[Variant]

Hello all.

I am a long time DirecTV subscriber (started with "Pegasus" back in 2002 or so), but not a very sophisticated one.

I've recently purchased a house, and with it got rid of all my old SD TV's. Right now I am "TV-less", but football season is approaching quickly and I need to figure two things out pretty fast -- which TV's (and how many) I want to get and how to get HD DirecTV to them the best way in my new home.

My new home unfortunately isn't wired for Ethernet (1991 built home), but of course has coax throughout which I am currently using for Cable Internet.

I don't know yet all of the rooms in which I want to put a TV, and I'm really hoping to avoid drilling a bunch of ugly holes in the wall and running coax outside the house all over the place. Ideally I'd love to use my existing coax to distribute DirecTV, but understand that I can't "diplex" my cable and DirecTV together.

After reading around here, I am thinking of one of a few options -- keeping in mind I probably won't make a decision on TV's for a while, but I do want to get at least one smaller one in place so I can watch football sooner than later. Obviously I only get one "free" DirecTV installer trip, so need to maximize!

(1) Just have the DTV installer run coax from the dish outside the house to each room in which I think I will want DirecTV. Easiest, but not extremely aesthetically pleasing and limits my flexibility down the road if I want to move receivers/TV's.

(2) Figure out where my coax "junction" box is, identify the run where my cable modem is and split off off on its own with a direct connection to the cable company's line via a barrel connector or something. Sounds easy enough if I can find where this stuff is.... then DirecTV would just wire into my coax network and I'd be set (except for in the room where my cable modem is). I probably would need to get my hands on some sort of coax toner, or maybe just trial and error it. Perhaps my DTV installer would be nice enough to do this all for me (can be hit & miss with them).

(3) Via some sort of magic, drill only one hole in my wall to one DirecTV receiver and then distribute signals to other rooms via Wifi. I have no idea if such a thing is possible -- I am guessing not but like I said am still stuck in the simple SD days of DirecTV. Presumably every DirecTV receiver/tuner attached to a TV needs a coax connection if it needs to be operated independently?

I like option #2 the best as it involves drilling no holes.

Feedback appreciated!

 

[dpeters11]

Yes, every receiver needs coax, if you get what's called a SWM install, it's one cable to each, not two on DVRs. Depending on the kind of coax you have, it may not even be compatible with DirecTV.

Wireless is not an option.

 

[fleckrj]

Assuming the coax is RG-6 or better, and in a 1991 built house, I expect it would be, it should be possible to use your existing coax. As dpeters11 said, with SWM, you only need one coax per receiver to bring both DirecTV and internet (if you so desire) to any room that has coax and a TV.

If the house was wired for cable, I assume all of the coax terminates in one location. If so, the DirecTV installer will need to run coax from the dish to that location. Then, with the proper splitters, the signal can go to each receiver using the existing coax.

If you have no more than eight tuners (note "tuners", not "receivers"), you only need one coax from the dish with a SWM (single wire multiswitch) LNB to the location where the cables terminate. If you have more than eight tuners, you wll need four wires from the dish to a SWM-16, then the existing coax can be connected to the SWIM-16, using splitters as necessary.

If you want internet connetion, the best way is to have one Ethernet connection from the router to one receiver. The signal can be sent to the other receivers over the coax. If it is not possible to run an Ethernet connection to one of the receivers, it is possible to make that connection wirelessly - it is just not possible to make the connection from the dish to the receivers wirelessly.

 

[rmmccann]

This sounds similar to my install.

I have cable internet and DirecTV. We did just what you thought - "barrel connected" the line from the cable modem directly to the cable co line and the rest of the coax is used for DirecTV. We had to re-run a few lines and extend them, but everything terminates to the cable box on the side of my house, labeled and easy to work with.

I have a SWM system, so only need one coax per receiver as stated.

 

[Variant]

First, thanks for the replies.

If the house was wired for cable, I assume all of the coax terminates in one location. If so, the DirecTV installer will need to run coax from the dish to that location. Then, with the proper splitters, the signal can go to each receiver using the existing coax.

I believe this is the case (all coax terminating in one place). I have found the "TV" panel outside, but there isn't much inside of it. I'm not even clear that's where the Time Warner cable is coming in or not, and perhaps there's another location in the house where all the coax runs too.

Actually after further inspection, seems that only three rooms have coax connections coming out of the wall.

If you want internet connetion, the best way is to have one Ethernet connection from the router to one receiver. The signal can be sent to the other receivers over the coax. If it is not possible to run an Ethernet connection to one of the receivers, it is possible to make that connection wirelessly - it is just not possible to make the connection from the dish to the receivers wirelessly.

That sounds pretty great -- presumably I would just need to ensure that the coax connection my cablemodem is on is run "direct" to Time Warner's feed as I am guessing its signal and whatever frequencies the DTV receivers use to communicate via coax wouldn't play well together.

Thanks again.

 

[Variant]

This sounds similar to my install.

I have cable internet and DirecTV. We did just what you thought - "barrel connected" the line from the cable modem directly to the cable co line and the rest of the coax is used for DirecTV. We had to re-run a few lines and extend them, but everything terminates to the cable box on the side of my house, labeled and easy to work with.

I have a SWM system, so only need one coax per receiver as stated.

Hmm, interesting.

As a new home owner I'm just wrapping my head around the "typical" location of some of these things.

Where did you find your junction box or the place where you added the barrel connector (I can't find anything that clearly jumps out at me as a Time Warner feed coming from the street or whereever)? Was it all at the box on the outside / side of your house? My "TV" box just doesn't seem to have a whole lot in it.

How did you go about running new lines? Crawl space / attic? Unfortunately my home doesn't have a crawl space and I think it could be pretty challenging to fish new coax through the walls unfortunately.

Thanks!

 

[Variant]

Think I will get me one of these.

 

[rmmccann]

Hmm, interesting.

Where did you find your junction box or the place where you added the barrel connector? Was it all at the box on the outside / side of your house? My "TV" box just doesn't seem to have a whole lot in it.

How did you go about running new lines? Crawl space / attic? Unfortunately my home doesn't have a crawl space and I think it could be pretty challenging to fish new coax through the walls unfortunately.

Thanks!

Originally, the only thing in our cable box was just the line from the cable co, a surge suppressor and a line going into the crawl space. From there, it hooked into splitters to feed the TVs.

What we did was run new or extend the lines in the crawl space enough that they all came out and into the cable box. I actually have two coax lines coming into my office - one for DTV (the power injector is installed here) and one for the cable internet. Both lines go to the cable box and are connected to their respective services.

I was fortunate that I knew the DirecTV installer and the owner of the company he worked for, so they went the extra mile and helped me hook things up exactly the way I wanted. I don't believe that fishing cables is included in a standard install, so YMMV. If you can locate the splitters for the cables in your wall, they might be able to just run coax to that point and connect the two cables. We re-used a lot of older coax in my house and everything works fine.

In older construction, it always seems like people do what is simplest rather than what is the most efficient, so they'll throw a splitter in the wall and run another line from that and daisy chain. Newer construction generally comes back to a central location so that it's a little easier to work with.

 

[fleckrj]

That sounds pretty great -- presumably I would just need to ensure that the coax connection my cablemodem is on is run "direct" to Time Warner's feed as I am guessing its signal and whatever frequencies the DTV receivers use to communicate via coax wouldn't play well together.

I cannot answer that, but the DirecTV installer should know. Normally, you send the cable modem to a router (or the modem has a build in router), then from the router to a DirecTV CCK box, and then to the receiver. The internet signal and the DirecTV signal play well together, but you cannot diplex an OTA signal on the same line. The internet and OTA use the same frequencies.

If you use the Movers Deal from DirecTV, just tell them you want Whole Home DVR, and you should get free installation that would include one HD DVR, HD receivers in the other rooms, and installation of the internet over coax to all of the receivers.

 

[rmmccann]

I cannot answer that, but the DirecTV installer should know. Normally, you send the cable modem to a router (or the modem has a build in router), then from the router to a DirecTV CCK box, and then to the receiver. The internet signal and the DirecTV signal play well together, but you cannot diplex an OTA signal on the same line. The internet and OTA use the same frequencies.

Although it may work I think it's best to keep the cable modem on its own coax. Cable companies (especially lately) have been retiring their analog systems to allow them more bandwidth for internet and other advanced services. Just because the frequencies don't overlap now doesn't mean it will remain that way.

If you are referring to the CCK being on the same coax as DirecTV, then yes that is the way it is designed.

 

[bigglebowski]

Dont bother with the tester it will take just as long to figure it out without it even if you are by yourself. Usually cable and phone come into the house in the same place which could be where the power comes into the house too. House is new enough for there to probably be a "box" on the side of the house containing the wiring.

To figure out which coax belongs to the modem is take a look at the modem and you will see different lights, one of those will go out when you pull the cable. Confirm this by disconnecting the coax on the back of it if you are unsure which one it will be. Could be sync, ready etc...

Then go outside and disconnect one at a time till that same light goes out again. Mark that cable as unavailable to the Directv tech.

 

[Variant]

Thanks. Sounds reasonable.

I went out this morning in the daylight and peered around inside the "TV" box on the outside wall. Found that there appear to be three coax runs in there, with two being "cut" (unused) and the other running into a barrel connector (with a grounding wire attachment).

I am guessing the two "cut" wires go to the other two connections in my house, and that we could just put new ends on them, hook them into some sort of DirecTV compatible splitter and I'd have my DirecTV "network" ready to go without interfering with my cable modem.

Sounds good in theory anyway!