[patchs]

I'll try to explain my situation as easily as possible.
I want to buy a new HD TV and put it in a room that is only 30 feet from my DTV dish, the same level (third floor) as where the dish is.
I already have all the HD dish and stuff (lnb) set up for my older HD TV in another room.
There is another cable off the dish that I use to get DTV in my (second floor) living room which goes across the roof, down the side of the house, into my basement, then up into a wall into the living room.
In the basement, is a splitter where the cable from the roof ends.
If I was to cut that cable, just before it goes into the basement, then drill a hole in the wall where the new HD TV would be, could I put a new crimp (is that what they call it?) on the cut end of that wire and hook it up to my old DTV HD box and get HD?
Thanks for any help.

 

[curt8403]

I'll try to explain my situation as easily as possible.
I want to buy a new HD TV and put it in a room that is only 30 feet from my DTV dish, the same level (third floor) as where the dish is.
I already have all the HD dish and stuff (lnb) set up for my older HD TV in another room.
There is another cable off the dish that I use to get DTV in my (second floor) living room which goes across the roof, down the side of the house, into my basement, then up into a wall into the living room.
In the basement, is a splitter where the cable from the roof ends.
If I was to cut that cable, just before it goes into the basement, then drill a hole in the wall where the new HD TV would be, could I put a new crimp (is that what they call it?) on the cut end of that wire and hook it up to my old DTV HD box and get HD?
Thanks for any help.

I would suggest no.

run a new cable. they are not terribly expensive. Splices or barrels can be trouble

 

[patchs]

What kind of cable?

 

[curt8403]

What kind of cable?

I would suggest RG6 solid copper cable. that will will serve you best regardless of what type of signal you get (SD or HD)

 

[harsh]

The short answer is no. The long answer is "maybe with an SWM or SWMLine".

An output from your dish CANNOT be "split" or somehow daisy chained to service more than one receiver.

 

[patchs]

The short answer is no. The long answer is "maybe with an SWM or SWMLine".

An output from your dish CANNOT be "split" or somehow daisy chained to service more than one receiver.

I was going to cut the wire and just use it with my HD box and not use the other one in my living room.
I'm going to get new cable.

 

[jdspencer]

Your mention of a "splitter" bothers me. Exactly how is that being used or is it really a multiswitch?

 

[patchs]

Your mention of a "splitter" bothers me. Exactly how is that being used or is it really a multiswitch?

My original install was 9 years ago so my memory is fuzzy. The installer had a hard time with the living room, so he ran the cable down the roof, drilled a hole, to feed it into the basement, then hooked up some device down there where a new cable went up to the living room.
It's worked for 9 years, so knock on wood.
Now, I'm going to take that old RCA box off my account and put a new cable into another room, buy a HD TV and hook up my old H20 to it (I took if off when we got a HD DVR 2 years ago).
One last question, how do I connect the new cable to the LNB? Can I just unhook whatever connects it, pull out the old cable, put the new one in and reconnect?

 

[Davenlr]

Unless I'm nuts, you said the cable from the basement goes up to your receiver, and then you said it ends in the basement with a splitter... If that's true, you probably had a diplexer for OTA on your old system, and when they installed the HD dish, they disconnected it. If that's true, that line only goes to the old OTA antenna or no where at all. If you are going to remove a receiver, and just want to cut the line to that receiver to make it shorter for a new receiver, and crimp on a F connector in the new room, it would work. If you are trying to run both receivers off one cable split to both of them, it won't.
In any case make sure ALL receivers are unplugged from the wall before cutting.

 

[harsh]

It is possible that the aforementioned device is actually a grounding block. Use of a grounding block would be required if the cable is coming directly from the dish. It should be outside the basement though.

The plan should work as long as you don't plan on having a receiver in the living room anymore. Actually, I'm rather baffled that you're using an old RCA receiver instead of the H20.

This would all be a whole lot easier if you would share precisely how many of what receivers/DVRs (by model number) you hope to end up with.

If you currently have only the HD DVR and the RCA hooked up, you should be able to run a fourth cable to the H20 without whacking the living room cable. There are four outputs on the dish and if I understand your current system description, you're only using three of them.

 

[flipptyfloppity]

The chances that he has any kind of modern multiswitch in his basement are a bit slim. That would require running 4 coaxes (at least) to his basement. Also, he mentions taking ONE of the wires off his dish to the "splitter" in his basement. Any kind of multiswitch requires receiving EVERY line from the dish, you can't just grab one or some of them.

I'm pretty much with harsh's assessment here. That's not a splitter down there, it's some kind of passthrough (like grounding block) and thus tapping before it would be fine, as long as you don't do any splitting.

 

[patchs]

Here's what the setup in my basement looks like.
My original cable TV wiring is still there because we use Time Warner for Internet and basic cable.
I think the DTV setup is that thing on the upper left, which has a curvy piece of metal touching the large thing on the right.
It does say splitter on that thing that has 1 cable coming in and 2 going out.
But once I get a hole drilled in that upstairs room, I will disconnect the DTV cable going to the basement from the dish, connect a new wire to it, then run it to the upstairs room.

 

[bobnielsen]

That is a grounding block, not a splitter of multiswitch. The other devices (for cable) appear to be splitters. Your original idea of reusing the same cable shouldn't be a problem. If you need to cut it, get a compression tool and connectors in any case (Home Depot has the DataShark tool for $15 and it works fine).

 

[harsh]

By way of illustration, this shows many things that you shouldn't do:

1. Grounding block (the device just above center in the right hand picture) should be outdoors.
2. Grounding block should be connected with copper wire
3. The device that the grounding block is connected to (the CATV splitter, upper right) is not grounded itself, so grounding to it was a bad idea.

The CATV installation looks great other than the two-way splitter being improperly grounded (again, indoors and with aluminum wire). One leg of the CATV two-way splitter probably goes to the modem and the other to the input of the many-way splitter.

I'd still like to know if you could leave all of this alone and run a new cable from the dish.

In any event, you should ground the cable outside the house and use copper wire.

ps: if you get bored, you should practice using macro mode on your camera.

 

[patchs]

By way of illustration, this shows many things that you shouldn't do:

1. Grounding block (the device just above center in the right hand picture) should be outdoors.
2. Grounding block should be connected with copper wire
3. The device that the grounding block is connected to (the CATV splitter, upper right) is not grounded itself, so grounding to it was a bad idea.

The CATV installation looks great other than the two-way splitter being improperly grounded (again, indoors and with aluminum wire). One leg of the CATV two-way splitter probably goes to the modem and the other to the input of the many-way splitter.

I'd still like to know if you could leave all of this alone and run a new cable from the dish.

In any event, you should ground the cable outside the house and use copper wire.

ps: if you get bored, you should practice using macro mode on your camera.

I used the camera on my Treo, so I wasn't expecting high quality, figure if I used my Nikon, the files would be too big.
I'm debating whether to lay new cable or use the existing one.
I have a 5-lnb dish with a DTV DVR in the bedroom and the old RCA box in the living room.
I'm going to go on the roof later but is there room for another connector that I could lay new cable and put it in the new room with the new HDTV.
I figure after that, I could deactivate the old RCA box, leave the wiring for the future.

 

[flipptyfloppity]

By way of illustration, this shows many things that you shouldn't do:

1. Grounding block (the device just above center in the right hand picture) should be outdoors.
2. Grounding block should be connected with copper wire
3. The device that the grounding block is connected to (the CATV splitter, upper right) is not grounded itself, so grounding to it was a bad idea.

That whole grounding setup looks like it is to help prevent ground loops (hum) more than to ground the dish. The grounding shown (using the braid of the coax from the small splitter to the big one) would do that. I would like to think there is another grounding block outside nearer to the dish.

Having to ground with copper wire is ridiculous. Especially with the price of copper. Aluminum is good enough to carry the power from the power station all the way to your main breaker box, it's good enough for a preventative ground that doesn't even carry current most of the time. Yes, I know it's NEC. I'm (again) saying NEC is ridiculous on this point.

 

[harsh]

Aluminum is good enough to carry the power from the power station all the way to your main breaker box, it's good enough for a preventative ground that doesn't even carry current most of the time.

In some locales (especially those known to have "salt air"), aluminum of any kind doesn't last very long outdoors.

 

[patchs]

I'm going to Lowe's later today to get RG6 cable, then will drill a hole tomorrow.
I can disconnect the living room cable near the dish, connect the new one, then feed it into the new room with the HD TV.
Now I have to get the crimping stuff so I connect the cables on both ends.

 

[brockley]

You dont have to disconnect anything. You have 4 outputs on your 5lnb dish. Youll just need to unscrew the LNB unit from the end of its arm, pass the new cable through the arm and screw it onto the unused LNB port. Then run to your new location and youll be all set to go as well has having cable run to the living room in case you decide to put a tv there in the future. If everything in the rest of your house works now, I wouldnt change anything. Just run the new cable and be done with it. If you want to follow code, on the outside wall just before the cable goes into your house, you should mount a grounding block like the one in the basement, create a drip loop before the grounding block and one after it then run the cable in the house to the new location. Then use copper wire and connect the grounding block to your main house ground or other grounding point. All of this info can be found in the Slimline installation manual. This should be done to all cables coming from the dish and the dish should be grounded as well but I have had 3 dish installations on my house and none of them have had grounding blocks for the cables or the dish itself.

 

[patchs]

You dont have to disconnect anything. You have 4 outputs on your 5lnb dish. Youll just need to unscrew the LNB unit from the end of its arm, pass the new cable through the arm and screw it onto the unused LNB port. Then run to your new location and youll be all set to go as well has having cable run to the living room in case you decide to put a tv there in the future. If everything in the rest of your house works now, I wouldnt change anything. Just run the new cable and be done with it. If you want to follow code, on the outside wall just before the cable goes into your house, you should mount a grounding block like the one in the basement, create a drip loop before the grounding block and one after it then run the cable in the house to the new location. Then use copper wire and connect the grounding block to your main house ground or other grounding point. All of this info can be found in the Slimline installation manual. This should be done to all cables coming from the dish and the dish should be grounded as well but I have had 3 dish installations on my house and none of them have had grounding blocks for the cables or the dish itself.

I really don't want to mess with the dish.
The last installer has the cables from the dish connected to a device (sorry, don't know what it is called), where new cables connect to them, then go into the house.
All I have to do is disconnect one cable, connect the new one, string it along 10 feet of roof, staple it to my house, drill the hole and pass it through.
I bought 50 feet of RG/6 from Radio Shack so I'm good to go.