Hooking up into a satellite box on the outside of house?

[belsokar]

I just bought a newly built home, and it comes prewired with RG6, and they have a "satellite box" on the outside of the house where you can mount your dish, and run your wires directly in...so basically I don't have to drill any new holes or anything according to the builder.

My question is, what do I need to know about doing an installation this way? I plan on eventually buying the 921 and Superdish, and thus having the installer put that stuff in, but in the meantime, I will be doing my own installation probably. I haven't had a chance to look at the "box" up close yet, but I was looking to see if anyone else had experience or advice on doing this type of install.

For now I basically want to run 3 receivers in the house...But may want to increase that to 4 in the future.

Thanks.

 

[silversurfer]

Belsokar, I think you will get quicker assistance if this is in the Technical Support forum.

 

[belsokar]

thanks

 

[Guest]

Tell us more about what the builder is selling you as a cure all to a satellite system that isn't even available yet. So far all you seem to know is there is a box on the outside of the house and there is some RG-6 in it.

 

[belsokar]

What I know is pretty much just what I have said. The builder wasn't selling it as a cure-all of any sort really. This is what I know:

The house is prewired with RG6 cable. How it is prewired, and what this entails or means exactly, I really don't know.

The "box" is just a metal plate covering what looks to be a small rectangular enclosure on the side of the house near the roof. Again, all he said was it was designed for satellite system, so you can hook straight into the internal wiring of the house.

Again, I'm not sure what this means in terms of hooking up a satellite system. I currently have dish network, and realize that you usually have a separate cable run for each receiver. So how to run 3-4 cable from the dish to the internal wiring, I'm not sure how this works. I was just hoping someone else has moved into, or installed a dish into a home with this kind of prebuilt situation, and would have some ideas on what to expect in terms of doing the installation.

Thanks

 

[Lightnin1]

I will have a lash at this one.

What pre-wire means exactly is from every point where, in the future you want to place a tv or in this case a satellite receiver, there is what we call a home run of rg-6 coax going to a pre-determined termination point. This is more than likely the box you are talking about on the outside of your home. Home runs go from the termination point directly to where your receivers are placed. They do not go through any kind of switches, splitters, or anything. Just one straight piece of cable from point A to point B.

If your builder went through the trouble doing this, I would hope that he used good quality, high swept cable at least up to 2.2 gigahertz. If you are not sure, look on the skin of the cable and it will usually say. Belden, Commscope, and Genesis are some of the best brands.

All-in all, it sounds like you have a good system going, as long as your builder placed the box in a a place with a pretty broad line-of-site. That way you will be fully compatible for years to come.


The system you described in your posts is the best an installer could ever ask for. As for doing the install yourself, you couldn't have it any better. Just mount your dish, tune it in, ground it according to NEC.

For example, say you had four receivers, which would require what we call a quad LNBF. This has four separate ports. Connect each port directly to the home run where you want you receiver and your done! Of course this is the most basic install you can do. If your not sure where each run goes, or if they are not labeled, you can buy a tone generator that will place an analog tone on the cable so you can sniff it out out at the box on the outside. I don't know what your particular situation is with regard to locals, but you may have to have a separate dish for those, or even a super dish, and that would have to be dealt with slightly different, but I think you get the picture.

You can always count on help here!

 

[belsokar]

Thank you very much for the info! I get the keys on Friday, so one of the first things I will do is definitely check out the setup in the "box". Hopefully it is as easy as just hooking up to the direct runs to each room.

I will probably initially be doing the install myself, but if i upgrade to the superdish and 921, then I suppose I'll have the installer do that.

As a follow-up question, if the cable runs are as you described,...then that means there is probably a single cable run to each room, right? In that case, if I needed a dual cable run for something like the 921, how would I handle this situation?

Secondly, I heard there is a new switch or something coming out next year that allows a single cable run from the lnb to be split right before entering the receiver, so I would only need one cable run through the house. My question about this is: Does this still mean I can only have a max of 4 total tuners (2 in the 921, 1 tuner each in 2 other receivers?) So for example, for a 4 room household, can I have a dual tuner receiver in the living room, and then 3 separate receivers in the the 3 bedrooms?

Thanks again for the help!

 

[Lightnin1]

As a follow-up question, if the cable runs are as you described,...then that means there is probably a single cable run to each room, right? In that case, if I needed a dual cable run for something like the 921, how would I handle this situation?

Secondly, I heard there is a new switch or something coming out next year that allows a single cable run from the lnb to be split right before entering the receiver, so I would only need one cable run through the house. My question about this is: Does this still mean I can only have a max of 4 total tuners (2 in the 921, 1 tuner each in 2 other receivers?) So for example, for a 4 room household, can I have a dual tuner receiver in the living room, and then 3 separate receivers in the the 3 bedrooms?

Thanks again for the help!

If there is only one feed per wallplate, then that poses a problem with dual tuner receivers. The only option you have is to see if another cable run can be pulled to that location. If this is physically impossible, then the only other choice you have is to run a singal tuner receiver. If you're hous has a basement or crawlspace, it is a pretty good chance that some more cable can be installed. I have no knowledge of any kind of hardware that will allow you to run two input signals in one cable.

To answer you're last question, I believe you can only have up to 2 dual tuners on you're account, with six total physical receivers. For the scenario you are describing above, you will need 5 separate outputs. A quad and a 34 switch will get you there. YOu will need the 34 switch anyway for your locals and superdish

 

[sksatellite]

Most the new home pre-run cable are cheap RG6 cable, you can tell by use you finger to bend the center conductor, if it bend right away, its cheapo. and most out side cable will run to the attic or inside the house somewhere or to a box in the wall, then there whole bunch cables stack together which are for other rooms, some simple run one cable to each room and some are two. I had encount one customer moved in to a new house, where every other rooms jas two feed wall plate but the master bedroom has only one, which he intend to put the TIVO, can't do anything about this as I tried run a new cable down to his bed room but there about 25 to 30 foot between the attic and his room, there seems at least two layer of cross beam or board between, and the single cable seem stapled to somewhere to the wall, can't do the pull. In this case, I don't see anyone will able to do anything, not even the builder. too bad.

 

[Neutron]

Wouldn't a DISH approved splitter solve that problem with the 2 tuner receiver?

 

[Tim Hanthorn]

I believe your two choices are (1) to run a second cable to your 2 tuner location or (2) wait for the DP44+ switch coming next year, which will have the ability to "stack" the signal for 2 tuners on one cable.

 

[belsokar]

will the dp44+ switch allow me to stack both tuners on one cable, as well as stack an OTA UHF antenna signal using a diplexer?