UHF Pro remote extender.

[Cascade]

After weeks of trying to position the antenna coming out the back of my 522 I decided to build my own, this will work on all UHF receivers that use the same 49MHz or 432MHz remote/antenna.

You'll need:

A length of solid core co-ax with an F-connector at one end, 50OHM or 75OHM, it doesn't really make any difference in this application, about 4' long depending on how long you want your feedline to the antenna to be.

A standard wooden pencil or anything with a 1/4" od.

A pair of strippers or cutters.

Strip 45 inches of the co-ax so the center core is showing. Measure 16cm from where the stripped core starts and wrap the 16cm mark round a standard wood pencil or a 1/4" pipe 3 complete times and take the pencil out.
Do the same for the next length of 16cm and wrap it again 3 times round the pencil.
Measure 14cm from the last coil you just made and snip the bare core at the 14cm mark.

Plug the coax back into the 522 and test.
It worked great for my 522, I can control my STB from across the back garden.

Usual disclaimers apply.

 

[ShadowEKU]

After weeks of trying to position the antenna coming out the back of my 522 I decided to build my own, this will work on all UHF receivers that use the same 49MHz or 432MHz remote/antenna.

You'll need:

A length of solid core co-ax with an F-connector at one end, 50OHM or 75OHM, it doesn't really make any difference in this application, about 4' long depending on how long you want your feedline to the antenna to be.

A standard wooden pencil or anything with a 1/4" od.

A pair of strippers or cutters.

Strip 45 inches of the co-ax so the center core is showing. Measure 16cm from where the stripped core starts and wrap the 16cm mark round a standard wood pencil or a 1/4" pipe 3 complete times and take the pencil out.
Do the same for the next length of 16cm and wrap it again 3 times round the pencil.
Measure 14cm from the last coil you just made and snip the bare core at the 14cm mark.

Plug the coax back into the 522 and test.
It worked great for my 522, I can control my STB from across the back garden.

Usual disclaimers apply.

that looks like what Im gonna do when I wire my parents house up.

 

[AJF]

Cascade,
How did you come up with this ? How much distance would you estimate that this adds to the remote's range ?

 

[Cascade]

The design of the antenna is simple theory, Google for "Simple antenna design" And you'll get thousands of hits.
It's not a precision antenna but anything has to be better than the 15c steel whip they include with these $500 machines.
I don't have a grid-dip meter to test its resonance, I wouldn't transmit through it but for receiving it seems to work well.

How much range you get depends on the layout of your house. With the stock antenna I was struggling with 10 meters of distance over 2 rooms, now I'm at double the range with greater reliability.
The only other thing to take into consideration is polarisation, I assume the radiating element is running along the length of the remote control therefore the home made antenna should be horizontal if you're using the UHFPro in that position although at these low frequencies it shouldn't matter too much.

 

[AJF]

Thanks for the tip!
The UHF Pros have been a big improvement over the old remotes but I'm starting to have trouble in a room at the far end of my house, especially as the batteries wear down. I think I'll give your design a try .

 

[Cascade]

You're welcome
Let me know how it goes.

 

[AJF]

Hey Cascade,

I tried your antenna design and it improved the range and reliability quite a bit . Maybe you should patent your design .
Thanks

 

[Stargazer]

I hope this works well for the 510 and 721 UHF receivers as well. I wish they had a DishPro UHF upgrade kit as well. Too bad there is not a solution like this for those that have the UHF upgrade kit that Dish has where you have one cone and the UHF remote.

 

[Cascade]

AJF, glad to see it helped.
Stargazer, it should work for practically all UHF remotes.

If you really want decent range, you could modify the PCB antenna inside the remote.
Of course, that'd be breaking the law and you don't wanna do that.

 

[Stargazer]

I would take it that the modification of the PCB antenna inside the remote (the one that does the transmitting which would probably be even more important than the one that receives) would have to be done differently than the antenna that is on receiver itself that does the receiving.

 

[strrlvr]

After weeks of trying to position the antenna coming out the back of my 522 I decided to build my own, this will work on all UHF receivers that use the same 49MHz or 432MHz remote/antenna.

You'll need:

A length of solid core co-ax with an F-connector at one end, 50OHM or 75OHM, it doesn't really make any difference in this application, about 4' long depending on how long you want your feedline to the antenna to be.

A standard wooden pencil or anything with a 1/4" od.

A pair of strippers or cutters.

Strip 45 inches of the co-ax so the center core is showing. Measure 16cm from where the stripped core starts and wrap the 16cm mark round a standard wood pencil or a 1/4" pipe 3 complete times and take the pencil out.
Do the same for the next length of 16cm and wrap it again 3 times round the pencil.
Measure 14cm from the last coil you just made and snip the bare core at the 14cm mark.

Plug the coax back into the 522 and test.
It worked great for my 522, I can control my STB from across the back garden.

Usual disclaimers apply.

So Sorry, but could you dumb it down a little for those of us with no knowledge of an F connector? Where would I pick up these materials, and don't tell me where to get a pencil....

 

[SimpleSimon]

pencil - LOL.

F-connectors are the standard coax connectors, available anywhere. The cheap screw-on type would work for this. OR, any old scrap of coax that already has an end is perfect for this.

 

[AlienZ]

umm

sorry, im usually smart at this stuff.. i am just having trouble picturing this.. can you take a pic so i can kind of understand how to make this..

what i did was get a really cheap 6' coax that gives bad tv reception (due to interference) and hook it up to the 522 and then hooked up the cheap antenna they gave to the other end using a connector. then i just hung it up on the wall like those old fm antennas, it works, but not well, i have to point my remote at a certain spot.. this combined with the constant video problems really pisses me off sometimes..

anyway so what we do is make a thing, measure 45 inches, strip it.. measure 16" inches from where we stripped it, start wrapping around a pencil.. measure 16" up from there do it again, and then cut the whole thing off at the end or strip the center?

 

[SimpleSimon]

It's centimeters not inches.

And there's a typo - strip 45 centimeters of coax to the center conductor. Think along the lines of the little antennas you see on cars for cell phone use.

Cascade said to start with a 4 foot piece so that you could place the antenna in a "good" spot. Shorter is OK - as long as you have the required 45 cm of bare wire.

 

[maximum]

How are you supposed to position this thing when it's all done? should it be vertical or horizontal?

 

[SimpleSimon]

Just like almost all antennas, vertical is better, although if you have to mount it sideways for WAF, it should still work better than the original.

 

[markdl]

Good stuff, Cascade!

 

[Pepper]

Here are a couple of pictures of the one I built based on my interpretation of the instructions, including the pencil that was used for the highly technical stuff.

It seems to have about doubled the distance for the UHF Pro remote on my 522.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Bump. Just because a few people have asked about it lately.

Maybe it should be moved to the general Dish forum?

 

[SimpleSimon]

And this is still a great device helping a lot of folks!