Connecting OTA antenna to Dish?

[knighthammer]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge for the incorrect terms I am about to use. I live about 25 miles form my local towers. I want to put a Radio Shack 75u in my attic. Can I hook it into the Dish connection box in the attic & not have to run a separate cable? Using the Dish hookup to my TV, can I just turn the TV channels to receive the local HDTV channels?

I currently have the Dish HD receiver w/ DVR. I do not use it to run 2 TVs. I have the Gold package w/ locals.

 

[sunelec]

What do you mean by the Dish connection box? Do you mean a multiswitch? Is this a box where the downleads from the dish hookup and then cables go out to each receiver? Sounds like it and if this is so then you need a diplexer to combine the higher freq. sat. signal and the lower freq. antenna signal into one lead. Then you need a second diplexer to seperate the two signals again at the receiver.You would have to do this for each receiver if you have more than one.

 

[knighthammer]

What do you mean by the Dish connection box? Do you mean a multiswitch? Is this a box where the downleads from the dish hookup and then cables go out to each receiver? Sounds like it and if this is so then you need a diplexer to combine the higher freq. sat. signal and the lower freq. antenna signal into one lead. Then you need a second diplexer to seperate the two signals again at the receiver.You would have to do this for each receiver if you have more than one.

Yes, that's what I mean. Are both of these Diplexers the same? I am technically challenged so bear with me. Is there a diagram somewhere that would show me how to do this?

 

[sunelec]

I forgot to say that your system may have a seperator for the Sat. inputs at the receiver now depending on your hookup so the diplexer would be installed in the cable before the seperator so you extract the antenna signal first. Then hook the antenna pigtail to the "antenna in" on the receiver if you want to input it that way or you can go straight to the tv if it has an HD tuner, or both. You'll have to scan your channels into your receiver or tv after that.

 

[sunelec]

A diplexer looks just like one of those small signal F type signal splitters that are used all over the place. However the two inputs are different. One will say Sat. and handles the higher sat freq. and the other says ant. You need to combine the signal at one end and seperate it out on the other end ( 2 diplexers) . It's a simple hookup. Just pick the coax that goes to your receiver now and put the diplexers in the line.If there are two seperate cables going to the receiver now then just pick one of them for the combined signal ( diplexers ). The diplexers are about $6 each and I've seen them at Home Depot, Lowes, Radio Shack , etc.

 

[Jim5506]

For signal quality purposes I recommend against using diplexors. If you have any signal problems at all, the diplexor will make them worse.

It is much better to run a fresh new cable from your OTA antenna to the receiver, much less signal loss both on OTA and satellite.

 

[sunelec]

I agree with you about the seperate cables and thats how I do it most of the time however "knighthammer" already said he didn't want to run seperate cables. So if that's the case then the diplexers are the best way. If the antenna signal is degraded he may need to put a preamp on the antenna but otherwise he should be okay. In my experience if say his antenna signal level was at 90 then it might be reduced to about 80 by using diplexers. Use of diplexers is a common method to combine signals.