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SWM-8: Single Wire Multi-Switch which will take the four outputs from the dish and allow you to run eight tuners from a single wire that you can split like cable. One wire to a SWM capable DVR will supply both tuners (counts as two of the maximum eight tuners)astrotrf said:
WB68: Multi-Switch that takes the four outputs from the dish and allow you to run eight tuners(homeruns no splitters like SWM).
D11: Latest satellite to launched by DirecTV. Read here...
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=123236
D12: A stand alone SD receiver.
Power passing splitter: Splitter necessary for a SWM system. It allows a power inserter(power supply) to get power to the SWM module.
AM21: Off The Air(OTA) module for use with the HR21s. It allows you to have access to OTA locals via antenna. You would be able to record them as if they were via satellite to the receiver. There is talk that it will also work the H21(stand alone HD receiver) in the near future.
Feel free to ask away....
Mike
veryoldschool said:
Forgot about the satellite having the same designation as the receiver.Stuart Sweet said:
As if things aren't confusing enough....
Mike
D11 & D12 can be either a SD receiver or a new SAT.
Mike (and everyone else): thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your willingness to answer questions, and I'll save all this. But I'd still like to find out where you learn about all of these things. (I'm used to answering questions from others, not having to ask questions like a noob ... :nono: )
Question: you say "4 outputs from the dish". Do all dishes have 4 outputs? What about the dishes with just 2 LNBs or the ones with 5 LNBs?
This brings up a *real* noob question, and I apologize in advance for even having to ask it. It would appear from this description that each LNB on the dish passes the entire output of the satellite down the coax line, and all tuning is done within the satellite receiver box. I can grok cramming all of that signal onto a single coaxial cable, but, since the satellite transponders are all broadcasting in the same general frequency band, how does the output from two or three or four or five different satelliltes get mixed onto the same cable without interference?
Real noob question #2: I have a 3-LNB dish with, if I recall correctly, 4 outputs. I'm only using two of them. I may be wrong about this; I only got to see it once, and that was years ago. Do all 3 LNBs send signals down all 4 outputs? Would I ever have a reason for wiring up the other two outputs? Or am I wrong, and are there only 2 outputs? (OK, that was really 3 noob questions.)
So I have a DirecTivo SD receiver which is connected via 2 cables to a 3-LNB dish. If I wanted to add an HR2x receiver to the setup, I should add a WB68, hook the two lines from the dish to it (leaving the other two WB68 LNB inputs empty), and run RG-6 from the WB68 to both inputs on both the SD and HD receivers? Do I just call DirecTV and say "I'd like to order a WB68, please."?
OK, now I'm at the point where I have to ask about 2-LNB, 3-LNB, and 5-LNB dishes. To add an HR2x, will I need to upgrade to the 5-LNB dish? Will I need to run more than the existing two cables from the dish to the WB68 (assuming that's the right thing to use)?
Thanks again. (I should perhaps explain that I do self-installation; the location where my DirecTV stuff lives is way out in the middle of the New Mexico desert. When I bought the current setup, the installer called me and practically *begged* me not to make him come all the way out to try to find my place (well over an hour one way!). My biggest fear is having to put up a new dish, with all of the attendant aiming difficulties.)
Terry (astrotrf)
Question: you say "4 outputs from the dish". Do all dishes have 4 outputs? What about the dishes with just 2 LNBs or the ones with 5 LNBs?
I take it that this means the SWM-8 takes the 4 dish outputs and combines them into a single coax line. I can then split this line as needed to drive up to 8 receiver antenna inputs. I have to inject power for the SWM-8 into this single line somewhere.MicroBeta said:
This brings up a *real* noob question, and I apologize in advance for even having to ask it. It would appear from this description that each LNB on the dish passes the entire output of the satellite down the coax line, and all tuning is done within the satellite receiver box. I can grok cramming all of that signal onto a single coaxial cable, but, since the satellite transponders are all broadcasting in the same general frequency band, how does the output from two or three or four or five different satelliltes get mixed onto the same cable without interference?
Real noob question #2: I have a 3-LNB dish with, if I recall correctly, 4 outputs. I'm only using two of them. I may be wrong about this; I only got to see it once, and that was years ago. Do all 3 LNBs send signals down all 4 outputs? Would I ever have a reason for wiring up the other two outputs? Or am I wrong, and are there only 2 outputs? (OK, that was really 3 noob questions.)
So the WB68 has inputs for 4 LNBs from the dish and 8 individual output connectors. Right?
So the AM21 tunes to an OTA signal and converts it to MPEG4 to feed to an HD receiver? Is there a special input for this or does it piggyback onto one of the satellite inputs? Where does guide information (if any) come from?
So I have a DirecTivo SD receiver which is connected via 2 cables to a 3-LNB dish. If I wanted to add an HR2x receiver to the setup, I should add a WB68, hook the two lines from the dish to it (leaving the other two WB68 LNB inputs empty), and run RG-6 from the WB68 to both inputs on both the SD and HD receivers? Do I just call DirecTV and say "I'd like to order a WB68, please."?
OK, now I'm at the point where I have to ask about 2-LNB, 3-LNB, and 5-LNB dishes. To add an HR2x, will I need to upgrade to the 5-LNB dish? Will I need to run more than the existing two cables from the dish to the WB68 (assuming that's the right thing to use)?
Thanks again. (I should perhaps explain that I do self-installation; the location where my DirecTV stuff lives is way out in the middle of the New Mexico desert. When I bought the current setup, the installer called me and practically *begged* me not to make him come all the way out to try to find my place (well over an hour one way!). My biggest fear is having to put up a new dish, with all of the attendant aiming difficulties.)
Terry (astrotrf)
Honestly, just takes time and a love for the hobby. Got DirecTV 12 years ago and back then you had to do your own install. So I got a crash course. But then again the most advanced setup you'd have was the new fangled dual LNB setup with two cables out, one to a single receiver each.astrotrf said:
My first foray into the "hobby" was AVS Forums and the defunct DBSForums back about 10 years ago. AVS will make your head spin for sure. But just reading daily and you learn. Takes time. I mean I can build a computer from the ground up with spare parts but I didn't know how at first, took me a while.
So just stay plugged into forums like this and you'll get it.
Think of the compression like on your computer. You can view MPEG2 or MPEG4 video on your PC/Mac, they are just different ways to compress the video. OTA is MPEG2. Most cable and sat is MPEG2. But both Dish and DirecTV are moving to MPEG4 for HD (and Dish for SD as well) because you can compress the same video into a smaller file size (and thus uses less bandwidth on the satellite and less disk space on your DVR). Neither is "better" then the other.astrotrf said:
We won't go into encoding scheme's just yet...
The WB68 is just your standard multiswitch but can be used with the new 5LNB dish as it can pass along those newer sat frequencies.
Technically the dish itself has a multiswitch built into the LNB. In the old days when they hauled out the 3 LNB dish you *had* to use a multiswitch so that it would combine all the different sat signals into a single cable. Each of those 4 cables are "signal locked" into one of those 4 signals talked about above. Nowadays that work is build into the dish LNB assembly itself.
In a typical install (and we'll talk current technology here), if you need only 4 tuners or less then you can just run those cables directly from the dish to the receivers/tuners.
But if you need more then 4 tuners then you need some sort of multiswitch. WB68 is the common one in use today. The WB68 will take the 4 cables from the dish (as well as 2 more if you have the International dish at 95 and the locals side dish at 72.5). It will then provide 8 outputs which you can then cable to 8 tuners.
The downside to this has always been that you can't use standard cable splitters with satellite and for dual tuner DVRs you need 2 cables run.
The latest technology is the SWM, Single Wire Multiswitch. So the SWM8 does the same thing as the WB68 in that it takes the cables from the dish as inputs. It then gives you outputs to use. But this time if you use the SWM outputs you can use a single wire run to a dual tuner DVR and it will power both tuners. You can also split it using regular cable splitters. They also offer "legacy" outputs that you can use for non SWM capable receivers you may still have.
And now they are just starting to roll out LNBs that have the SWM built into them. So it continues to get pushed to the LNB assembly.
Hope that helps a little bit.
SWM: The SWM module has a given frequency range that it divides up.astrotrf said:Mike (and everyone else): thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your willingness to answer questions, and I'll save all this. But I'd still like to find out where you learn about all of these things. (I'm used to answering questions from others, not having to ask questions like a noob ... :nono: )
Question: you say "4 outputs from the dish". Do all dishes have 4 outputs? What about the dishes with just 2 LNBs or the ones with 5 LNBs?
I take it that this means the SWM-8 takes the 4 dish outputs and combines them into a single coax line. I can then split this line as needed to drive up to 8 receiver antenna inputs. I have to inject power for the SWM-8 into this single line somewhere.
This brings up a *real* noob question, and I apologize in advance for even having to ask it. It would appear from this description that each LNB on the dish passes the entire output of the satellite down the coax line, and all tuning is done within the satellite receiver box. I can grok cramming all of that signal onto a single coaxial cable, but, since the satellite transponders are all broadcasting in the same general frequency band, how does the output from two or three or four or five different satelliltes get mixed onto the same cable without interference?
Real noob question #2: I have a 3-LNB dish with, if I recall correctly, 4 outputs. I'm only using two of them. I may be wrong about this; I only got to see it once, and that was years ago. Do all 3 LNBs send signals down all 4 outputs? Would I ever have a reason for wiring up the other two outputs? Or am I wrong, and are there only 2 outputs? (OK, that was really 3 noob questions.)
So the WB68 has inputs for 4 LNBs from the dish and 8 individual output connectors. Right?
So the AM21 tunes to an OTA signal and converts it to MPEG4 to feed to an HD receiver? Is there a special input for this or does it piggyback onto one of the satellite inputs? Where does guide information (if any) come from?
So I have a DirecTivo SD receiver which is connected via 2 cables to a 3-LNB dish. If I wanted to add an HR2x receiver to the setup, I should add a WB68, hook the two lines from the dish to it (leaving the other two WB68 LNB inputs empty), and run RG-6 from the WB68 to both inputs on both the SD and HD receivers? Do I just call DirecTV and say "I'd like to order a WB68, please."?
OK, now I'm at the point where I have to ask about 2-LNB, 3-LNB, and 5-LNB dishes. To add an HR2x, will I need to upgrade to the 5-LNB dish? Will I need to run more than the existing two cables from the dish to the WB68 (assuming that's the right thing to use)?
Thanks again. (I should perhaps explain that I do self-installation; the location where my DirecTV stuff lives is way out in the middle of the New Mexico desert. When I bought the current setup, the installer called me and practically *begged* me not to make him come all the way out to try to find my place (well over an hour one way!). My biggest fear is having to put up a new dish, with all of the attendant aiming difficulties.)
Terry (astrotrf)
There are one for each of the eight tuners and couple others(communications, etc).
A SWM capable receiver (all the HD DVRs, R22, H20, R16 to name a few) get one coax to connect the SWM connecter(Sat 1 in the case of the HR21).
The receiver gets a frequency range for it's tuner(s). However, I'm not sure the whole channel spectrum is in each frequency range.
Somebody help me with this but IIRC the receiver tells the SWM what it wants and the SWM does the voltage/tone thing to access the correct satellite/transponder to get the appropriate channels. In the case of a DVR, the SWM connection on the receiver will direct it to either the live or background tuner.
It was designed with the house that's prewired for cable. It will work with RG59(one of my HR21s is connected with RG59).
There is a power inserter(PI-power supply). The PI is connected the coax and provides power to the SWM module. If it's after a splitter, the splitter must be able to pass the power signal to the SWM module.
There are plenty who are more knowledgable about SWM then I so this is a bit simplistic....I r mechanic...:grin:
AM21: Connects to the HR21 via a USB port. The AM21 plugs into the wall outlet and there is another power cable from the AM21 to power the receiver.
When you install the AM21 upon powerup you will have to put in your primary(and secondary) zip code and it will get the correct guide data.
It will appear in the guide with all your other channels.
Dishes: The 3LNB & the 5LNB have a built in multi-switch with four outputs to supply four tuners (two dvrs, four standalone recievers, any combination of four tuners).
I don't know off the top of my head about the other versions but I'll find out for you.
The number of outputs isn't the number of LNBs but physical connections to an individual tuner.
A combination of voltages/tones tells the multi-swith which LNB/transponders to listen to. This is overlly simplistic but it gives you an idea how it gets you a channel to watch.
WB68: Takes the outputs from the dishes built in multi-switch and expands it to eight outputs. IIRC, you can add a second WB68 connected to the first one to further expand the outputs. Someone else will be better able to explain this then I but you can daisy chain WB68s to increase your number of potential tuners.
Mike
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