Useful trick with UHF remote extender

[aamert]

I dont know if anyone has talked about this but probably many of you are aare of it.

I have the 625 DVR (dual tuner). and i had hooked the remote antenna extender the usual way which really communicated badly with the remote. I have my 2nd TV in the kitchen and its not that far but still the remote didnot work fine at all.

But then The other day i took two connections out of the receiver - one from the output of 2nd reciver and one from the UHF remote output and connected them both to a splitter/combiner and ran a cable from the splitter to teh kitchen.

Then i splitted the cable into two again with one going in to the TV and other output i connected the remote extender.

AND now the UHF remote works Perfectly fine as if i am chaging channels on the TV itself.
I had no problem running the long cable from living room to kitchen because I already had it there anyways. But this was an awesome maneuver though.

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Yeap a known trick for most installers, but a good tip for the do it your selfers that lurk around the board.

 

[stevenlpkr]

Hey, that sounds like a great idea, I often wish I could get better performance out of my RF remote. These can be regular splitters right, not diplexers? Do you think there would be noticeable loss of signal. The installer use diplexers to feed TV2 through the SAT cable, so my thought is the splitters would go before and after the diplexers.

Thanks, great tip.

Dish Newbie since January.


Steve

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Hey, that sounds like a great idea, I often wish I could get better performance out of my RF remote. These can be regular splitters right, not diplexers? Do you think there would be noticeable loss of signal. The installer use diplexers to feed TV2 through the SAT cable, so my thought is the splitters would go before and after the diplexers.

Thanks, great tip.

Dish Newbie since January.


Steve

Yeah that sounds right.

My setup is a little more complicated.
Scratch That. Thats exactly how I have mine Setup.
​

 

[dturturro]

If you're using the RF output than a splitter/combiner is fine. If you're using the sat line to carry the UHF signal then you'd need a pair of diplexers. Sat line into the sat side and the antenna into the VHF/UHF side.

 

[bpickell]

If you're using the RF output than a splitter/combiner is fine. If you're using the sat line to carry the UHF signal then you'd need a pair of diplexers. Sat line into the sat side and the antenna into the VHF/UHF side.

I'm using just regular splitters, and not diplexers and mine works fine. No loss of signal or anything.

 

[aamert]

same here. no loss of signal with the splitters.
My splitters are of lower frequency but when using the attenuator (at the remote extender end) its near perfect quality.

 

[mlrtime3]

Could someone please explain how I can do the same? I don't quite understand what needs to be done. I have a 622 in the living room with TV2 RG6 output going to a kitchen TV.

The 622 is about 20' from the Kitchen TV2, but the 2nd remote gets horrible reception. This is probably because my 622 is in a cabinet.

I was thinking of just using a RG6 cable to extend the UHF remote antenna outside of my cabinet, would this work? Or should I try to "put" the UHF signal inside the TV2 output and "unsplit" it at the kitchen TV?

I probably only need about 6' worth of extra range, The RF Rmote barely works in the desired location now.

thanks

 

[BrettTRay]

Could someone please explain how I can do the same? I don't quite understand what needs to be done. I have a 622 in the living room with TV2 RG6 output going to a kitchen TV.

The 622 is about 20' from the Kitchen TV2, but the 2nd remote gets horrible reception. This is probably because my 622 is in a cabinet.

I was thinking of just using a RG6 cable to extend the UHF remote antenna outside of my cabinet, would this work? Or should I try to "put" the UHF signal inside the TV2 output and "unsplit" it at the kitchen TV?

I probably only need about 6' worth of extra range, The RF Rmote barely works in the desired location now.

thanks

I would just make a short coax jumper out of RG6 or use the RG59 jumper that came with the receiver and hook it up to the UHF port and the antenna so that its out of the cabinet. Thats probably all you will need to make it work better.

 

[scooby2]

i'm using the tv2 from the 622 on the other side of the wall (my office) and the uhf remote performs pretty badly. Thanks for the tip, I will give it a try!

 

[gyppo]

Yea - I did the same thing and it made a world of difference. I did, however, have to change the channel that my TV2 was receiving on as splitting it caused a bunch of interference. But was able to find a clear channel and all was good.

 

[Stargazer]

The receiver being in a cabinet and against the wall can cause a big problem with reception of the remote.

 

[mike123abc]

For really difficult situations you can get an amplifier. I use a cheap radio shack 10db cable amplifier. The room I have the receiver in has 18" thick brick walls, covered in plaster on wire mesh. I had to use the amplifer to control through the walls.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Years ago I started using a standard 6' coax jumper to extend the antenna so that I could place it up on a shelf above the receiver. This significantly extended the range of the remote. I suspect thousands have done the same. But many never think of this easy and cheap solution. Doesn't work in all cases.

You can run the coax as long as you want, 50' if you like. The splitter/combiner is nice in that its a one-cable solution, but if you can run two cables, then I probably would. As stated before, a lot of times just getting the thing out from behind the rack and up a little can make all the difference.

 

[Stargazer]

I didn't think an amplifier would help a signal for sending remote control commands.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Plus, it IS overkill. The splitter at each end so that you can move the remote antenna to the back of the TV2 usually works very well.

Getting the antenna out of the cabinet might be all you need to do, OR, build a high-power antenna out of a piece of coax cable. The instructions are in a thread around here somewhere. It's trivially easy.

 

[Stargazer]

If someone had the TV2 output split to several tv's though wouldn't that cause the UHF antenna not to work that well if it was put on a splitter where one of the tv's is at?

 

[SimpleSimon]

Could be. There's so many variables involved with UHF remote trouble, that it's just a "try it" situation.

I've done an 8000 sq. ft. house with 4 dual-tuner boxes all on one shelf at one end of the house. Upgraded the 4 TV1 remotes to UHF. ALL of them worked fine straight out of the box. I just had to make sure the UHF antennas weren't touching each other.

 

[webbydude]

I've done an 8000 sq. ft. house with 4 dual-tuner boxes all on one shelf at one end of the house. Upgraded the 4 TV1 remotes to UHF. ALL of them worked fine straight out of the box. I just had to make sure the UHF antennas weren't touching each other.

Gadzooks!!

Bet that was NOT fun programming UHF remote addresses. *trying to visualize the frustration and anger with the UHF antenna install AND addressing on each receiver*

 

[Airblair]

Plus, it IS overkill. The splitter at each end so that you can move the remote antenna to the back of the TV2 usually works very well.

Getting the antenna out of the cabinet might be all you need to do, OR, build a high-power antenna out of a piece of coax cable. The instructions are in a thread around here somewhere. It's trivially easy.

Is this what you're talking about?

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=14735