[AlbaTiVo]

Hi all,

We have been DirecTv customers for over 9 years now and recently bought a 3D TV that we would like to take advantage of.

Our current setup is:
HR20-700 in the family room with 2 lines running to it
R10 in living room with one line running to it
3 LNB oval dish which is connected to a "splitter" behind the vinyl siding (if I remember right it has 2 lines in and 4 out - one is to a bedroom that was never hooked up)

All of the wires on the outside of the house are hidden beneath the siding. We would like to upgrade the family room to a newer model HDDVR that will support 3D and have the existing HDDVR moved to replace the R10 in the living room.

My questions are:
Does the single feed to the R10 have to be upgraded to 2 feeds to allow both tuners on the HDDVR to be used once it is moved or is there a newer technology that allows this to be done over one line? Will the fact that all of the cables are behind the siding, and specifically the splitter make this all a real headache as we don't want wires strung everywhere?

Hope this makes sense. Thanks for any input!

Steven

 

[jdspencer]

For single coax feeds you need a SWM installation and compatible receivers.

You need to verify the dish you have. You stated that there are two lines. This indicates to me that you don't have the newer AU9 Slimline dish. My guess is that you have the older Phase III dish.

The way for you to go is to get the AU9 Slimline dish with either the SL5 or SL3 LNB. This has single output that can then be split to the receivers. It only supports 8 tuners (DVRs count as two).

 

[AlbaTiVo]

I am sorry - I should have checked before posting, but my dish has 4 lines coming from it.

The reason we have a splitter is that the dish we originally had was on the roof. At some point when we upgraded our equipment they said we needed a new dish and it had to go on a pole in the front yard to avoid the neighbors trees. They then ran the wires from the new dish on the ground back up to the roof and added a splitter to connect the new wires from the dish to the existing cables which then ran around the house behind the siding.

 

[fleckrj]

If you have 4 lines coming from a 3 LNB, you are in good shape. You can install a SWM-8, and then you only need one line coming from the SWM-8 to the HR2x The SWM-8 will support up to 8 tuners, and splitters can be used to connect multiple receivers, as long as the total number of tuners does not exceed 8.

As long as you do not need to combine multiple SWM-8 to support more than 8 tuners, it does not matter which of the four wires from the LNB go to which input port on the SWM-8. The SWM-8 can be mounted as far as 40 feet from the LNB, so you probably can install it yourself without having to reach the dish. I recently installed a SWM-8 in my attic, where the four wires from the LNB entered the house, and I had no problems at all.

 

[AlbaTiVo]

fleckrj, so I would just have to open enough of the siding so that the installer can add the SWM-8?

At the moment the 4 cables from the dish go into the splitter and 4 cables come out the other side - really it is just to join the cables from the newer dish to the existing cabling that was there.

They will therefore take the 4 lines from the dish and route them into the SWM-8 and then take the 4 lines that come out of the other side of the splitter and attach them to the output of the SWM-8? Effectively replacing the splitter with the SWM-8?

The only other consideration I would have to make would be drilling a hole in the wall from the inside to feed the power cord to the SWM-8 which would sit under the siding? Or is it too bulky for that?

Need to be clear as a bunch of extra cable would be a dealbreaker for the wife

Thanks!

Steven

 

[pitguy3]

At the moment the 4 cables from the dish go into the splitter and 4 cables come out the other side - really it is just to join the cables from the newer dish to the existing cabling that was there.

Is it possible that what you are describing is a grounding block? Do you see a ground wire attached to it also?

Edit: Similiar to thishttp://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=GRB2S&d=Dual-Grounding-Block-with-Dual-Grounding-Lugs but with 4 of them??

 

[AlbaTiVo]

Is it possible that what you are describing is a grounding block? Do you see a ground wire attached to it also?

It does not have as much metal as that - more flimsy looking - and has no grounding cable coming off it. It just has the 4 cables from the dish on one side and the 4 cables to the house on the other, just connecting them 1:1.

 

[fleckrj]

You should not have to open anything. The SWM-8 can be anywhere inside or outside, as long as it is within 40 feet (coax length) of the LNB. At some point, most likely within 40 feet of your LNB, all four wires are coming into your house now. I would put the SWM-8 there. If all four wires are not coming into your house, put the SWM-8 on the pole with the dish. Four wires go from the LNB to the SWM-8 and one or two wires go from the SWM-8 into your house (you only need one unless you also have some old legacy receivers, in which case you would still need one wire for each legacy receiver). You could use new wire from the LNB to the SWM-8 and use the existing wire from the SWM-8 into the house.

The power inserter must be inside the house and can be at the location of any receiver in your system. The power goes up the coax to the SWM-8. All you need to be certain of is that the path back to the SWM-8 is connected to the SWM1 port of the SWM-8 and if there are any splitters in the line between the power inserter and the LNB, the coax path from the power inserter back to the LNB is always going through the red side of the splitter. I put my power inserter right before my first splitter.

If you currently have four wires going into what you call a splitter and four wires coming out of it, my guess is the same as pitguy3's. What you are calling a splitter is really the grounding block. If that is the case, just follow those four wires into your house, and install the SWM-8 at that point. The four wires go into the SWM-8 and one or two wires come out. If you have more than two locations where the wires are going now, you can install the SWM splitter at that point and connect your old wires to the splitter.

The bottom line is that with the SWM-8, you would never have more wires than you already have, and you could have fewer, since each HR2x only needs one wire instead of two wires.