I live in house over 50 years old, that was renovated just a year ago. But the renovators gave no thought to any kind of wiring, other than power outlets. The previous owner never used the second floor, so there are no phone or antenna jacks there. The walls are plaster, very solid, with no openings to run wires. A decent aerial is on the roof, (the traditional VHF/UHF combo fishbone type) with one small opening in the wall for the antenna wire. All the antenna wire looks like RG-59, not too old. OTA digital reception is mostly good, one station has bad multipath but I'm getting to that.
So the first task was getting telephone upstairs. Cordless phone with satellites made that easy. Have a small tv for bedroom, with no easy way to connect to rooftop aerial, bought a amplified interior antenna (Philips MANT510) and aimed it at the stations. After some adjustment, all the stations come in ok, if weaker on the meter than from the rooftop. No multipath interference on any stations with interior antenna.
Then I got DN Sat TV installed, the dish is just below and behind the old aerial, sat wiring uses the same path as OTA TV, new wires, RG6. I'm on a strict budget for Sat so I got cheapest HD receiver which was ViP211k. Have a new HD tv but don't pay for HD sat. There are several locals in HD, and SD looks good with HDMI connection from 211k to tv.
The biggest challenge was getting the sat receiver output to the upstairs tv. No need for another satellite tuner, since I just watch one station before sleeping. I just wanted to set the channel downstairs and get the signal in bedroom. With no openings in walls or floor I am planning to drill a hole, but meanwhile I'm waiting for a friend with the tools to get time. So I came up with a temporary fix that worked much better than I thought it would.
I can't run 75 ohm coax thru windows without drilling somewhere, so I tried some flat brown 300 ohm unshielded wire I already had on hand. I connected coax to the 75 ohm tv out jack on the 211k, ran the coax behind a sofa to a window. Then converted to 300 ohm, ran the flat wire thru the tiny gaps between window and frame, up to bedroom window directly above. Ran the 300 ohm wire thru bedroom window same way, converted back to 75 ohm coax, into analog tuner jack on bedroom tv. All connections are indoors, the outdoor wire is taut and carefully tacked to the house's wood siding, avoiding contact with the copper wiring.
I wasn't sure how good it would work, since nobody talks about 300 ohm wire anymore. The results surprised me. Video noise in the upstairs tv is barely noticeable. It's as if the whole connection were 75 ohm shielded. I guess I'm lucky there are no large metal surfaces near the unshielded wire. I'll see if the signal weakens in rain, but the wire is on a protected side of the house, big trees and overhangs. I can even change channels if I really want to, by walking to the top of the stairs and aiming the remote from a distance. And another benefit is if I want to watch the one problematic station on my main tv, I just switch a few connections and send the interior antenna signal downstairs thru the same wire.
Since I'm not a big home improvement guy I'm really glad how well this turned out. Satellite in 2 rooms with out paying extra.
So the first task was getting telephone upstairs. Cordless phone with satellites made that easy. Have a small tv for bedroom, with no easy way to connect to rooftop aerial, bought a amplified interior antenna (Philips MANT510) and aimed it at the stations. After some adjustment, all the stations come in ok, if weaker on the meter than from the rooftop. No multipath interference on any stations with interior antenna.
Then I got DN Sat TV installed, the dish is just below and behind the old aerial, sat wiring uses the same path as OTA TV, new wires, RG6. I'm on a strict budget for Sat so I got cheapest HD receiver which was ViP211k. Have a new HD tv but don't pay for HD sat. There are several locals in HD, and SD looks good with HDMI connection from 211k to tv.
The biggest challenge was getting the sat receiver output to the upstairs tv. No need for another satellite tuner, since I just watch one station before sleeping. I just wanted to set the channel downstairs and get the signal in bedroom. With no openings in walls or floor I am planning to drill a hole, but meanwhile I'm waiting for a friend with the tools to get time. So I came up with a temporary fix that worked much better than I thought it would.
I can't run 75 ohm coax thru windows without drilling somewhere, so I tried some flat brown 300 ohm unshielded wire I already had on hand. I connected coax to the 75 ohm tv out jack on the 211k, ran the coax behind a sofa to a window. Then converted to 300 ohm, ran the flat wire thru the tiny gaps between window and frame, up to bedroom window directly above. Ran the 300 ohm wire thru bedroom window same way, converted back to 75 ohm coax, into analog tuner jack on bedroom tv. All connections are indoors, the outdoor wire is taut and carefully tacked to the house's wood siding, avoiding contact with the copper wiring.
I wasn't sure how good it would work, since nobody talks about 300 ohm wire anymore. The results surprised me. Video noise in the upstairs tv is barely noticeable. It's as if the whole connection were 75 ohm shielded. I guess I'm lucky there are no large metal surfaces near the unshielded wire. I'll see if the signal weakens in rain, but the wire is on a protected side of the house, big trees and overhangs. I can even change channels if I really want to, by walking to the top of the stairs and aiming the remote from a distance. And another benefit is if I want to watch the one problematic station on my main tv, I just switch a few connections and send the interior antenna signal downstairs thru the same wire.
Since I'm not a big home improvement guy I'm really glad how well this turned out. Satellite in 2 rooms with out paying extra.
