Questions about installation... from real Newbee

[glennlee]

Hi.

I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and we have Starchoice, BEV for sat services and Shaw Cable for cable services.

I think Starchoice is better option for me because 1. I will have maximum of four HD TVs at home and SC's sattelite has capability to feed signals up to 4 TVs without any extra equipment. and 2. SC doesn't require phone line hook up, but BEV does. Am I right?

I am building a new house right now and want to make good environment to hookup SC, one more sat TV service(international channel) and basic cable service. I'll have one SC dish(or more if required) and one international sat dish on the roof and one co-ax for cable TV signal(non digital basic cable, no receiver necessary) in basement. I don't know if I need this basic cable service from Shaw Cable company to watch any local Calgary channel. If SC sends Calgary local channels, I can get rid of this.

I want to feed these three signals to 4 TVs through out the house from the basement.

Questions are...

1. How many co-ax cables do I have to run from the roof to the basement, where my signal distribution panel will be? One for SC and one for the other sat dish are ok? or Do I have to run four cables for SC and one for the other dish, total of five?

2. How many co-ax cables do I have to run from the basement to each TV? Can these three signals be mixed together into one co-ax cable in the basement, be sent through one co-ax right next to TV, and be divided into two separate receivers, i.e. SC's and the other's and co-ax input of TV? Or, do I have to run separate cable for each of these signals?

3. Only one phone outlet for main SC receiver is necessary, isn't it? Then what happens if I want to order PPV from a receiver which is not hooked up with phone line?

Thank you very much for your help.

Glenn

 

[Satellite Expert]

1) Do I have to run four cables for SC and one for the other dish, total of five?

yes. Run the 4 SC cables to a central location. That way if additional outlets are required in the future, you can add a 4X8 multiswitch there.

2. Or, do I have to run separate cable for each of these signals?

yes

3.Then what happens if I want to order PPV from a receiver which is not hooked up with phone line?

If you activate PPV on a receiver hooked to a phone line and on receivers not hooked to phone line, you will get "Mail" to those non hooked up receivers demanding the receiver callin or else they will add a charge to your bill. You can temporarily hook a phoneline to those receivers and force a callin. Or get the remote phone jack https://secure.starchoice.com/english/store/accessories.asp#easyjack

 

[glennlee]

Thank you very much for your answer. I have one more question.

yes. Run the 4 SC cables to a central location. That way if additional outlets are required in the future, you can add a 4X8 multiswitch there.

I think I have to use 4x8 Multiswitch that are being sold by SC or retailers.

By the way, do I really have to run 4 cables from the roof top to central location to feed SAT signals to 4 TVs with separate riceivers? Can't I just run one cable from SC dish from roof top to central location and divide/distribute this SAT signal from here to multiple TVs by using any 1x8(or 1x4 or whatever) RF distribution module with built-in amplifer, such as this(http://www.leviton-lin.com/catalog/ProductDetail.aspx?PartNumber=47692-ESM&langID=1)? I just don't understand why I should run four cables from roof top to the central location to make 8 outputs if I can do it by using 1x8 multiswitch. I don't want to have lots of cables runnng and messing around.

Thank you very much again for your help.

Glenn

 

[Satellite Expert]

There are 4 possible requests that a receiver can make:
F1R Horizontal channel
F1R Vertical channel
F2 Horizontal channel
F2 Vertical channel
A wire can only carry 1 of these at a time. That is why either 1 cable must be run to each receiver or 4 cables to the 4 X whatever multiswitch inside the house.