[greggblue]

I figured it was time to open this thread with the OTA capability coming for the HR20 "in October"... So here goes...


I just had a new HR20 installed with a Zinwell WB68 6x8 multiswitch... I immediately noticed that it did NOT have a port for an OTA... So my question is, how is everyone going to use the OTA? Diplexors don't work with the 6x8's, so the only choice is to run a SEPARATE line from the 2 tuner lines you currently have. So 3 lines to every receiver! That seems excessive...

Anyone else have a solution? Keep in mind that I am looking for an all-HR20 setup only; there are ways to enable OTA with the HR10 and HR20 combined, but that's not the point of this thread.

Gregg

 

[PoitNarf]

I ran my 3rd coax line for the OTA before I got my HR20, so I'm all set

 

[Earl Bonovich]

3rd coax (well actually it is COAX #6 to the main room)

 

[brewer4]

I will use OTA on everything but ABC (already have one dedicated line run split to all units. They {2 HD Tivos, 1 HR20, 1 HD DVD} are in my basement server room and switched picture sent to each TV room. So MRV dont need you!!). My OTA ABC signal is suspect sometimes and the ABC MPEG4 in Boston looks good. CBS and NBC 1080i in Boston are bad so OTA is the better method. Fox is toss-up but OTA has been good from the start there. HD Tivos are the primary OTA DVRs right now and will remain for a bit until HR20 proves itself. It is doing sat ABC as a backup.

 

[hasan]

I ran my 3rd coax line for the OTA before I got my HR20, so I'm all set

I've always had an outside antenna (in fact, I have two, one on the end of the garage and one on the peak of the addition). The one on the addition is for the HDTV setup and, of course, it has its own feedline.

Unless you're quite lucky, an outside antenna with its own feedline is the way to go. Once we get 4 feedlines with our AT-9s, what's another feedline plus or minus? All diplexers have loss, in addition to the base feedline loss.

I live 27 miles or so from the TV stations' antenna farm (they are all in one place). The antennas at that site are at 2200 feet. I have a medium sized vhf/uhf antenna and about 40' of RG-6 feedline, no preamp. I am splitting the feed 3 ways (1 to the HR20, 1 to the DVD-Hard Disk Recorder, 1 to the Samsung HDTV direct.) Of course, the splitter has quite a bit of loss, but I have a lot of signal to work with. I have very good elevation for Iowa, with the 1135' elevation contour line cutting right through my house! When I moved from near Ames out here to north of Ogden in the sticks, I got farther away from the towers, but I gained 300' in elevation. I get all major networks OTA with solid signals.

(To see the humor in my comment about "what's one more feedline", you must understand that I'm a radio amateur (RF nut). I have 15 feedlines coming into my house (not counting TV-Sat), most buried in 4 inch conduit and coming directly through my poured cement basement walls.) Nearly all those feedlines are 1/2 inch diamater LMR-400 coax, none of this tiny RG-6 stuff fer me. If I had thought things through carefully enough, I would have used RG-14 for the TV antenna (another half-inch diameter cable), which would have cut my losses another 2 dB or so.)

 

[ruesch37]

I ran my 3rd coax line for the OTA before I got my HR20, so I'm all set

If I have an indoor antenna, can I just run the cable from the indoor antenna to the back of the HR20 box? It doesn't need any connection with the dish, does it?

 

[hasan]

If I have an indoor antenna, can I just run the cable from the indoor antenna to the back of the HR20 box? It doesn't need any connection with the dish, does it?

No, it doesn't.

 

[bonscott87]

Simple for me, just plug it in. I have a 12 footer on my roof, cable down into my basement to my cable patch panel (where Charter cable and DirecTV lines also come in). Into my power booster and back out to a 3 way splitter which gets sent around the house. One outlet to the home theater and plug 'er into the HR20.

 

[hasan]

Simple for me, just plug it in. I have a 12 footer on my roof, cable down into my basement to my cable patch panel (where Charter cable and DirecTV lines also come in). Into my power booster and back out to a 3 way splitter which gets sent around the house. One outlet to the home theater and plug 'er into the HR20.

Yes, that's a good approach that I've used before myself. The tricky part can be trying to mix an OTA antenna into a distribution system that already has video on it. I've had very mixed results with "simple" and "inexpensive" attempts doing that.

 

[greggblue]

here's my 2 cents...

I don't really watch any OTA's besides 4,5,7 and 9 (in the DC area), so the HR20's HD locals are fine with me.... But since I still have HR10's (which don't get HD locals over sat), I daisy-chained the 6x8 to the 5x8 (with the OTA connection) and ran the HR10's from there... When I eventually replace them, I won't care about OTA.

Gregg

 

[spidey]

I figured it was time to open this thread with the OTA capability coming for the HR20 "in October"... So here goes...

I just had a new HR20 installed with a Zinwell WB68 6x8 multiswitch... I immediately noticed that it did NOT have a port for an OTA... So my question is, how is everyone going to use the OTA? Diplexors don't work with the 6x8's, so the only choice is to run a SEPARATE line from the 2 tuner lines you currently have. So 3 lines to every receiver! That seems excessive...

Anyone else have a solution? Keep in mind that I am looking for an all-HR20 setup only; there are ways to enable OTA with the HR10 and HR20 combined, but that's not the point of this thread.

Gregg

I dont agree that diplexors dont work with the mulitswitch. I have a zinwell one output of it goes into diplexor along with line from OTA HD. Working fine on my DTV HD RCA with OTA support that has diplexor on other side. I wont do diplexors since I have an extra line so will run one more line from OTA to a splitter one to each of my DVR luckily all wires collect in single spot outside of the house.

 

[rtphokie]

I've got 9 coax lines running into my living room. 6 are devoted to sat inputs, 2 are run back to a video distibution panel from the DVD player and outputs from 2 DirecTiVos, I'll hook the RF output from the HR20 eventually. That leaves 1 coax for OTA.

The installer insisted that I could use a diplexer to carry an antenna line over the same coax, I'd read enough of this board (and seen the installer video) to ask him not to bother with that.

 

[texasbrit]

You can use diplexers on any line which will not need to carry the low Ka frequencies which will come from the next DirecTV satellites (10 and 11). So if you have a receiver other than an H20 or HR20 connected to a line, that line can also carry OTA signals. Right now if you try to use diplexing with the H20 and HR20 it will work but as soon as the new sats are up it will screw up.

In theory if you install the b-band converter further up the line (for example at the output of the WB68) instead of at the receiver, you can put a diplexer between the b-band converter and the receiver, diplex in the OTA signal, and then diplex it out again at the receiver, even for the H20 and HR20. No-one knows for sure if this will work until the new satellites start transmitting.

 

[Slyster]

Rabbit ears! (I'm super close to the towers)

 

[R8ders2K]

After having the new 5 LNB antenna installed, I ran the OTA cable directly to the receivers (H20 & HR20).

All that I had to do was to have a hole drilled through the exterior wall.

I'm also using a Jensen powered indoor antenna for the H20 in my bedroom.

 

[glennb]

Why does 3 lines seem excessive ?

Run 2 lines in from the Satellite dish, one in from the OTA.

 

[Monty23]

You'll find that the OTA HD picture is superior to what you'll get off the satellite. My best HD pictures with my HR10 have always been OTA from a large antenna in my attic.

 

[greggblue]

Why does 3 lines seem excessive ?

Run 2 lines in from the Satellite dish, one in from the OTA.

When you have 3 HDTV's and 3 HR20's (which I will have eventually), and each TV is on a different floor, then it gets kinda complicated to run 3 separate lines. With the HR10's, the diplexors took care of that for me...

 

[Andrew_J_M]

I have 8 coaxs into the rack, 2 OTA and 6 DBS. 2 more DBS into the den and 2 DBS into the spare bedroom. Er - that makes 10 DBS! I must get a WB616! Luckily, no one is using the spare bedroom at the moment.

I suppose that once everyone has run an extra coax to each HR20 D* will activate FTM.

 

[byron]

Rabbit ears! (I'm super close to the towers)

yup. have a 4-5ft cable i'll use from my silver sensor that sits right next to the tv. only about 12 blocks from the xmitters.