Diplexing Dish Network and XM Radio Ant's

Desert Satellite

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
107
0
Is it possible to run one coax cable and diplex it in and out; both Dish Network and XM radio on the same coax. It would be nice to only have to run one coax line.
 
Well, it may be possible... I know it is with SIRIUS and the right equipment - in this case the Sirius/DBS Combiner kit which is a special powered diplexor. I do not know if there is a comparable kit for XM.

You might want to check out this discussion at SiriusBackstage.com (a portion dealing with a specific configuration is quoted below). I have successfully (in the past) diplexed my SIRIUS signal onto my Dish cable. At my current location I have SIRIUS diplexed onto my cable modem and the Dish stuff is on a separate cable.
The Sirius/DBS Combiner can be made to work with a Dish Network 3-orbit system and an OTA antenna. Here is how to make it work, plus some details I learned along the way.
  • The Combiner must be placed after the DP34 multiswitch. I tested the Combiner in various locations and verified that the DP34 will not pass the Sirius signal.*
  • A diplexed OTA signal should be placed after the Combiner. It may work in another configuration, but this is clean and was verified to work. Please note that for my testing I used the Terk TV-42 antenna and the diplexers provided with it. Other diplexers may have different performance characteristics...
  • Inside the house, mirror the diplexer/combiner configuration.

    * NOTE: I discovered why the 3-orbital configuration is listed as "incompatible" in the documentation! As configured above it will work. Just don't do a "check switch" test. Apparently the combiner cannot pass the signals appropriately. I kept getting a direct feed to 119 when I knew it should see all three satellites and the DP34 switch. I thought I was going nuts until it dawned on me that I still had the inside combiner connected while running the check switch.
There you have it! I hope this is of use to someone else
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I now enjoy my Dish Network programming, SkyAngel programming, Sirius programming, and all three available local OTA signals (strong PBS and two mediocre Canadian networks) throughout my home -- all fed on a single cable to each Dish Network receiver location.
I know this does not directly address your question, but hopefully it is still helpful info.

Red
 
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The reason it worked for the SiriusBackstage original poster is because his local channels don't interfere with the band-stacked feed for 110 (or 119, 118.75, 121, 105, 61.5, etc.)
This is why the "check switch" fails for him but it appears to work otherwise if he ignores the "check switch." This arrangement is totally YMMV and is Not Supposed to Be This Way.

The band-stacked feeds can interfere with local OTA channels.
The lower part of the band-stacked spectrum overlaps with TV's UHF band, hence it may or may not work for you.

It happens also to be one of the patents that E* is being sued for--the band-stacking of left/right polarity into one big block of spectrum to eliminate any need of switching the polarity.

With the risk of overloading the current of the LNA inside the XM/Sirius antennas (which expect 5 volts and not 14/17 volts) I would stay away from any diplexed arrangement with XM/Sirius.

More worrisome, the XM/Sirius signals are at the very top of the design spec of most run-of-the-mill RG-6 cables, at around 2.3 GHz, and they lose signal dramatically on anything but RG-147 cable, and even those 22-foot-long RG-147 cables still need the amp inside the XM/Sirius antenna in order to get any kind of signal to the receiver at all.
 

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