Dish Pro Plus & DVR 625 question

[tfezatte]

Howdy,

We recently bought a house and had our Dish Network service moved. Previously we had the Super Dish and DVR 625 which meant that we had two cables coming in from the dish and one going back out and around to the bedroom where TV2 was located (big honkin hole for all that cable).

At the new place the installer put up a Dish 500 Pro Plus. Three cables are coming down next to the chimney. I'm assuming one of those is going over the roof to the bedroom TV2.

Looking at the mess of wires it looks like the cable going to the DVR 625 is coming from what looks like a splitter. Everything branches from there to a grounding block that has an open port.

I could swear that the installer told me that once we got things organized and I was ready to hook up another TV in the basement rec room I could just come off that open port on the grounding block (he also said that, that port could power up to 4 tv's) as TV2.

So I hooked up to that port and I have nothing coming on it.

Is there something I need to do on the 625 to activate this function or should I just split off the output that goes to the bedroom TV2?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

 

[TheKrell]

Hard to guess what's going on there without a more definitive wiring diagram. OK, I'll guess anyway. The DishPro Plus twin LNB has an internal switch and can feed the satellite signal to two DishPro Plus dual-tuner receivers via a single cable to each receiver. If you look on the back of your 625, you will probably find a couple of things that look like splitters. But neither of them are! The one that does the DishPro Plus magic of feeding two tuners via one cable is called a separator. If the receiver output for TV2 is going to another thing that looks like a splitter, that is in fact called a diplexer. If my guess is right, there will be only one cable leaving your house from the 625 and another diplexer up on or near the roof to pick the TV2 signal off that single cable and send it to your TV2 TV.

Are there 3 cables coming down from the roof and wired into the ground block, but only 2 cables coming out again and being combined by a diplexer into a single cable? If so, your 3rd cable on the ground-block is probably the 2nd output coming from your DPP twin. It's available for your future use to feed another dual-tuner receiver. But a TV hooked up to the twin output would see nothing, as you observed when you tried it.

Lots of unknowns there, but that's my guess. If you want to hook up another TV to the TV2 output of your 625, you need to use a real splitter to do so. And you need to find which of those 3 cables holds the TV2 output. (Hint: it will not show 19V on the center conductor.)

 

[boba]

The open port on the ground block is probably the second output of the DPP Twin LNB on the dish. This has to be connected to a second satellite receiver before there is a signal that your TV can process.

 

[tfezatte]

Thank you to both of you. One "real" splitter installed and everything is wonderful. There's only the two of us so I highly doubt that another receiver will ever be employed.

While searching for an answer to this I did come across a diagram of how to wire this thing up with what looks like creative diplexingso the TV's can tune to either TV1 or TV2 by switching the TV between channel 3 or 69. Way to many remotes involved with that concept.

Thanks again!

Tom

 

[TheKrell]

You are most welcome.

While searching for an answer to this I did come across a diagram of how to wire this thing up with what looks like creative diplexingso the TV's can tune to either TV1 or TV2 by switching the TV between channel 3 or 69. Way to many remotes involved with that concept.

In fact I do this; a simple splitter (in reverse) will combine both TV1 and TV2 on the same cable, while the diplexer (next) puts both onto the antenna coax.

As far as remotes are concerned, all you need to do is move your TV2 remote off UHF Pro address 1. (Address 2 is obvious.) Then, a 2nd UHF Pro 6.0 remote can be used to control either TV1 or TV2 from anywhere, simply by changing it's address to either 1 or 2. Obviously you must put the receiver's TV1 tuner into IR + UHF mode first. (This cannot be done out of the box because the receiver ships with both remotes set to address 1.)