# Add a Modulator to Joey for whole house distribution.



## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

Dish is installing a Hopper plus 2 Joeys and I plan to connect a modulator to 1 or more of the Joeys to send its channel to other Plain-old Coax TV's in the house. 

This works with the Old DishTV receiver with built-in modulator, why not with Joey with a 3rd party modulator ? . . . I have a relative with the older DishTV receiver with the built in modulator for a second TV. The installer fed the modulated output from the receiver back to the 1 to 8 splitter in the basement on the same coax leading to the Dish Receiver. They can watch the 2nd channel from Dish from anywhere in the house. 

Are there frequency overlap issues, needing a special modulator ? Are there bi-directional splitter issues . . The one big 1 to 8 splitter at my relatives house lets the modulated signal come in on port 3 and go out on the other 7 ports to all other TVs. (from the old Dish receiver). The incoming Dish signal and the modulated signal all seem to happily coexist on the same wires.

If it doen't work Im screwed because we have more than 3 must-have TV's.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

swbca said:


> Are there frequency overlap issues, needing a special modulator ?


Basically yes ... combining the modulator feed on the cable to the Joey will most likely cause interference.

One thing you can try if you have wired ethernet is to run the Joey without the coax connection. Then use the coax for your RF.

(The Hopper coax needs to be separate from all TV RF as well.)


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

I wouldn't say you're screwed - but you will need to pull more coax (in all likelyhood).

From what James is saying - you need to think in terms of 2 different networks - one being your traditional coax all TVs seeing the same thing (your modulator outputs) and one being the Hopper / Joey setup. 

Anything that is attached to your Hopper has to be on a separate coax network - no sharing of this coax. 

The older receivers (anything prior to Hopper /Joey) CAN share the OTA /modulated coax with the satellite LNB feed as long as you are using the correct diplexers.

What this means for you - Any room that you have a Joey in and you want to modulate that - you need two coax cables.

James did mention about trying to use ethernet for the Hopper / Joey communications - If you want to go this route - you need a decent switch (especially if you're sharing this switch with other IP devices such as PCs, Printers, etc.) A good , dedicated 10/100 M ethernet switch may work better than a router with builtin GB switch / Wireless / WAN routing (at least at the lower end of available routers).


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

I could probably feed in Coax or Cat5 to interconnect the Dish equipment. The Coax wall boxes in the walls can all be reached from the attic or the basement.

I could add a dedicated cat 5 network seperated from the existing cat5 network that is hosting several computers and all the mobile wifi stuff then give the Dish ethernet network internet access through the DMZ port on our firewall to keep it separate from the data lan.

Is there any reason to use cat 5 vs coax to interconnect the dish equipment ?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

swbca said:


> Is there any reason to use cat 5 vs coax to interconnect the dish equipment ?


Use whatever is easier. In my house I have some locations set up for TVs with coax and other locations are set up for Ethernet (wired before wi-fi was cheap and popular). I only have one location where I ran two coax cables ... so Ethernet is a nice option.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Using the DMZ shouldn't be necessary, but putting all the Hopper / Joeys in their own switch isn't a bad idea if you're using ethernet. You will want the switch to be connected to your external network gateway.


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

(Dish is coming in an hour !)
I think I have seen on this forum that Joey will output HDMI and RCA-Component at the same time. Its my intent to Modulate both Joeys that are also connected to HDMI tv's

Our main TV would not have a Modulator
Wife can pick her channel for her rooms
I can pick my channel for my rooms

WHAT TYPE OF REMOTE CONTROL HELPER ???

I don't expect the UHF remotes will work from some of the remote TV's. What type of remote control helper is best. Dedicated wiring for IR is not an option. I want something solid at opposite ends of the house and on different floor.

Is their a helper that can share the *COAX* or run on the *Power-Line *or *WiFi network * My existing WiFi is pretty solid throughout the house. Our WiFi access point is in the center of the house so it would cut the RF range requirement by 1/2 compared to a dedicated RF extender.

The Radio Frequecy extenders I tried a few years ago did not have good range in a house. As I remember they are no better than the Dish UHF remotes.


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## gov (Jan 11, 2013)

Someday we will have a nice under $100 modulator that takes 720P or 1080i on component video jacks and outputs a nice clear ATSC or QAM signal on any channel. Don't even need adjacent channel capability if the same home system had 2 or 3 of them.

I could probably install 50 if I could get 'em.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

gov said:


> Someday we will have a nice under $100 modulator that takes 720P or 1080i on component video jacks and outputs a nice clear ATSC or QAM signal on any channel. Don't even need adjacent channel capability if the same home system had 2 or 3 of them.
> 
> I could probably install 50 if I could get 'em.


I wouldn't count on that. Hollywood and other content producers are putting as much pressure as possible on the electronics industry to eliminate all analog input / output so as to make modulators impossible.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The RCA outputs on a Joey are SD composite video, not potentially HD component video. A standard modulator will work on a Joey but HDMI is the only HD output. (Hoppers have component output.)

The Hopper and Joey remotes are RF ... extenders do not work. The Joey has an antenna inside to talk to its remote ... the Hopper has an external antenna on the back of the receiver. You will have to rely on the range of the Joey remote to reach the Joey location from the extra rooms.


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## andrewddunn (Mar 14, 2013)

i assume the old uhf remotes from the 622/722 won t work on the hopper or joey. is there anyplace to get a remote to operate a tv modulated off of a joey other than dish ?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The right remote will do the best job.

If I recall correctly, the Joey can receive IR remote commands ... I have disabled IR reception on my Hoppers and Joeys. But you may be able to leave IR enabled and use an IR remote in the room with the Joey. You may also be able to extend that IR ... but after a while you're making your system much more complicated than it needs to be and you end up with a limited remote that sort of works instead of the remote that is designed to work best.


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

Thanks all for your help.

My Dish went in today and ended up with new coax (not cat5) for hoppers/Joey connections leaving the original whole house TV distribution intack and separate from the hoppers.

I immediately added an old Radio Shack modulator to one of the hoppers plus a splitter/style amplifier and I got clean video and sound on all the other plain-old-tvs. The only little issue . . . the installer explained he set the Joeys for a specific wide-screen aspect-ratio to match our Hi-Def TV's, so no matter what type of programming, the modulated output is "wide screen" on the 3x4 TV's. No big deal.

RE the Remotes. The installer also said the Joeys support IR. But he thought the remotes in IR mode would also use hardware ID pairing like in UHF mode. He didn't think a second remote could be paired to a Joey, whether its UHF or IR. 

He said maybe there is a work-around but he did not know.

So the question is . . . is is possible to "pair" more than 1 remote to a Joey ?

(In 9 years he has never had someone ask to have the Joeys (or earlier hardware) installed in the basement immediately below the HDMI TVs. The only thing that shows on our TV sitting on a kitchen island is the HDMI cable. Joey and modulator are in the floor joists below in an unfinished basement.

This is my second DishTV installation and in both cases the installers were A++. My only criticism . . . the low voltage wiring in this house was originally done by a custom AV type of company in 1993 so all th audio/video/security wiring was carefully fastened to the framing at right angles and generally very neat. In most places Dish took the shortest path and almost nothing was fastened.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

IR remotes are not paired. If enabled the Hopper or Joey listens for remote commands on a remote set to "1" in DISH's IR tables (which can be interesting if you have multiple Hoppers or Joeys in the same room or withing IR visibility of a user using an IR remote).

RF remotes must be paired and multiple remotes can be paired to each Hopper/Joey. Only one Hopper or Joey can be paired to each remote.


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

James Long said:


> RF remotes must be paired and multiple remotes can be paired to each Hopper/Joey.


So if I can position the Joeys to be within range of the extra TV's using the modulators, I could use a DISH UHF remote at each TV. I'll have to switch to 30' HDMI cables to move the Joey's to a better place to make this work. The UHF remote doesn't quite work now at 60 feet because of a masonry fireplace in the line of sight..

Do *Channel Plus *Modulators have better picture quality than the cheap modulators like my old Radio Shack which is still sold. I just ordered a Channel Plus Dual Modulator to get more than channels 3 and 4 as modulation channel choices since we will have 3 Dish signals modulated.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

swbca;3202712 said:


> Joey and modulator are in the floor joists below in an unfinished basement.


Iiiii don't like that idea. Joeys run hot. Really hot.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

swbca said:


> So if I can position the Joeys to be within range of the extra TV's using the modulators, I could use a DISH UHF remote at each TV. I'll have to switch to 30' HDMI cables to move the Joey's to a better place to make this work. The UHF remote doesn't quite work now at 60 feet because of a masonry fireplace in the line of sight..
> 
> Do *Channel Plus *Modulators have better picture quality than the cheap modulators like my old Radio Shack which is still sold. I just ordered a Channel Plus Dual Modulator to get more than channels 3 and 4 as modulation channel choices since we will have 3 Dish signals modulated.


I installed three of these RF Modulators on three Hoppers with Sling and they work good.
http://www.hollandelectronics.com/catalog/catalog.php?product_id=HMM-10H-Multimedia-Modulator


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

RasputinAXP said:


> Iiiii don't like that idea. Joeys run hot. Really hot.


Good point . . . I wonder if they will run for years at such high temperatures. I fastened the 2 Joeys, amp, modulator, power strip and all the power adaptors to a board. My final installation is like a wall mounted shelf about 2 feet below the floor framing. I was thinking mounting a single 80mm computer case fan above the 2 Joey's to keep them a little cooler.


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

charlesrshell said:


> I installed three of these RF Modulators on three Hoppers with Sling and they work good.
> http://www.hollandelectronics.com/catalog/catalog.php?product_id=HMM-10H-Multimedia-Modulator


A picture I looked at showed a single mini-jack for audio input. Is yours like that or does it have RCA for audio?


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

swbca said:


> A picture I looked at showed a single mini-jack for audio input. Is yours like that or does it have RCA for audio?


RCA for audio and video in ports (red, white, yellow), coax out.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

swbca said:


> Good point . . . I wonder if they will run for years at such high temperatures. I fastened the 2 Joeys, amp, modulator, power strip and all the power adaptors to a board. My final installation is like a wall mounted shelf about 2 feet below the floor framing. I was thinking mounting a single 80mm computer case fan above the 2 Joey's to keep them a little cooler.


Possibly. I know my Joey does better temp wise when it's on its vertical stand. A little more air circ couldn't hurt.


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## swbca (Mar 29, 2013)

RasputinAXP said:


> Possibly. I know my Joey does better temp wise when it's on its vertical stand. A little more air circ couldn't hurt.


Good point about mounting the Joey's vertically. Since all my equipment is fully screwed down to a wall mount shelf, I could orient the shelf vertically and the Joey's would have free air below and above. The high thermal output from the Joeys would create pretty good airflow compared to having them sitting flat on a horizontal shelf blocking air from below.

Thanks for that idea.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Anytime. It's really surprising how hot those little guys get.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

RasputinAXP said:


> Anytime. It's really surprising how hot those little guys get.


I noticed my Joey temps started to rise. Joey was installed 26 Feb 13 in my garage. When I mounted a fan on it 25 Mar 13 the temps were High 145, Low 111, and Average 123. Today the temps are 145, 55, and 100. It is not pretty but it works.


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## lonerwulf (Jul 10, 2012)

Here's a suggestion that will work. Spend a few more dollars and lease a few more joeys and stop being cheap


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