Switchs and signal loss

[drhydro]

Ok, I will give the 4x4 switches a try then.

I still dont understand why the 4x3's arent working, can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[drhydro]

Iceberg,
Is there anny way you can test your setup using diseqc switchs?

 

[Mr Tony]

sure. It may take me a day or so to rearrange a couple cables to have it set up

I just tried my setup (I thought about it an very rarely do I have more than one unit on at the same time). Here is what I did

I had Nimiq1 (Power 97) on in the bedroom and went down to the living room and turned on the Captiveworks and put that on G4 (NBC) and turned the Pansat 1500 on G10 (had it on WMQF). So 3 units on 3 different satellites with no issues.
This was the 4x4 with 4 LNB's to 3 receivers

 

[drhydro]

sure. It may take me a day or so to rearrange a couple cables to have it set up

I just tried my setup (I thought about it an very rarely do I have more than one unit on at the same time). Here is what I did

I had Nimiq1 (Power 97) on in the bedroom and went down to the living room and turned on the Captiveworks and put that on G4 (NBC) and turned the Pansat 1500 on G10 (had it on WMQF). So 3 units on 3 different satellites with no issues.
This was the 4x4 with 4 LNB's to 3 receivers

Thanks for taking the time to do that. I am really leaning towards the theory that 4x3's should not be used like this. I have been playing with this for hours, testing every combination I can think of. With three receivers and 6 switches there are lots of variables.

Way strange, here is what i have found:

The front room reciever on g10 - g10 on all recievers
Front room off g-10- g10 off all recievers

front room on NASA- NASA on all recievers
front room off NASA- NASA sporadic all recievers left on NASA. Signal pops in and out.

master bedroom on AMC 3- AMC 3 on all recievers
master bedroom off AMC 3- AMC-3 sporadic other recievers.Signal pops in and out. Some times it may lock, other times not.

Kids room on ia13- on all recievers
kids room off 1a13- ia13 sporadic for other recievers. Signal pops in and out. Some times it may lock, other times not. When it does lock sq is strange, 90% (normal) down to zero, than back up to 90%.

I have tried moving reciever outputs around on the 4x3 switches and it does not change the results. This is driving me nuts, as there should be a logical rule behind these problems and i cannot figure it out.

 

[LordAlex]

k, here are some dish pics. the dish pointed at 91 isnt visible, sorry no cam here to take a pic of it.

Ahhh..hardware...."drool" haha

 

[drhydro]

Well, think I am going to try a different approach. I was looking at sadouns multiple receivers / multiple lnb's quide and saw this setup:
http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Multi-LNBF/4-receiver-8-lnbfs.htm
I gave them a call and they say it will definately work. So, guess I need to order up a 4x4 multiswitch

 

[Mr Tony]

in that setup Doc you need to have dual LNB's

 

[drhydro]

in that setup Doc you need to have dual LNB's

I dont think so in my case Tony. That would be true if I was using all LNBS that have polarity controlled by 13/18 v, but I am not.

I could set it up as follows:
lnb 1 amc3 h
lnb 2 g10 v
lnb 3 119 h all the good music is on horizontal
lnb 4 91 v good music here too
lnb 5 g4 h (c band fixed)
lnb 6 v 10' bud c band
lnb 7 h 10' bud ku band
lnb 8 127 h (or wherever i finally decide to point it lol, if i can get 2 lnbs to work on a c band dish it will be on c band)

Only 2 of my LNBs in this scenario are 13/18v voltage controlled, my 18" dish and my 76 cm. Those will have to be assigned to the correct voltage. My p* dish is one of the dual output that has one side for v, the other for h. The 6' bud has polarity done manually, while the 10 BUD polarity is switched via my analog reciever. So even if I stick the BUDs on one polarity for the switches, actual polarity can be different (I think)

Or have I got it all wrong, and for power supply to the lnb's to work correctly I have to have duals? The diagram shows 8 seperate LNB'S, and they assured me it would work.

 

[Mr Tony]

That setup is 8 dual LNB's. What they posted at Sadoun is the "normal" way of doing it as to get both polarities. But we aren't doing this "normal" We only have one polarity in most cases. The setup at Sadoun allows any of the receivers to get any of the LNB's (both polarities).

The setup you have above would be 2 4x4 multiswitches. Hook LNB's 1-4 into one 4x4 and 5-8 through the other. Hook the outputs into 4x1 diseqc switches (only need 2 ports) and it should work.
Setup would be
LNB1 port 1 22k off
LNB2 port 1 22k off
LNB3 port 1 22k on
LNB 4 port 1 22k on
LNB5 port 2 22k off
LNB6 port 2 22k off
LNB7 port 2 22k on
LNB8 port 2 22k on

Let me try tonight if I can hastily duplicate it. I have one 4x4 already so I'll slap another 4x4 outside and get a couple other lines hooked up and see if I can duplicate the craziness I wrote above
I know right now my 4x4 works fine. Can have each receiver on a different satellite with no issues.

 

[MikeI]

I use splitters and a/b/c switches to 3 analog and 3 digital receivers off of the SBS 6, AMC 2, IA 8, G11, IA 6, G4, AMC 1 and G10 ku dishes plus the 6 ft c-band dish. I can watch whatever satellite on any of the 6 receivers. Sometimes, I lose power when the feed is coming from the last of the 3 A/B/C switches in the loop, but not always. IA 8, AMC 1 and AMC 9 hooked up to a a/b/c switch. That switch goes to another switch where G4 is wired into. That switch goes to the switch that goes to the TV from Port C. Sometimes, I lose power on AMC 1 422 digital and have to route it to another a/b/c switch. Most of the time and on all the other combos, it works fine.

 

[drhydro]

That setup is 8 dual LNB's. What they posted at Sadoun is the "normal" way of doing it as to get both polarities. But we aren't doing this "normal"

I would hate to be called normal lol. I have a can cooler that says "normal people worry me

Let me try tonight if I can hastily duplicate it. I have one 4x4 already so I'll slap another 4x4 outside and get a couple other lines hooked up and see if I can duplicate the craziness I wrote above

Thanks for taking the time to do this, I really appreciate it. It seems like the setup you have laid out I could theoretically run up to 16 lnbs.

 

[drhydro]

I use splitters and a/b/c switches to 3 analog and 3 digital receivers off of the SBS 6, AMC 2, IA 8, G11, IA 6, G4, AMC 1 and G10 ku dishes plus the 6 ft c-band dish. I can watch whatever satellite on any of the 6 receivers. Sometimes, I lose power when the feed is coming from the last of the 3 A/B/C switches in the loop, but not always. IA 8, AMC 1 and AMC 9 hooked up to a a/b/c switch. That switch goes to another switch where G4 is wired into. That switch goes to the switch that goes to the TV from Port C. Sometimes, I lose power on AMC 1 422 digital and have to route it to another a/b/c switch. Most of the time and on all the other combos, it works fine.

Hi Mike,
I would use a setup like that, but I am trying to make this as wife/kid friendly as I can. Ideally I would like them to be able to pick up the reciever remote and be able to get channels off of all of my LNBS without having to worry about switches, etc. If i can get that to work, my WAF (wife approval factor) will raise in regards to my fta addiction

 

[Mr Tony]

if you do the V only and H only, yes you could have up to 16 LNB's

Thanks for taking the time to do this, I really appreciate it. It seems like the setup you have laid out I could theoretically run up to 16 lnbs

no problem. I should be able to do it tonight and see how it works

 

[Mr Tony]

Well...we have an issue

Ventured out tonight (damn its hot out) and unhooked my 4x1 diseqc switch and hooked up the multiswitch

so right now I have 2 4x4 multiswitches
1st one has
G4 on the 18v port
G10 on the 13v port
Nimiq1 on the 13v+22K port
SBS6 on the 18v+22K port

The 2nd one had (this was replacing the 4x1 diseqc)
AMC4 on 13v port
Echo7 on 18v port
Nimiq1 on 13+22k port
AMC5 on 18+22k port

each one works fine independently. I had the 2nd multiswitch up and working on NImiq1, Echo7, AMC4 & 5

then the trouble hit...hooked up 2nd multiswitch to port 1 of 4x1 diseqc and 1st multiswitch to port 2 of 4x1. Repeated for 2nd unit

fired it up and am only able to get the non22k ports. So setup is
AMC4 port 1-works
Echo7 port 1-works
Nimiq1 port 1 22k on-nothing
AMC5 port 1 22k on-nothing
G4 port 2-works
G10 port 2-works
Nimiq1 port 2 22k-nothing
SBS6 port 2-nothing

I know NImiq1 is duplicated on both switches but it doesnt work on either....now to make it weirder the setup in the computer rom is just to my main multiswitch and everything works fine in there. Have Nimiq1, SBS6, G10 & G4

so something isn't communicating between the Diseqc switches and the 22k portion of the multiswitch

Give me a couple days Doc to work on it and see why its not working. Its weird because I have used Diseqc switches and 22k ports with no issues.

 

[drhydro]

Once again, thanks a bunch for doing this Tony. I would hate to lay out a hundred bucks on multi switches and not have it work

 

[iafirebuff]

WOW! Reading Ice's post on what he did makes my head spin! He is a great guy!

 

[drhydro]

Well played around with what I have for switches over the weekend. While i can get a 4x3 to work flawlessly, the second i add in diseqc switchs i start having problems. What puzzles me is that at first my setup seemed to work ok then as i played with it more "glitches" started showing up. hmmmmmm

 

[Mr Tony]

I didnt have a chance to check this weekend as it was very hot out (100 with humidex of 110+)..

did lots of inside work

But I tried to hook a Diseqc on one of the lines that has the 4x4 set up and as soon as I hooked that up, the 22k ports seems to "shut down". Its like the Diseqc doesnt want to work with the 22k which makes no sense (it works with a Universal and a simple 22k switch)

 

[drhydro]

yeah way to hot here to do much outside, highs in the 90's with humidity in the 90's.

What type of diseqc switch are you using?

 

[Mr Tony]

tried 3

DMSI 4x1, DMSI 2x1, Coolsat 4x1

same across the board...they'll select the 0k ones just fine but not the 22k...and before someone says it...YES I did turn the 22k On