suggesting?
this was my fault i got crossed with a two tivo and one basic box and your question but your dish is phase three and if you have only one box and its tivo then you should have two extra ports at the dish. just take the lnb assembely off and look. sorry about that i went back and read your origanal question and to think i do this for a living oops again didnt mean to confuse you.yes you can cascade switches depending on the type of equiptment.like i said my fault i was looking at a triple lnb setup into a regular 2x4 switch

[dswallow]

buzzdalf, my answer still applies. No need to be confused or concerned based on these other posts. You have two wires coming into your house now; you can hook up a 2xN (or 2xN or 4xN or 5xN) multiswitch with those two wires connected to the SatA inputs of the new multiswitch and from there feed as many tuners as you have outputs for.

You will only get SatA signals (101 satellite) that way, but it sounds like that's OK with you. That'll get you by until you choose to run wires directly to the dish in order to get access to the other satellites.