Help distributing OTA with amplifier (Super Home Node)

[brantlew]

Hey I have this posted on another forum but haven't received a response to it. It requires a pretty good understanding of cabling and RF and I hoped that this forum might be better suited.

The initial question arose out of discussion about the Eagle Aspen Super Home Node which is a single component that takes two UHF inputs, combines them, then splits them into four amplified outputs. So even though it seems I am asking about the Super Home Node, it is not specific to that hardware. Any combiner, UHF amplifier combination would work just as well.

My real question is about what happens when you echo an amplified signal back to the source. Here is the original text with the diagrams embedded in a Word doc.



I have a satellite receiver (VIP 622 to be exact) that accepts OTA antenna input and also modulates and broadcasts a channel to a second TV. I only have one coaxial cable going to my receiver so I have to combine all frequencies onto this one cable. My goal is to receive antenna input at all TVs and my receiver and modulate a channel to all TVs as well. With that in mind here is my first though of a solution.

figure 1.

Now this would distribute the antenna to the entire house and it would distribute the TV2 signal to the rest of the home as well. The obvious problem is that my receiver is going to get a really crummy antenna signal because it is not amplified by the Home Node. Ideally I would receive an amplified signal at the receiver as well, but to accomplish this I have to do this

figure 2

Now I am getting an amplified antenna signal at the receiver but I have also created a loop where the TV2 output is amplified and sent back to the receiver. So I am echoing the signal back to the source. Would this cause weird feedback loops or interference? What are the consequences of this? Would inserting an RF filter help?

 

[brantlew]

Here are the diagrams

figure 1 and 2

 

[Peter Parker]

I have heard of several people who modulate the TV2output to an unused UHF signal signal and have no trouble with using the same line to go from the antenna to the receiver and back to the supernode . Give ita try.

I wish I could get tit to work for cable.

 

[brantlew]

I have heard of several people who modulate the TV2output to an unused UHF signal signal and have no trouble with using the same line to go from the antenna to the receiver and back to the supernode . Give ita try.

I wish I could get tit to work for cable.

Thanks for the reply. I guess you mean wiring it like this diagram.

That would be great if it works, but I am afraid that the signal power to the receiver will be greatly reduced because the Home Node is not designed to pass signal from antenna to modulator input. It's a semi-expensive "try" so I don't want to pull the trigger until I'm pretty sure I understand what's going to happen. I'll try to get in touch with tech support at Eagle Aspen and see what they have to say about it.

 

[Peter Parker]

What I tried to do (and failred) was output a signal from SAT2 on Channel 103 (unused) then send it through the existing wiring to the attic where it connected to the home port---as did the cable.

But channel 103 wound up unwatchable on the others sets. i also tried through a simple splitter/combiner. taht worked well over short distances but not after splitting it four ways.

 

[brantlew]

What I tried to do (and failred) was output a signal from SAT2 on Channel 103 (unused) then send it through the existing wiring to the attic where it connected to the home port---as did the cable.

But channel 103 wound up unwatchable on the others sets. i also tried through a simple splitter/combiner. taht worked well over short distances but not after splitting it four ways.

If your "home port" is anything like the Super Home Node then that doesn't surprise me because as it turns out these components don't amplify the modulator input. In fact they reduce the signal by -7dB on all 4 outputs and just assume that your modulator has enough juice to push the signal through a 4 way splitter which of course is idealistic.

I am still working on this problem and have narrowed it down to 3 possible solutions. I will post them up after I have finished because I believe that this is a common problem and I believe that the people that just happened to solve it with some simple splitters did it in specific situations with short cable runs and/or single room solutions or perhaps they are just tolerant of poor viewing quality.

Me - I'm a fanatic when it comes to this kind of stuff and I want a robust solution with Sat and UHF combined and clear signals (3 - 10dB) in many rooms. So far I haven't found that solution on any of the forums or the Dish wiring diagrams. The Dish wiring diagrams are particularly annoying because they assume that people just have the ability and inclination to string cable anywhere they want. That seems naive. What about guys like us that want to have all this stuff on our pre-existing coaxial network. There has got to be an elegant solution. So my research continues...

 

[RandallA]

What I tried to do (and failred) was output a signal from SAT2 on Channel 103 (unused) then send it through the existing wiring to the attic where it connected to the home port---as did the cable.

But channel 103 wound up unwatchable on the others sets. i also tried through a simple splitter/combiner. taht worked well over short distances but not after splitting it four ways.

Is channel 73 Cable used in your system? I tried every single channel for cable (Yeah, I know) and channel 73 gave me the best results. Now, UHF was worst since we have so many digital channels in the area most of them are used.

 

[Peter Parker]

Yes. My cable op has something---sometimes a banner but something on jut about every position.