Help me cascade multiswitch with round dish

[toad57]

I have a simple setup: round dish with dual LNB, two lines from dish to a 3x8 Zinwell multiswitch that looks like it came over on the Mayflower - it's huge! The existing multiswitch has no external power... it gets its juice from the 4 connected DTivos. Also, no OTA antenna connection on the inputs, I just use the lines from the dish.

I want to now cascade another switch off of a pair of the existing 3x8 outputs because I occasionally want to run two DTivos in the same room with all tuners active.

Does my additonal multiswitch need to have an external power source, or can I just get any old clunker 2xN or 3xN multiswitch from eBay and connect the input side to the cables that were running to my DTivo?

Thanks!

[BNUMM]

I have a simple setup: round dish with dual LNB, two lines from dish to a 3x8 Zinwell multiswitch that looks like it came over on the Mayflower - it's huge! The existing multiswitch has no external power... it gets its juice from the 4 connected DTivos. Also, no OTA antenna connection on the inputs, I just use the lines from the dish.

I want to now cascade another switch off of a pair of the existing 3x8 outputs because I occasionally want to run two DTivos in the same room with all tuners active.

Does my additonal multiswitch need to have an external power source, or can I just get any old clunker 2xN or 3xN multiswitch from eBay and connect the input side to the cables that were running to my DTivo?

Thanks!

Zinwell makes a 16 receiver multiswitch. I don't believe you can cascade switches unless you get a special one.

[Mark_M]

I have a simple setup: round dish with dual LNB, two lines from dish to a 3x8 Zinwell multiswitch that looks like it came over on the Mayflower - it's huge! The existing multiswitch has no external power... it gets its juice from the 4 connected DTivos. Also, no OTA antenna connection on the inputs, I just use the lines from the dish.

I want to now cascade another switch off of a pair of the existing 3x8 outputs because I occasionally want to run two DTivos in the same room with all tuners active.

Does my additonal multiswitch need to have an external power source, or can I just get any old clunker 2xN or 3xN multiswitch from eBay and connect the input side to the cables that were running to my DTivo?

Thanks!

I used high frequency splitters as suggested in this thread over at the tivo community to feed 2 4x8 powered switches (not an expert, but believe this will also work with unpowered switches:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=209058&highlight=feldon23+multiswitch

Can't remember which brand switches I have - at work so i can't look now.
Here (http://www.solidsignal.com/manuals/www-solidsignal-com_5x16-PhaseIII.pdf) is the diagram of how this could work for you.

[WilsonFlyer]

I used high frequency splitters as suggested in this thread over at the tivo community to feed 2 4x8 powered switches (not an expert, but believe this will also work with unpowered switches:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=209058&highlight=feldon23+multiswitch

Can't remember which brand switches I have - at work so i can't look now.
Here (http://www.solidsignal.com/manuals/www-solidsignal-com_5x16-PhaseIII.pdf) is the diagram of how this could work for you.

What you suggest will absolutely work. It's the only place in a DTV system (as of current available technology today) where splitters are allowed. I had 3 5x4's on mine at one time and never had a problem. This is the proper way to do this. Cascading them is not recommended.

[joe diamond]

Toad57,
Go for it. The only proviso (English major / installer word) is that if you attempt HD you will have to change the dish and the HD will get dumped (fail to be received). Look at better multiswitches . When the one you have cooks there are smaller, better,cheaper ones.

Joe

[toad57]

Go for it. The only proviso (English major / installer word) is that if you attempt HD you will have to change the dish and the HD will get dumped (fail to be received). Look at better multiswitches . When the one you have cooks there are smaller, better,cheaper ones.Thanks for the info... no HD for now, just the SD on the single round dish.

[captain_video]

Many brands of multiswitches can be cascaded with no problem, especially considering that you are still using the round dish. You only run into special problems with the Phase III dish since the multiswitches need to be able to pass the 22kHz tone. The newer 5-LNB AT9 dishes use the wideband multiswitches which are NOT cascadeable, but they can be set up using splitters as described previously.

Depending on how many outputs you need, you can cascade another 3x8 or 3x4 switch off of your 3x8 switch to give you 14 or 10 total outputs, respectively. I would recommend using powered multiswitches in a cascaded configuration to reduce the amount of signal loss going through the switches and also to maintain the switching voltage for the LNBs at the correct voltage. You should be able to pick up 3-input multiswitches for next to nothing on ebay since most people have upgraded to the newer dishes and older hardware is plentiful.

[DBordello]

Since you are only using a round dish any switch should be cascadable. My guess is that you can get away with an unpowered one, depending on how many receivers you have on each multiswitch. I'd imagine a 3x4 would operate fine with only 2 tuners supplying power, and we already know that the 3x8 is getting enough power already. You just need to make sure that the cascaded multiswitch passes enough to continue operating the 3x8.