How good is the OTA?

billnmich

Member
Original poster
Mar 9, 2005
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Hi, My first post. I just had VOOM installed. We didn't try the OTA before the installer left and when I tried to get a channel.......nothing. Called VOOM, person there was nice. Found out I had to do a scan. I still couldn't get any locals. He said, he thought maybe the diplexer was no good. Got me scheduled for revisit from installer. What does the diplexer do? I took it off and hooked up the wires from the dish and my antenna and the locals all come in but, I don't care for the quality. With my Samsung box I get excellant pictures. I just don't understand what that little grey box is supposed to do. Thanks Bill
 
The diplexor basically takes your sat and ant cable feeds and combines them into one cable.

I can't comment on the picture quality without a better discription of the problem but my OTA picture is normaly the best picture unless its they are showing SD.
 
billnmich said:
Hi, My first post. I just had VOOM installed. We didn't try the OTA before the installer left and when I tried to get a channel.......nothing. Called VOOM, person there was nice. Found out I had to do a scan. I still couldn't get any locals. He said, he thought maybe the diplexer was no good. Got me scheduled for revisit from installer. What does the diplexer do? I took it off and hooked up the wires from the dish and my antenna and the locals all come in but, I don't care for the quality. With my Samsung box I get excellant pictures. I just don't understand what that little grey box is supposed to do. Thanks Bill


Bill
Question how many receiver do you have? if at least 3 there is a multi-switch somewhere let me know if you can see it . look at it and there will be either red line on it or black let me know if you can see it.

tyork
 
one rec

Just one reciever. It seems strange how it's connected. The diplexer fits over tha dish input and the antenna input and then the dish cable connects to it and he put the antenna on what looks to me as a connection for a UHF remote antenna. I took the diplexer off and connected the dish cable and antenna cable to their seperate connections and everything comes in but, like I stated earlier, the picture quality of the locals don't look that good to me. Everything is going into tv with DVI. I know my antenna is good becuase with my Samsung OTA box the picture quality could not be any better...its great.
 
billnmich said:
Just one reciever. It seems strange how it's connected. The diplexer fits over tha dish input and the antenna input and then the dish cable connects to it and he put the antenna on what looks to me as a connection for a UHF remote antenna. I took the diplexer off and connected the dish cable and antenna cable to their seperate connections and everything comes in but, like I stated earlier, the picture quality of the locals don't look that good to me. Everything is going into tv with DVI. I know my antenna is good becuase with my Samsung OTA box the picture quality could not be any better...its great.


Sounds like you have a bad diplexer to me .
 
verification

Snaggerbob.....I was saying how it comes in without the diplexer(locals are poor). With the diplexer, I don't get local unless I switch the cables, but then I don't get the Voom channels.
 
uhf?

To my knowledge, the UHF output on the receiver is inactive at this time, OTA and and SAT cable should be combined prior to reaching receiver. one cable should be going into back of diplexor. Diplexer splits OTA and SAT from within the receiver. If you bypass diplexor you will get an analog signal and picture for your locals. That's probably why pic looks so bad. If tech hooked up your OTA's to UHF then he probably did not know how to install Voom system. CAll Voom reps and inform them that you are not receiving any locals thru diplexer and request another tech be sent out. You aren't guaranteed locals, but you are guaranteed good install. Question: Did the tech have two wires running in from the outside, one for locals, and one for Sat? In your setup there should only be one, and it is carrying both your local and sat signal. That's where your diplexer comes into play.
 
TYORK said:
Sounds like you have a bad diplexer to me .

Sounds like a problem with the dufuss who did the install, not the diplexer.
My installer didn't even know how to aim the OTA antenna. Voom's installation network is for the most part a big joke.
 
Sounds to me like you are trying to use the part of the diplexor that normally goes on the roof at the dish, down in your room where the voom receiver is.

I think you are describing a setup which does not require the use of a diplexor at all (separate coax cable runs for dish and ota antenna). From what i can tell you have two coax cables coming down to your Voom receiver (one from the sat dish and one from your already installed OTA antenna). When this is the case a diplexor is not required at all. The part you are trying to use would normally go on the roof at the dish if the sat and ota coax were going to be combined into a single cable at that point. Don't use that part, just put it aside. What you need to do is also remove the built in diplexor module that is on the back of the Voom receiver where he hooked the sat coax too. When you remove that module, you will see that there is actually two coax ports under it, one for the OTA antenna and one for the sat dish. Hook the sat dish up to the sat port and hook the OTA antenna up to the antenna port. So in summarry you will not be using both parts of the diplexor (the external part that normally is installed at the dish, and the part that is an add on module on the back of the voom receiver. Just put both these parts aside and hook the two cables directly up to the voom receiver.
 
spahoose said:
To my knowledge, the UHF output on the receiver is inactive at this time, OTA and and SAT cable should be combined prior to reaching receiver. one cable should be going into back of diplexor. Diplexer splits OTA and SAT from within the receiver. If you bypass diplexor you will get an analog signal and picture for your locals. That's probably why pic looks so bad. If tech hooked up your OTA's to UHF then he probably did not know how to install Voom system. CAll Voom reps and inform them that you are not receiving any locals thru diplexer and request another tech be sent out. You aren't guaranteed locals, but you are guaranteed good install. Question: Did the tech have two wires running in from the outside, one for locals, and one for Sat? In your setup there should only be one, and it is carrying both your local and sat signal. That's where your diplexer comes into play.

The UHF output on the back of the VOOM box is for a UHF remote antenna that then feeds to a UHF remote that you can use to control VOOM from another room. The present VOOM controller is NOT UHF so it cannot be used with a UHF remote.

HOWEVER, if you happen to have or have had the C-band 4dtv receiver and/or a Motorola UHF remote antenna, it does fit on the VOOM box and I can use my 4dtv C-band remote (UHF) to control the VOOM box from another room.

UHF antenna output should NOT be hooked to any coax cable going anywhere--only to a little UHF remote antenna directly (no cabling).
 

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