Moving my Dish 500, coax questions

[honkerdown]

First, SatelliteGuys rocks! I am a new member here, but have perused the forums before and found lots of good info. I have searched around a bit and am pretty sure I have the answers to my questions, but would like some confirmation as some of the threads are either old or went very off-topic

Became a Dish subscriber about 5 years ago. When the install took place they mounted the antenna (Dish 500, I think, I know it has 3 horns on it) on the roof, shooting over the top of a tree. Needless to say 5 years later it is now shooting through the top of the tree... Last year we jacked our house up to put a new basement underneath and raised the house by about 2.5', but I still run into signal loss when it is really windy/rainy and the tree has leaves. Yeah, I know, raising the house is the expensive way to get a better line of sight...

Anyway, we are about to do the final grading and I want to move the antenna to a pole-mount with a clear line of sight, and to make sure I am somewhat future-proofed. Currently I am SD only with a pair of 322's ran through a DP34, but will eventually go to HD in the future. The 322's are in a central place in the house, with coax running to each of the TVs and using UHF remotes.

1. I know I need to use direct bury RG6 between the antenna and the receivers. I thought I read someplace that you should not use direct bury coax indoors as the "flooding medium" can wick out of the coax at the switch/receiver due to the difference in indoor/outdoor temps or something like that, or maybe it applied to having the cable exposed outside and not buried. Just wanting to get an answer on that, or find out if I am remembering incorrectly. If I can use direct bury inside, I am going to buy 1000' and redo all the coax runs since the basement is currently not finished, many of them are patched together, and I have access to everything.
2. When I was hooking the receivers back up after setting the house back on the foundation I ran into some problems with getting all three satellites. In talking with a Dishnetwork rep, they told me that I only needed two of them, not all three. They may have mentioned that was just for the SD package I have, but my memory fails me. Finally the question, should I go ahead and make 3 coax runs to the antenna like there is now, or just two if the third is not needed for HD in the future?

Sorry this got a bit long winded, but that is the way I am . Thanks in advance.

 

[Lord_Vader]

First, SatelliteGuys rocks! I am a new member here, but have perused the forums before and found lots of good info. I have searched around a bit and am pretty sure I have the answers to my questions, but would like some confirmation as some of the threads are either old or went very off-topic

Became a Dish subscriber about 5 years ago. When the install took place they mounted the antenna (Dish 500, I think, I know it has 3 horns on it) on the roof, shooting over the top of a tree. Needless to say 5 years later it is now shooting through the top of the tree... Last year we jacked our house up to put a new basement underneath and raised the house by about 2.5', but I still run into signal loss when it is really windy/rainy and the tree has leaves. Yeah, I know, raising the house is the expensive way to get a better line of sight...

Anyway, we are about to do the final grading and I want to move the antenna to a pole-mount with a clear line of sight, and to make sure I am somewhat future-proofed. Currently I am SD only with a pair of 322's ran through a DP34, but will eventually go to HD in the future. The 322's are in a central place in the house, with coax running to each of the TVs and using UHF remotes.

1. I know I need to use direct bury RG6 between the antenna and the receivers. I thought I read someplace that you should not use direct bury coax indoors as the "flooding medium" can wick out of the coax at the switch/receiver due to the difference in indoor/outdoor temps or something like that, or maybe it applied to having the cable exposed outside and not buried. Just wanting to get an answer on that, or find out if I am remembering incorrectly. If I can use direct bury inside, I am going to buy 1000' and redo all the coax runs since the basement is currently not finished, many of them are patched together, and I have access to everything.
2. When I was hooking the receivers back up after setting the house back on the foundation I ran into some problems with getting all three satellites. In talking with a Dishnetwork rep, they told me that I only needed two of them, not all three. They may have mentioned that was just for the SD package I have, but my memory fails me. Finally the question, should I go ahead and make 3 coax runs to the antenna like there is now, or just two if the third is not needed for HD in the future?

Sorry this got a bit long winded, but that is the way I am . Thanks in advance.

I don't know about the wicking, but you could connect them at the perimeter of the house. That's how my house is done. They put in a grounding block and connected the outside wiring to the inside.

I would run at least 3 cables. You may not need 3. Even with HD it should be ok, but you might want to back-feed or do OTA.

You might want to do some drop ceiling in your basement. Just a thought.

When I built my house, I ran a PVC pipe through the wall before they closed it all up. I haven't used it yet, but it's there ready for wiring.

 

[papalittle]

You have a Superdish 105 satellite dish and yes you only need two of the 3 "eyes". The super dish is easy to align if you have a meter to find the satellites. You need to have the 119 and 110 satellites to receive the programming for SD and for the locals. Make sure the pole is plumb and the elevation on the dish is set right. do not mess with the skew. Point the dish slightly to the SW and using a meter find the 119 sat using a co-ax attached to the 119 LNB . Once you think you found the sat run a switch test to make sure you have the 119 and 110 sats. Fine tune as you need and lock everything down tight. BTW the superdish has a large surface area make sure you pole is in the ground far enough so that the never ending Nebraska winds do not rock and twist the dish or you will be always losing signal.

 

[papalittle]

BTW where in Nebraska are you?

 

[honkerdown]

I don't know about the wicking, but you could connect them at the perimeter of the house. That's how my house is done. They put in a grounding block and connected the outside wiring to the inside.

Duh, never thought about the ground block. The current installation does not have one. That will actually cut down on the amount of DB RG6 I would need by half.

I would run at least 3 cables. You may not need 3. Even with HD it should be ok, but you might want to back-feed or do OTA.

My OTA comes from my antenna tower which is located away from from the new SuperDish location. Ideally I'd love to just mount the dish to the tower, but the L.O.S. is straight through the tree.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is "back-feed"?

You might want to do some drop ceiling in your basement. Just a thought.

The aesthetics committee has vetoed such action. Besides, my father-in-law is a semi-retired drywall contractor and I would never hear the end of it!:rant:

 

[honkerdown]

You have a Superdish 105 satellite dish and yes you only need two of the 3 "eyes". The super dish is easy to align if you have a meter to find the satellites. You need to have the 119 and 110 satellites to receive the programming for SD and for the locals. Make sure the pole is plumb and the elevation on the dish is set right. do not mess with the skew. Point the dish slightly to the SW and using a meter find the 119 sat using a co-ax attached to the 119 LNB . Once you think you found the sat run a switch test to make sure you have the 119 and 110 sats. Fine tune as you need and lock everything down tight. BTW the superdish has a large surface area make sure you pole is in the ground far enough so that the never ending Nebraska winds do not rock and twist the dish or you will be always losing signal.

I am going to borrow my neighbor's tractor mounted post hole digger, 8" x 4', I assume that will work.

And yes, you must be familiar with the winds here. We are in a bit of a valley and surrounded by trees on 3 sides so that helps a lot, but I know what the wind will do here and now is not the time to go cheap on the pole & anchor.

 

[honkerdown]

BTW where in Nebraska are you?

Near Seward, about 25 miles west of Lincoln.

 

[TimberWolf]

If the cable indoors is just patched or spliced together and you can replace it, run 2 new straight lines to each room if you are going to drywall it in. Use standard RG6 rated to 3Ghz.

You might even want to consider running cat5 ethernet cable with it for future upgrades.

 

[honkerdown]

If the cable indoors is just patched or spliced together and you can replace it, run 2 new straight lines to each room if you are going to drywall it in. Use standard RG6 rated to 3Ghz.

That is what I planned, 2 lines to each room. All RG6 is not rated to 3Ghz I take it?

You might even want to consider running cat5 ethernet cable with it for future upgrades.

Already in the plans, though I planned on cat6. The price difference is not all that much and I would rather do it right now and have it more "future-proofed".

 

[AgentOrangeSkies]

That is what I planned, 2 lines to each room. All RG6 is not rated to 3Ghz I take it?

You're correct that it's not. Minimum for satellite installations for Dish is 2150Mhz but that is the bare minimum. I wouldn't suggest going lower than 2200Mhz but most RG6 out right now will be 3Ghz which is far beyond what you need and will work beautifully.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Duh, never thought about the ground block. The current installation does not have one. That will actually cut down on the amount of DB RG6 I would need by half.
My OTA comes from my antenna tower which is located away from from the new SuperDish location. Ideally I'd love to just mount the dish to the tower, but the L.O.S. is straight through the tree.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is "back-feed"?
The aesthetics committee has vetoed such action. Besides, my father-in-law is a semi-retired drywall contractor and I would never hear the end of it!:rant:

The "back-feed" is when you send the TV2 output to another location. You can do it with diplexers, but it was just a thought. I was mostly thinking it would be nice to have a cable for reserve.

Next time I build a house, I am going to put a 1" or 2" PVC in the wall to each main TV area in addition to the bundle I pull. It would make life a lot easier.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Doesn't say too much, but same idea....

Build a permanent cable run