# A question for Sat.



## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Or anyone else who might have done it already ! Is it possible to feed an existing satellite feed into a 'T' or 'Y' piece so that I can obtain two outlets to feed in to 2 separate digi-boxes. If it is it means I only need to run 2m of cable through a wall to the wifes new tv. If not it means I've got to run 20m of cable from the 4x lnb through 4 walls & a ceiling !! & 3 of the walls are 16" thick.


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

gus-lopez said:


> If not it means I've got to run 20m of cable from the 4x lnb through 4 walls & a ceiling !! & 3 of the walls are 16" thick.


if not it means move house - sounds like far less of a headache gus!

i will wait in anticipation for the official answer on this, i kind of have what i suspect is the same gut feeling as you - need to run it from the dish, otherwise why would they make LNBs that do more than one, but will be interesting to see what the pro says!


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## Jaxx (Apr 21, 2010)

steve_in_spain said:


> if not it means move house - sounds like far less of a headache gus!
> 
> i will wait in anticipation for the official answer on this, i kind of have what i suspect is the same gut feeling as you - need to run it from the dish, otherwise why would they make LNBs that do more than one, but will be interesting to see what the pro says!




Or change the wife!!!! x


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

We've done that. We have one satellite dish, two sky boxes servicing 5 TVs. 
I dunno how it was done tho - I vaguely remember the word "splitter" being mentioned at the time LOL. My OH is a TV expert tho??!

Jo xx


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

gus-lopez said:


> Or anyone else who might have done it already ! Is it possible to feed an existing satellite feed into a 'T' or 'Y' piece so that I can obtain two outlets to feed in to 2 separate digi-boxes. If it is it means I only need to run 2m of cable through a wall to the wifes new tv. If not it means I've got to run 20m of cable from the 4x lnb through 4 walls & a ceiling !! & 3 of the walls are 16" thick.


No you cannot. Each set-top box must be able to control the LNB separately to lock to a station (it sends a current up to select horizontal or vertical polarisation), so you need separate feed. You can replace the existing coax with a twin cable (looks like two cables welded together) to feed each digibox.


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

jojo said:


> We've done that. We have one satellite dish, two sky boxes servicing 5 TVs.
> I dunno how it was done tho - I vaguely remember the word "splitter" being mentioned at the time LOL
> 
> Jo xx


Does that mean thouse that each telly ccan only view what is on the main box? So, if you want to watch late night lust everyone in the house watches it? Or can they work independently?

Bring back the days of a wooden telly where you had to get up to turn them over - far less complicated!


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

steve_in_spain said:


> Does that mean thouse that each telly ccan only view what is on the main box? So, if you want to watch late night lust everyone in the house watches it? Or can they work independently?
> 
> Bring back the days of a wooden telly where you had to get up to turn them over - far less complicated!


Yes. The kids tvs are linked to the box in the sitting room and the box in the kitchen is linked to my bedroom!! No late night lust ever happens there tho lol!!! We do have squabbles (like now) when one wants to watch Vampire Diaries and the other wants to watch the footie in their rooms!

Jo xxx


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

jojo said:


> Yes. The kids tvs are linked to the box in the sitting room and the box in the kitchen is linked to my bedroom!! No late night lust ever happens there tho lol!!! We do have squabbles (like now) when one wants to watch Vampire Diaries and the other wants to watch the footie in their rooms!
> 
> Jo xxx


jeje well at least if you have the box in your sitting room you are in control!


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

steve_in_spain said:


> jeje well at least if you have the box in your sitting room you are in control!


Yes and I've just turned it off, so I'm not popular!! But I warned them, any fighting and it would go off!!! So everyones now in a sulk, but at least they're quiet! I'm a nasty mummy!!!! 

Jo xxx


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

jojo said:


> Yes and I've just turned it off, so I'm not popular!! But I warned them, any fighting and it would go off!!! So everyones now in a sulk, but at least they're quiet! I'm a nasty mummy!!!!
> 
> Jo xxx


pmsl. i remember when i was a kid we had an old immersion heater (tank in my bedroom in a cuppboard) and the switch for it was in the kitchen. when my parents got rid of it and put in a new boiler they used the electric feed for the old immersion to power a new socket in my room so i could have my first telly. 

When it was lights off time, mum used to flick the switch in the kitchen thus cutting the electric supply to my bedroom - bloody evil i tell ya!


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

steve_in_spain said:


> pmsl. i remember when i was a kid we had an old immersion heater (tank in my bedroom in a cuppboard) and the switch for it was in the kitchen. when my parents got rid of it and put in a new boiler they used the electric feed for the old immersion to power a new socket in my room so i could have my first telly.
> 
> When it was lights off time, mum used to flick the switch in the kitchen thus cutting the electric supply to my bedroom - bloody evil i tell ya!


Yes, but its a school night and its us mums who have to yell ourselves hoarse to get everyone up, dressed, fed, watered and out of the door in the mornings - and its dark at 7.30am when we have to leave!

Oooops, sorry Gus :focus::focus:

Jo xxx


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## michoon (Mar 31, 2010)

Sorry to jump in on the thread but rather than start a new one I thought I'd post in here.

Anyone in the Valencia region having problems with their Sky tv recently? ITV has been off for a week along with SSN, Sky Sports 3 and 4, Sky 2 and a host of others. The message on screen is 'no signal being received, switch off your box for 5 mins'. This happened all the time but would fix itself when re-booted but it hasn't worked for the past week. Any ideas?


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

michoon said:


> Sorry to jump in on the thread but rather than start a new one I thought I'd post in here.
> 
> Anyone in the Valencia region having problems with their Sky tv recently? ITV has been off for a week along with SSN, Sky Sports 3 and 4, Sky 2 and a host of others. The message on screen is 'no signal being received, switch off your box for 5 mins'. This happened all the time but would fix itself when re-booted but it hasn't worked for the past week. Any ideas?


Where in Valencia region are you? its BIG!

Mine working fine at the moment, even with the bad weather - these big dishes are so much better than those piddly things you get in the UK!

Sat will no doubt be on soon enough with this post so hes probably best person to tell you what exactly the problems likely to be!


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## michoon (Mar 31, 2010)

We're up near Sagunto. The weather isn't affecting the Sky as it first went about a week ago when the sun was shining


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

michoon said:


> We're up near Sagunto. The weather isn't affecting the Sky as it first went about a week ago when the sun was shining


Sounds like your dish has been disturbed somehow.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Heavy rain always affects our dish. In fact even normal rain can make it go pixilated on certain channels, but a torrential downpour and the whole thing goes!

Jo xxx


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

Re the OP:
you cannot really connect multiple receivers to just one cable via splitter and y plugs....
you can if they all want to watch the same channels / frequency, but if you want to watch different channels that are on different frequencies then you need multiple cables, one for each box to the LNB - you can get LNBs with 1, 2, 4, or 8 outputs - as each receiver sends power to the LNB to tell it to sicth polarisations - not good if one receiver says vertical and the other want horizontal...

sound to me that jojos system is two boxes feeding 5 tvs via coax - selecta channel an it send the output to the TVs, hence why she has control of the channel on the other TVs

michoon : your system needs to be checked out.
where you are, on a 1,8m dish, you should have no problems with those channels. even on a small er dish you should get the channel you mention almost 24/7...
ITV has various other alternate frequencies for the regionl variations.
the others you mention, are on a north beam, and are weakest at 5pm
They are very LNB sensitive, lnb skew sensitive, and dish alignment sensitive.

There is somehting not quite right with your system if you unplug the unit, and the channel reappear, they should not be going off in the first place!

in many cases you dont have to do what the box says "'no signal being received, switch off your box for 5 mins'". just go to a strong signal like Sky news and you should get that channel, and the other channel will be there - its just a message that says there is a weaksignal for that frequency.

Although yesterday, in the rain, my 1.8 lost these channels.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Our system works with a twin LNB on the dish with two cables from the dish one to each box. Then you need a "sky eye" to change channels!????! I think thats what my OH said!!?

Jo xxx


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

sat said:


> Re the OP:
> you cannot really connect multiple receivers to just one cable via splitter and y plugs....
> you can if they all want to watch the same channels / frequency, but if you want to watch different channels that are on different frequencies then you need multiple cables, one for each box to the LNB - you can get LNBs with 1, 2, 4, or 8 outputs - as each receiver sends power to the LNB to tell it to sicth polarisations - not good if one receiver says vertical and the other want horizontal...
> 
> ...


Yes, I thought that I'd probably have to go down that route. Oh well I'll have to go & get some cable then on me bike as the car is in for repair ! I hate cycling & walking so don't bump in to me today.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

gus-lopez said:


> Yes, I thought that I'd probably have to go down that route. Oh well I'll have to go & get some cable then on me bike as the car is in for repair ! I hate cycling & walking so don't bump in to me today.


Well the cables in , just got to put the tv up & something to hold the box & dvd !


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

gus-lopez said:


> & something to hold the box & dvd !


the missus....?


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## michoon (Mar 31, 2010)

sat said:


> michoon : your system needs to be checked out.
> where you are, on a 1,8m dish, you should have no problems with those channels. even on a small er dish you should get the channel you mention almost 24/7...
> ITV has various other alternate frequencies for the regionl variations.
> the others you mention, are on a north beam, and are weakest at 5pm
> ...


Thanks for that, Sat. When I do a signal test on the Sky there is no signal strength or quality showing on any of the stations regardless of whether or not that channel is working. The strong channels like Dave, SS1 and Sky News etc work fine all day. BBC1, BBC2, C4 and a few others work fine during the day but then go off from about 5pm to 11pm whilst ITV, Sky Sports New, SS4 haven't worked at all for over a week now. It's all very frustrating as the couple who own the dish upstairs are back in the UK until the 19th. Their son thinks it's something to do with SKY changing the satelites they use, could there be any truth in that?

Thanks again for your help


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

sat said:


> the missus....?


Yes, sounds a good idea ! when I said " right thats's that done " ( the cables all in ) she replied " is it all ready to go ? " :jaw:


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

If I can also do a quick jump on board this thread:

Our dish,I assume is lined up for Astra2abd/Eurobird (we get all the BBC/ITV rubbish, etc.). "She who must be obeyed" and the suegra are the TV watchers here (I only bother with University Challenge) and they would like to watch some Spanish TV, especially La Senora if it comes back in January as it is supposed to. From the number of dishes around here on Spanish owned properties, I guess that locals aren't that interested in satellite and just make to with the regular terrestrial. Is that because there is hardly any Spanish TV on satellite or just that they aren't that techy savvy? To pick up Spanish programmes would I need another dish? or what?

Sorry if I am showing a lot of ignorance on this but it is just not my scene - we didn't even have electricity nor running water when I was a kid, let alone TV


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## Beachcomber (May 10, 2009)

michoon said:


> ... When I do a signal test on the Sky there is no signal strength or quality showing on any of the stations regardless of whether or not that channel is working.


When you do a signal strength and quality test on a Sky didgibox it always measures the that of the default transponder which is 11.778V regardless of which channel you are tuned to.

If you are not getting a signal on the default transponder this is the cause of your problem.

There are a number of alternative default transponders and you can change it by pressing 'Services - 4-0-1 - Select' where you will see the option to do so. Select 'Save new settings' once you have done it. The only problem is that if a signal is received on 11.778 it will default to that frequency then if it disappears again you will be back to square one.

Step by step instructions on changing default transponder here:

http://www.caravan-satellite-system.co.uk/userguides/default-sky-transponder.pdf

Some alternative default transponders are:

12,207 
12.441 
12.051
11.739
12.129

All are vertically polarised, symbol rate - 27500. Forward error correction - 2/3

Do not change anything else in that menu otherwise you could mess up your box.

Is your dish mounted on a concrete slab on the ground? If so it could have moved slightly out of alignment because of the swelling of the earth underneath when it becomes saturated or contraction when it dries out.


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

baldilocks said:


> If I can also do a quick jump on board this thread:
> 
> Our dish,I assume is lined up for Astra2abd/Eurobird (we get all the BBC/ITV rubbish, etc.). "She who must be obeyed" and the suegra are the TV watchers here (I only bother with University Challenge) and they would like to watch some Spanish TV, especially La Senora if it comes back in January as it is supposed to. From the number of dishes around here on Spanish owned properties, I guess that locals aren't that interested in satellite and just make to with the regular terrestrial. Is that because there is hardly any Spanish TV on satellite or just that they aren't that techy savvy? To pick up Spanish programmes would I need another dish? or what?
> 
> Sorry if I am showing a lot of ignorance on this but it is just not my scene - we didn't even have electricity nor running water when I was a kid, let alone TV


Spain is like most countries - it has both terrestrial and satellite TV.
Digital+ is the satellite service. Similar to UK Sky.
Perhaps they prefer the free terrestrial TDT service rather than paying for it...


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

sat said:


> Spain is like most countries - it has both terrestrial and satellite TV.
> Digital+ is the satellite service. Similar to UK Sky.
> Perhaps they prefer the free terrestrial TDT service rather than paying for it...


and the free one just needs an aerial - as you have said - not a massive great dish!


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

michoon said:


> Thanks for that, Sat. When I do a signal test on the Sky there is no signal strength or quality showing on any of the stations regardless of whether or not that channel is working. The strong channels like Dave, SS1 and Sky News etc work fine all day. BBC1, BBC2, C4 and a few others work fine during the day but then go off from about 5pm to 11pm whilst ITV, Sky Sports New, SS4 haven't worked at all for over a week now. It's all very frustrating as the couple who own the dish upstairs are back in the UK until the 19th. Their son thinks it's something to do with SKY changing the satelites they use, could there be any truth in that?
> 
> Thanks again for your help


As mentioned by Beachcomber, the signal test screen on a sky box generally only measures the 11778 frequency.

So you may be showing no signal on that particular frequency, but you are still able to get signals from the other frequencies used. There are over 90 frequencies used for UK satellite TV, 11778 is just one. 

Changing the default transponder DOES NOT make channels last longer - it is only there to help boot the box up, so changing it will not make any difference in getting your channels back.

11778 is the frequency the sky boxes look at when first booting up, as 11778 carries the data for the 7 day EPG programme guide - essential data for the box to function. If it cannot receive this signal, then the box will not boot up. So luckiy every other frequency carries limited EPG data, so you do the services, 401 select, 2 process to get he box to look at another stronger frequency, to get the required data, and function.

Even if you change the DT, it is perfectly normal for this to revert back to 11778 - it should.
The sky boxes will also automatically look for 11778 whenever you press Services, TV Guide, Interactive or box office, as on 11778 is the data for these functions, and also the background music.

As there are over 90 frequencies used for UK satellite TV, 11778 is just one. All 500 plus channels are not on just one frequency, but they are spread over the 90 fequencies, across the 4 satellites. BBC1,2,3,4 are spread over about 5 frequencies, as is ITV. If you change the default transponder to 12,207, this will not make BBC1,2,3,4 last longer as there are no BBC channels on that frequency (just Sky News and Sky SPorts 2 i think)

There are variations in reception, as you mention, as UK TV comes from 4 satellites, each with the own, differnet signal footprints and characteristics - hence why you can get Dave but not SSNews - they are on differnet satellite "beams"

As mentioned, if you can get Sky News, then if you have a SKy card, you can get ITV1, using those on frequency 11973 v. Progamme them into your "other channel" list.

Your loss of channels is nothing to do with the default transponder.

Your loss of channels is nothing to do with any changes in the satellites - otherwise it would have affected everyone else and not just you. There have been no recenet changes to the satellites, so you friend is incorrect.

Your loss of channels is down to the fact that your dish needing realignment, or your LNB going and needs replacing, or water in the cables and connections.

PS I am due in LLiria tomorrow, and may be able to fit you in for a visit later friday pm if you want...


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

xabiachica said:


> and the free one just needs an aerial - as you have said - not a massive great dish!


D+ only needs a 60cm dish!


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## michoon (Mar 31, 2010)

Seriously, this forum never fails to amaze. Sat and Beachcomber thank you so much for such detailed help, I now have ITV1 South that works on 11973 perfectly (although it might go again at night time, we'll see). I'm sure there is still something wrong somewhere but I'll wait for the dish owners to come back next week and then get them to get in touch with you Sat if the problem persists.

I'm sure ITV went of as punishment for watching the Jeremy Kyle show just once last week


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

michoon said:


> I now have ITV1 South that works on 11973 perfectly (although it might go again at night time, we'll see).


Those ITV1 on that frequency will be there for the same reception times as Sky News!!! So unless there is something seriously wrong with your system, they should be there all day and all night.



michoon said:


> I'm sure there is still something wrong somewhere but I'll wait for the dish owners to come back next week and then get them to get in touch with you Sat if the problem persists.


No problems.



michoon said:


> I'm sure ITV went of as punishment for watching the Jeremy Kyle show just once last week


Serves you right.....it does the same also if people watch Z Factor!!!


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