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Can I have 17 tuners?

4K views 60 replies 17 participants last post by  jones_hdtv 
#1 ·
I currently have 6 HD DVRs (12 tuners) and 1 HD receiver. I am interested in getting the Genie to replace my 1 HD receiver. Will this be too many tuners as the 5 from the Genie will put me up to 17? Can a setup have more than 16 tuners?

I know I could also replace an HD DVR with an RVU unit, but I would hate to get rid of an HD DVR, since I had to pay for it to get it in the first place.
 
#27 ·
peds48 said:
and that is true, but no one is going to stop you from buying one if you wanted it to. IIFC, VOS mentioned that is better 2 have SWM8 than 1 SWM16 as the loss of the internal bridging is greater than that of paralleling two switches. But the gain is not that great to justify the expense. Hopefully he comes by to clarify
The -32 is a different animal. It has a lower SAT input level most likely due to an input amp.

As to the DECA crossover of the -16, it has more loss than using two diplexers, but combining more than two diplexers will need a 4-way splitter. This adds more loss.
"Rough numbers":
2 diplexers have 5 dB less loss than the -16
3/4 going through a 4-way has 5 dB more loss than the -16.
 
#28 ·
veryoldschool said:
The -32 is a different animal. It has a lower SAT input level most likely due to an input amp.

As to the DECA crossover of the -16, it has more loss than using two diplexers, but combining more than two diplexers will need a 4-way splitter. This adds more loss.
"Rough numbers":
2 diplexers have 5 dB less loss than the -16
3/4 going through a 4-way has 5 dB more loss than the -16.
Thanks for the clarification. I knew you would stop by to set things right.
 
#32 ·
I moved to another state and the installer had no clue so I studied single wire install
here and solid signal. The 32 is $400? And they gave me both 16's for free. They
didn't like the 4 two way spltters that solid shows. They put the zinwell 68 switch
before the 16's instead. Works great. Signal is strong. House was prewired for
8 locations. I only have 2 TV's. I had to punch a hole in the wall and run a cable
down the hall to get 24 feeds in one location. So I don't need that many splitters
downstream. At least they all share playlists. If only I could manage each "to do"
list from an android smartphone.
 
#33 ·
kikkenit2 said:
I moved to another state and the installer had no clue so I studied single wire install
here and solid signal. The 32 is $400? And they gave me both 16's for free. They
didn't like the 4 two way spltters that solid shows. They put the zinwell 68 switch
before the 16's instead. Works great. Signal is strong. House was prewired for
8 locations. I only have 2 TV's. I had to punch a hole in the wall and run a cable
down the hall to get 24 feeds in one location. So I don't need that many splitters
downstream. At least they all share playlists. If only I could manage each "to do"
list from an android smartphone.
Using a WB68 in this manner isn't supported by Directv, but there's no reason it wouldn't work just as well as using splitters. It saves a few db of loss, which may help if you have a fair distance to the dish, but if the WB68 fails it takes down both SWM16s. I don't know how failure prone they are in general, but I had a WB68 and a WB616 replaced on separate occasions, and have never heard of a splitter failing under normal use.

I recently added a third SWM16, and if it weren't for adding a single point of failure I would have used the WB616 I have laying around to feed them instead of splitters to avoid the splitter's insertion loss (~4.5 db on one SWM16, ~9db on the other two, since the splitters are unbalanced)

Cascading two SWM16s is sort of the worst of both worlds. If the first SWM16 fails you lose all your receivers attached to both, plus you take a fair sized hit on the signal being input to the second SWM16 (equivalent to a 6 way splitter's worth of loss, or at least 12 db) That won't matter in good weather, but maybe it means rain fade starts a bit earlier or with a bit less rain on the cascaded SWM16...I don't really know. I suppose if you had less important receivers on that cascaded SWM16, like in guest rooms and a pool house you probably wouldn't care even if it is true that rain fade is a bit more of a problem for it.
 
#35 ·
I self-installed the second Swim-16 a couple of years ago with the splitters and diplexers from the thread VOS mentioned earlier. Ordered lots of 18" RG6 jumpers from Monoprice. Got the splitters and diplexers from Solid Signal.

Works great!

Edit: Watch the labeling of ;the diplexers. I blindly followed the diagram and quickly realized there are different models.
 
#37 ·
How about 3 Swim-16s? Coincidentally, I installed a second dish - pole mounted- this week to eventually replace the roof mounted dish for some roof work later this year.

I've got a H25 on a third Swim-16 just for testing and signal strengths before making the change over to the pole mount.

This morning I put a WCCK on that system and the H25 sees the entire playlist of the dual Swim-16s.

IIRC, there's a limit of nodes on the combined clouds, but I don't remember what it is.
 
#39 ·
The DECA node limit is 16.
Trying to combine 3 SWiM-16s into one DECA cloud "could be done", with limitations.
First is the 16 nodes.
Next would be the need to use an 8-way combining splitter, which has 3 dB more loss so you'll need to make sure your "end to end" losses aren't too much.
Adding a SWM8 to a dual -16 setup could still use the 4-way combining splitter by using the splitter's input, so you'd have a 5-way combining.
 
#41 ·
veryoldschool said:
The hardest part was to try to keep track of all of the loss paths.
I finally had to create a spreadsheet.
Which leads me to a question that I thought of last night. Purely hypothetical. What would happen if you spliced coax instead of using connectors? Would the loss be immense? I've never tried this, just popped into my mind. What I see is the mesh connected by wire nuts and the center conductor the same way. Got any idea what would happen?

Rich
 
#43 ·
Rich said:
Which leads me to a question that I thought of last night. Purely hypothetical. What would happen if you spliced coax instead of using connectors? Would the loss be immense? I've never tried this, just popped into my mind. What I see is the mesh connected by wire nuts and the center conductor the same way. Got any idea what would happen?

Rich
The impedance of "the splice" would be horrible.
The dielectric has a lot to do with the spacing between the center conductor and the shield.
You'd have better luck "splicing" twin lead than coax.
 
#44 ·
Instead of starting a new thread, I was wondering if you could set a HR44 to only use 4 tuners?
 
#46 ·
dennisj00 said:
I don't know of a way.

But you can set HR2xes to 1 tuner.
Yep, I knew about the HR2xs... Has anyone tried to limit the tuners on a 34 or 44?
 
#48 ·
veryoldschool said:
They "auto detect", so the only was to reduce the tuners is to have less than 5 SWiM channels free during boot.
So if I have 2 24's active when installing or doing a soft reboot, then the 44 will only have 4 tuners working?
 
#50 ·
jones_hdtv said:
So if I have 2 24's active when installing or doing a soft reboot, then the 44 will only have 4 tuners working?
for a short time, yes, but it will give a 776 message
 
#51 ·
veryoldschool said:
The impedance of "the splice" would be horrible.
The dielectric has a lot to do with the spacing between the center conductor and the shield.
You'd have better luck "splicing" twin lead than coax.
Kinda figured that. Thanx. Curiosity satisfied.

Rich
 
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