Cabling

Best to use a 2-way and shift the cabling as the Joeys are moved.

tcatdbs said:

I have RG6 going from my central panel to 5 rooms. The dish cables will come into central panel (hopefully... have not been in attic yet). Can a 4 way splitter be used to 4 "Joey" rooms, with 1 RG6 going to the Hopper.... but then only connect 2 Joeys. Then when the guest room is used, manually just move a Joey to one of the other outlets? ie: is it OK to have 2 unused feeds, but connected at the central panel?

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The Hopper system is wired from the node, not Hopper to Joey.

Each feed from the node is designed to be split once ... and all unused outlets should be terminated (DISH has terminator caps to do this). You might be able to get away with what you want to do ... but it is outside of the design of the system.

I think it could be done, with the Solo Node at the central panel. See http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=64899&d=1304659856.

There are other diagrams at Satellite Guys.

But I am not an expert and do not have a hopper yet.

What's the "bridge" for in that diagram and does that come with the install, and is the router connection necessary (can it be wifi with no cable?)

bnborg said:

I think it could be done, with the Solo Node at the central panel. See http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=64899&d=1304659856.
But I am not an expert and do not have a hopper yet.

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I think the MoCA bridge allows the Hopper to connect to the internet using the RG6 cable. Instead, the internet can be plugged into the Hopper directly.

But then I'm no expert.

tcatdbs said:

I have RG6 going from my central panel to 5 rooms. The dish cables will come into central panel (hopefully... have not been in attic yet). Can a 4 way splitter be used to 4 "Joey" rooms, with 1 RG6 going to the Hopper.... but then only connect 2 Joeys. Then when the guest room is used, manually just move a Joey to one of the other outlets? ie: is it OK to have 2 unused feeds, but connected at the central panel?

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EKB has a lot of diagrams to help you grasp the new concept http://www.dishuser.org/hopper.php

The RG6 from the dish is probably fine, easily replaced if not, but keep in mind that the line from the node (which will be in your central panel) to the hopper itself must be rated at least 3000mhz (3G). Many homes were pre-wired with 1,000-2,200mhz RG6 or even RG-59 which is fine for the joeys but will cause untold frustrations if you try to use it with a Hopper.

Wire Nut said:

The RG6 from the dish is probably fine, easily replaced if not, but keep in mind that the line from the node (which will be in your central panel) to the hopper itself must be rated at least 3000mhz (3G). Many homes were pre-wired with 1,000-2,200mhz RG6 or even RG-59 which is fine for the joeys but will cause untold frustrations if you try to use it with a Hopper.

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Since the sweep freq is optional, non-standardized and telling you nothing about attenuation on certain lengths ... Word "must" is not that critical.

Use any RG-6, especially if your run is less the 100'.

P Smith said:

Since the sweep freq is optional, non-standardized and telling you nothing about attenuation on certain lengths ... Word "must" is not that critical.
Use any RG-6, especially if your run is less the 100'.

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That is an encouraging note.
My house has RG6 installed in the walls to all rooms and was done about 11 years ago. The cables have no markings on them but are not RG59 for sure.
Due to the design of the house, hip roof, and the RG6 goes to outside walls, it would be very difficult to replace it with 'proven, swept to 3000' cable. I'm pretty sure the lengths are under 100 feet. VIP622 and 722s work fine but wish there was some way of determining whether the installed RG6 would work for the two Hoppers I would like to have installed.

I also have Comcast cable diplexed on two of the lines and it works fine also but know that I would have to remove the diplexers. Having the need for limited basic cable as backup would be greatly reduced with a pair of H2Ks and a pair of Joeys.

Do you or does anyone know of a way to verify that the installed cable would have the frequency range needed to work without actually trying to install a Hopper?

At this point all I can say is trust your installer. If you have an accessible crawl space or unfinished basement, or accessible attic, as a professional installer I would run new cable for you to the hopper locations if I could not 100% identify the existing cable as acceptable. Using pre-wire is always a gamble anyway, I've found many cases of cable being pinched almost in half by metal staples driven in too far.
Field sweep testers are certainly not part of your average installer's inventory, I don't even know if such a thing exists. Again, trust your installer, if you have issues after the install you will be covered by a 3 month warranty so the next tech visit will be free.

Wire Nut said:

At this point all I can say is trust your installer. If you have an accessible crawl space or unfinished basement, or accessible attic, as a professional installer I would run new cable for you to the hopper locations if I could not 100% identify the existing cable as acceptable. Using pre-wire is always a gamble anyway, I've found many cases of cable being pinched almost in half by metal staples driven in too far.
Field sweep testers are certainly not part of your average installer's inventory, I don't even know if such a thing exists. Again, trust your installer, if you have issues after the install you will be covered by a 3 month warranty so the next tech visit will be free.

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Yes, those exist.
Back to 20 years, I did use them for AcrNet cabling all the time.
Today many companies manufacturing these field cable testers.

Hate to get off topic, but the only frequency tester I've been able to find was $6-7k. Usually I get by with continuity or resistance measurements but being able to sweep test would be a huge time saver. Any leads on an affordable alternative?

I'm agree - it's expensive equipment, not for every job.

I would not worry about the cable. Just had our system installed yesterday and our home is also 11 years old. All existing RG6 cable to remote rooms worked fine and the cables from the Dish to the Hoppers used existing cabling run by the last Dish installer so they were definitely good. If not the case I agree that your installer should be able to find a solution.

It should be noted that cable that was tested to 1000 or 2150 is not proven to have failed before 3000. In the past where cable only needed to cover up to 1000 (for Cable) or 1450/2150 (for Satellite) that was the spec they were shooting for. But do keep the cable in mind if you have any problems ... especially with the third tuner. Saying "any RG 6 will do" isn't an absolute guarantee that it will work.

Wire Nut said:

At this point all I can say is trust your installer. If you have an accessible crawl space or unfinished basement, or accessible attic, as a professional installer I would run new cable for you to the hopper locations if I could not 100% identify the existing cable as acceptable. Using pre-wire is always a gamble anyway.

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My house having a hip roof, makes it impossible to get to the edge of the attic to get to the spots where the cables run down, inside the walls to the outlets into the rooms. The attic is extremely difficult to navigate as it is designed and I wouldn't want to wish this on any installer.

The house is on a slab so no basement access. If the existing cables don't work, then the new cable would have to run through the soffit openings, across the very difficult attic, out the soffit opening above the needed outlet, down the outside wall and then through the wall into the room. A workable solution, but not too, too desirable.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the attic has blown in 'fluff' covering/hiding all the joists which is another reason why so difficult to navigate.

P Smith said:

I'm agree - it's expensive equipment, not for every job.

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Guess I'll rule out getting my own personal tester.

It would seem to me that a Dish installer, knowing that the cable would have to good up to 3000 would/should at least, have access to a tester to rule out time wasted trying to make existing wire work. Just my opinion of course.

Once I do decide to go ahead with this project, I'll have to think of retraining my wife again.:eek2:

James Long said:

It should be noted that cable that was tested to 1000 or 2150 is not proven to have failed before 3000. In the past where cable only needed to cover up to 1000 (for Cable) or 1450/2150 (for Satellite) that was the spec they were shooting for. But do keep the cable in mind if you have any problems ... especially with the third tuner. Saying "any RG 6 will do" isn't an absolute guarantee that it will work.

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In your excellent report on your installation, you mentioned you had the wiring all set, or something to that effect, and I wondered if you used the existing cable or pulled new cable?

I'm torn between waiting to see if the existing cable works and going through the excruciating labor of pulling new, 3000 rated, cable. Something I could do, with a lot of extreme effort but would really, really not want to go through unless it was absolutely necessary.

Grandude said:

In your excellent report on your installation, you mentioned you had the wiring all set, or something to that effect, and I wondered if you used the existing cable or pulled new cable?

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I used existing cable but the cable is not that old and was factory tested up to 3000 MHZ.