# Splitting Dish Signal



## pred02 (Nov 14, 2005)

Hi,
I got Dish service in July. Currently, I have two HDTV receivers, the Dish 622 DVR and a regular MPEG4 one. Looking at the cabling, it seems that there are two seperate feeds from the satellite dish to each receiver. 

I am in the process of creating a media room in the basement and will need to relocate one of the receivers down to the basement. Currently, one HDTV wire runs to a receiver on the ground floor, while one runs to the receiver in the attic floor. I would like to put the HDTV receiver in the attic down to the basement. 

Since the 622 has TV-out via coax, I would then like to route the 622 signal to the TV in the attic. The TV in the attic is a regular old TV while the ones in the basement and ground floor will be HDTV.

So the question is, how do I split the signal? I would need to split the satellite signal that goes to the ground floor 622 so I can wire the box in the basement. Then I would route a cable back up to the attic room.

What two way spliiters are recommended for this setup? I know Radio Shack, Home Depot carry some, I think up to 2ghz, but I am not sure what is compatible with the Dish service.

Any advice is appreciated.

Kind regards,
George


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

pred02 said:


> So the question is, how do I split the signal?


You don't. You need to re-run the cables that are going to the attic down to the basement as well as running the coax cable from the basement to the attic TV.

If the cables in the attic will not reach, you should replace them with appropriately long cables. You may be able to make it all work with couplers but the resulting setup _may_ be more succeptible to rain fade.


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## pred02 (Nov 14, 2005)

Ok, so there is no way to split the signal? How about attach another coax cable to the satellite dish? It's kind of difficult running the wire up and down the house because of the lack of space in the walls running up and down.

Also, for the satellite reciever runs, what cable is recommended (brand, where to be found). There are tons of coax cables out there, the RG59, RG60, quad-shield etc. Also does the 3ghz rating or such matter?

Thanks,
George


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

pred02 said:


> Ok, so there is no way to split the signal?


You *cannot* split the satellite signal.


> How about attach another coax cable to the satellite dish?


The ViP622 needs only one satellite feed with a "separator" (unless your installer did something irregular) and one OTA feed (if available)


> Also does the 3ghz rating or such matter?


RG6 "swept to 2.2GHz" is what you should seek. Quad shielding shouldn't be necessary unless you have a strong source of interference (a broadcast tower) nearby. Where outdoor exposure is involved, you should seek UV (UltraViolet) resistant cable. The cable should be U/L CL2 rated (in-wall) and have a solid 18ga center conductor (copper clad is fine).

Most of the pre-fabricated cables use inferior connectors and require larger feed holes. Compression connectors (as opposed to crimp connectors) are recommended.

All tolled, the low-end price is going to be somewhere around $100 for parts and tooling. You should probably get a quote from the outfit that installed your system. They're likely to charge extra to run the cable in the wall unless you can provide them with a path and a string in the path to pull with. Most Sears stores have contractors that will perform these kind of installations.


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## pred02 (Nov 14, 2005)

I guess there is a bit more with Dish setup than the regular days of cable boxes and splitters. I am rewiring my entire basement/house. 

Is there a good resource on how the Dish setups up their system (OTA feed), etc so I can read up on it before attemption to rewire anything?

Thanks in advance,
George


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

pred02 said:


> I guess there is a bit more with Dish setup than the regular days of cable boxes and splitters.


Cable offers somewhere around 250 channels while dish offers many times that number using a somewhat less efficient scheme; something has to give.


> Is there a good resource on how the Dish setups up their system (OTA feed), etc so I can read up on it before attemption to rewire anything?


The OTA part works just like in the cable world. You come from an antenna and use a splitter to distribute the signals.

Satellite is different as you're getting almost half a cable full of material from each satellite. If you visit the site represented by the EKB logo at the upper left of this page, there is a bunch of information in there about switches and cabling. For the low-down on painfully correct installation, I use this site: http://www.dbsinstall.com/DNI/DNI_Standards_2.htm


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## pred02 (Nov 14, 2005)

Harsh,
Thanks for your info!


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