SWM LNB Limitations

[sambates10]

Hey Guys,

Here's what I've got. I've got a tailgate setup that we do in the grove in Oxford, Mississippi (Hotty Toddy! Go Rebs!) and I just got a Slimline Dish with the SL5S (SWiM) LNB. I am going to share my system with whoever has a SWiM compatible receiver, but, I'm going to be limited on who I can hook up due to the fact that it's a SWM8 and that DVRs count as two.

So here's what I need answered;

1. I've been told by a friend that there is a way to do more than 8 tuners on a SWM LNB, apparently what you do is take the 8 way splitter and run two lines into a 2x4 multiswitch, repeat that four times. He said doing that you can use more receivers. I think that is way off and will not work, but, there are people out there with more experience than me, I just want to make sure. If there's someone out there who just changed from a 2x4 or a 4x8 to a SWM8 LNB, and you kept the old stuff, see if it works.

2. I would like to be able to hook up everyone, but people with DVRs will take up too much space on my system, I don't have a DVR, but I think there is a way to set it to read a single tuner. If this is so, does it work?

[Jimbo]

So.... you doing a tailgate and your setting everyone up with Tv ?

How many TV's / dvrs.
If your running swim the rest of the recvrs need to be swm compatable as well.

Sent from my Samsung Epic using SatelliteGuys

[sambates10]

Yep. I don't know how many I'm going to have, gameday will determine that. What I want to know is if there is some kind of hack for the SWM LNB to get more tuners. Trust me I'm a newbie! I just don't want to run a bunch of DVRs and only be able to hook up 4 people. Yea sure I can get a SWM-16, but I'm trying to work with what I have. My friend said there is a hack, but I think he's mistaken. Just trying to confirm that.

[jackhawk]

With a splitter rated for the right frequency (up to 2150) this will work on Dish equip so I think it should work on Direct too. One port on the splitter must be power passing.

[BobStokesbary]

No hack. SWM works by setting up a unique frequency between each of the receivers and the LNB. There are only 8 frequencies available on your setup. There is a way to make DVRs just use one tuner, but I have not experimented with that feature. Moreover, I doubt people who are there just for a tailgate situation would want to reconfigure their DVRs for the day.

You don't say whether everyone wants HD or SD. What your friend may have been thinking is for SD you can use one receiver and a RF converter/modulator and run standard cable to each of the SD receivers.

I would think that 8 receivers should be more than enough for a tailgate situation.

[raoul5788]

I wouldn't want all of those cables strewn about with a bunch of "slightly tipsy" people around!

[twizt3dkitty]

the basic answer is no OP, you can run a swm8 lnb (not multiswith) into a power inserter, then into a 1x8 splitter, then 8 d12s, H20s, H21, H23, H24, H25, HR20, HR21, HR22, HR23, HR24, HR34s or any combination of those receivers, keeping in mind the 2 tuner to a dvr limitation you are aware of. I do not think you can set a single tuner dvr on swm, because when the box sees swm, it automatically selects dual, and i believe single is greyed out in the tuner space. Now what I can tell you from experience is if you were to connect a 9th tuner, it would work so long as one of the other tuners is not in use. Or at least it did 3years ago when I was a tech. So IN THEORY if you had 8 dvrs on a swm lnb, and no1 recorded anything, they should all work. I make no guarantees however. But Im with raoul... I wouldnt want anything to do with the wiring nightmare your going to see with drunks about lol.

[texasbrit]

The SWM dish will only support 8 tuners, adding more splitters or multiswitches won't change that. And you can't connect a multiswitch to outputs from an SWM LNB, it won't work at all. But you can configure a DVR to operate on a single tuner, even on an SWM system - just go into satellite setup, and at the appropriate step select single tuner.
It is technically possible to connect more than eight tuners on an SWM system, if you have eight tuners and add a ninth it will work if it is on the same transponder as one of the other eight. But as soon as you switch channels on the ninth tuner, you will get 771s, so its not really a solution.

[harshness]

Given the pain and suffering of disabling and re-enabling DVR tuners, you should probably just prohibit them. Your perception of the relative difficulty may vary widely.

SWiM LNBs are probably not the best choice for a widely distributed system; especially if anyone is coming or going during the day.