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Posted by Todd H. on January 7, 2007, 10:14 pm
> (Okay, I know this isn't the right group, but the sat tv groups my ISP
> carries are almost abandoned.)
>
> Situation- I have a dual-head dishnet receiver, plus a half-ass OTA antenna.
> The receiver is one of those dual receivers where you can run a feed line to
> the rest of the house, and watch or record a different program. The magic
> connector boxes on the outside of the house intermix all 3 coax lines from
> the roof, with 5 or 6 lines going through the wall (hard to tell in that
> mudded rats nest, and the data plates are all painted over), and 3 lines
> (lnb1,lnb2, and antenna) going in to the back of the receiver. (Not sure
> what the installer left in the crawlspace between the outside hole, and the
> floor holes in living room.) There is a single line coming out of the
> receiver, running to the legacy house wiring. At the back of the dishnet
> receiver, the downstream feed is clear and strong, on the OTA channels, and
> the 'channel 60' faux channel put out by the receiver. Downstream, it passes
> through multiple runs of coax, some unlabeled, some rg-6. First it runs to a
> ground block, then to a 3-way splitter, then to the individual drops.
> Disconnecting from the ground block (which is supposed to be on outside of
> house, I know), and a plugging a TV in there, the OTA and channel 60 signals
> are still strong, but a tad noisy. However, once past the splitter, even
> though the OTA signals are strong, the channel 60 signal drops off to
> borderline usable, and is quite snowy. I tried a Rat Shack 10 db inline amp
> both upstream and downstream of the splitter, and it made things worse. My
> conclusion is that my splitter is junk. However, looking in the various
> cable TV aisles around town, they all look like junk, and all show 4-8 db
> attenuation on the output sides.
Which, by definition, a passive splitter has to have, otherwise laws
of physics would be violated. :-)
> I'm sure I'm not the first one faced with this situation. Short of paying
> someone to replace all the house wiring with nice fresh stuff, to a central
> distribution panel on the wall in the living room behind the TV, is there a
> painless and cheap solution? Does anyone make a quality (and hopefully
> amplifed) splitter that would work 25 feet or so from the receiver? Is there
> something obvious I am missing? Any suggestions or ideas greatly
> appreciated. (I'd love to be able to fall asleep to the dish channels
> without squinting through the static.)
>
> aem sends....
The amplifiers I have in my house installed by the cable company are
PCT brand, model PCT-MA2-M. You'll need access to a 2 prong
electrical outlet to plug in its requisite wall wart power supply that
pushes dc power over standard RG6 to the amplifier.
60 being a higher channel, it generally will exhibit more loss than
you see on lower channels. The best location for the amplifier is
nearest your feed point, after which passive splitters can be used.
The further downstream you add the splitter, the more noise you're
amplifying.
It also helps somewhat if you terminate any unused co-ax jacks with
75ohm terminator plugs, or eliminate unneeded splitters.
Disconnect and reconnect all splitter connections to knock off any
potential oxidation that may be contributing to signal loss. Also
consider that poorly installed connectors are a very common cause
problems too.
Good luck!
Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/
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