DPP 500 twin w/sep or DPP44?

[AZCoronaDog]

I'm a newbie to this forum site (my first post), but I did search for answers every way I could think of first. I've been reading posts for a couple of days now, and like most enthusiast forums, the knowledge base is astounding! I thought I knew a fair amount about satellite TV, but I've learned a whole lot more. Sorry for the long post, but I figured I might as well throw all my questions and thoughts out at once.

I currently have a Dish 500 dish with the DP 500 twin lnbf, (110 and 119)running a 510 and a 301. I'm planning to upgrade to a 522. I've done some research, so I know I have a couple of choices on how to support the extra tuner. (I want to buy the 522, and thanks to this site I know to check the numbers to be sure its not leased, stolen, etc.)

I'm debating whether to swap my DP 500 twin to a DPP 500 twin with a separator, or get a DPP 44 switch. I can also pretty easily run a additional cable to my receiver, so I could just go the cheapest route for now and retire the 301 in favor of the 522's TV2 output. However, even though I'm not ready to go HD, I'd like to make an intelligent decision on the assumption that I will eventually.

So my first question is, do I need more than the 110 and 119 satellites for HD in the Phoenix, AZ area? If so, do I need (or want?) one more satellite or two? If only one more, I still have a legacy single lnbf dish, that as I understand it I could upgrade to DP and just cascade through a DPP 500 twin. If I need two more, then it seems logical the DPP 44 is the only way to go. BTW - It's just my wife and I, so I don't see any need for more than two receivers (but one with dual tuners), especially with the TV2 option.

Another question - Is the separator route reliable enough, or should I just run the second cable? (My house is pretty new, and both the existing cable and cables I've run are all RG6, swept to 2.3GHz, no extra splices or splitters.)

And along that same line, are dioplexers reliable? I want to feed the TV2 output to my other TVs through a super home node, and dioplexers could save me another cable run too. (I just know if I run a bunch of coax now, they'll change to fiber or something just to make my life difficult!)

Thanks in advance for your expert opinions!

 

[Stargazer]

You dont need the DPP 44 to do what your wanting to do, you can buy the MUCH cheaper DP34 switch. I have seen them anywhere between $25 and $50 on ebay. That would give you a total of four outputs for four tuners and it would even support another satellite location in the future if you needed one. The DP-34 would work with the current DP twin that you have.

Also you could use the two wires that you have now running to the house and connect them into the two satellite inputs on the side of the DP-34 switch at your house so you would save one wire run to the house but just use the existing two wires that you have now to run to your switch as the 110 and 119 intputs to it. Then you could run a wire to each tuner from the satellite outputs of that switch at the bottom. It would even give you support for another tuner in the future.

This gives you room for a little expansion and solve problems all at once.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Welcome aboard!

You seem to have the concepts well in hand. It all comes down to cost vs. expansion capabilities.

The only reason at the moment for a 3rd bird for HD would be if you qualify for CBS-HD, which is on 148.

While no one that knows for sure (if anyone) is talking, I think it's likely that any additional HD networks (ABC, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN) will show up on 148 (west) and 61.5 (east).

With E* having a whole fleet of orbital locations and nothing to convienently use them, where they put other stuff (HD or not) is unfathomable. In fact, rumor has it that E* is testing some switches with more than 4 input ports.

It could get real crazy - especially as illogical as E* tends to be. Sometimes I think that they literally use a dartboard to make technical decisions.

That's the reason why I'm still running Legacy gear. It's free (I've got a shop full of it), I don't mind hanging extra dishes for extra receivers, and I don't need more than 3 birds right now, which is easily done with a Legacy Twin, Legacy Dual, and a pair of SW-21's.

 

[Stargazer]

By the time you would need the switch that would be needed for all those orbital slots they would have dropped the prices on them or have a promotion where you can get it with a dish upgraded needed for those extra channels you would want to purchase needing them such as HD/local HD.

 

[AZCoronaDog]

Thanks guys!

After your comments and a little more research, I've decided to just keep things very simple for now, and deal with HD when I actually have a need for it. I've run a second cable from my dish to my main receiver, and when I get a 522 I'll just connect the new cable in place of the cable to my other receiver, which I'll retire in favor of the TV2 output.

I'll use my existing house wiring to feed TV2 back to a super home node and my other TVs, and a coax I ran to my den to bring in my basic cable TV as a backup. My cable modem was running off the cable in the den, with a splitter to a TV, but when I tried to split it a third way, it didn't want to play anymore. So I ran a direct coax for the cable modem, and everything is happy again. (Glad I decided on the 500' spool when I initially wired the satellite! )

I tested the setup using the TV output from the 510, and surprisingly, it was extremely clear on my other TVs, despite a long run back to a 4 way splitter. And the UHF remote from the 510 worked fine throughout the house too.

So for now, "We don't need no stinking switches, separators or dioplexors!" (or badges, for that matter)