Here's what I have. I've got a family room downstairs with one Direct
TV satellite receiver, and another receiver in the upstairs family
room. What I want to do is to run multiple lines from the receiver
downstairs to an additional 3 tv's (plus my wide-screen of which it's
hooked up to now by an S-video line), and run the satellite receiver
that's upstairs to an additional 3 tv's as well. I've purchased a
4-way distribution amplifier as a test pilot for the downstairs line
as well as a diplexer. My thought process was that I could bring the
satellite line out of the receiver and into the 4-way amplifier, and
then run 4 lines out of that into each individual tv. While watching
channel 3 on each of my tv's, all of the tv's should pick up the one
channel being watched from the satellite receiver. I also purchased
the diplexer (test pilot as well) from Best Buy as one of the
associates suggested that I could run the 'rabbit style' antenna into
one side of the diplexer, and the satellite line into the other (this
requiring a diplexer for each individual tv). According to plan, if I
was watching channel 3 I would pick up the satellite signal and if I
was watching any other channel it would be a standard antenna feed
(letting the family have the option of watching other local channels
without having to watch what the original tv was watching). Keep in
mind that I do pay the additional monthly fees for the local channels.
Nothing has gone as planned. I've had the Direct TV for over a year
now, and I wanted to install satellite on all of these TV's before I
finished the rest of my basement. A few questions:

What am I doing wrong? Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV? If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee? Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Jason

jason wrote:

(gory details snipped)

Yousr plan sounds as though it ought to work. What are you seeing on
your "additional" sets? Snow, locals only, satellite only?

You should have no problem. I have two receivers and two antennas, one
for local TV and the other antenna for all other programming. The
switched inputs from the antennas are fed to the respective receivers.
The outputs from each receiver are then split using -3dB and -6dB
spliters (no amplifiers) and in the first case two TVs are connected and
view the programming selected on that receiver and in the other case 4
TVs view the programming selected on the second receiver.

Within your home there should be sufficient signal level to distribute
to 4 sets without needing an amplifier. Good passive spliters should be
adequate.

RB

jason wrote:
Here's what I have. I've got a family room downstairs with one Direct
TV satellite receiver, and another receiver in the upstairs family
room. What I want to do is to run multiple lines from the receiver
downstairs to an additional 3 tv's (plus my wide-screen of which it's
hooked up to now by an S-video line), and run the satellite receiver
that's upstairs to an additional 3 tv's as well. I've purchased a
4-way distribution amplifier as a test pilot for the downstairs line
as well as a diplexer. My thought process was that I could bring the
satellite line out of the receiver and into the 4-way amplifier, and
then run 4 lines out of that into each individual tv. While watching
channel 3 on each of my tv's, all of the tv's should pick up the one
channel being watched from the satellite receiver. I also purchased
the diplexer (test pilot as well) from Best Buy as one of the
associates suggested that I could run the 'rabbit style' antenna into
one side of the diplexer, and the satellite line into the other (this
requiring a diplexer for each individual tv). According to plan, if I
was watching channel 3 I would pick up the satellite signal and if I
was watching any other channel it would be a standard antenna feed
(letting the family have the option of watching other local channels
without having to watch what the original tv was watching). Keep in
mind that I do pay the additional monthly fees for the local channels.
Nothing has gone as planned. I've had the Direct TV for over a year
now, and I wanted to install satellite on all of these TV's before I
finished the rest of my basement. A few questions:

What am I doing wrong? Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV? If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee? Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Jason

"jason" wrote in message
om...
Here's what I have. I've got a family room downstairs with one Direct
TV satellite receiver, and another receiver in the upstairs family
room. What I want to do is to run multiple lines from the receiver
downstairs to an additional 3 tv's (plus my wide-screen of which it's
hooked up to now by an S-video line), and run the satellite receiver
that's upstairs to an additional 3 tv's as well. I've purchased a
4-way distribution amplifier as a test pilot for the downstairs line
as well as a diplexer. My thought process was that I could bring the
satellite line out of the receiver and into the 4-way amplifier, and
then run 4 lines out of that into each individual tv. While watching
channel 3 on each of my tv's, all of the tv's should pick up the one
channel being watched from the satellite receiver. I also purchased
the diplexer (test pilot as well) from Best Buy as one of the
associates suggested that I could run the 'rabbit style' antenna into
one side of the diplexer, and the satellite line into the other (this
requiring a diplexer for each individual tv). According to plan, if I
was watching channel 3 I would pick up the satellite signal and if I
was watching any other channel it would be a standard antenna feed
(letting the family have the option of watching other local channels
without having to watch what the original tv was watching). Keep in
mind that I do pay the additional monthly fees for the local channels.
Nothing has gone as planned. I've had the Direct TV for over a year
now, and I wanted to install satellite on all of these TV's before I
finished the rest of my basement. A few questions:

What am I doing wrong? Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV? If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee? Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Jason

Sound like you ran into what I did. My big screen has the ability to see the
cable connection(same situation as the satellite). All of my other TVs are
older and require a converter box because they can not see the digital
channels. I ended up with separate boxes so I could change the channels and
watch different programming on each.

"jason" wrote in message
om...
Here's what I have. I've got a family room downstairs with one Direct
TV satellite receiver, and another receiver in the upstairs family
room. What I want to do is to run multiple lines from the receiver
downstairs to an additional 3 tv's (plus my wide-screen of which it's
hooked up to now by an S-video line), and run the satellite receiver
that's upstairs to an additional 3 tv's as well. I've purchased a
4-way distribution amplifier as a test pilot for the downstairs line
as well as a diplexer. My thought process was that I could bring the
satellite line out of the receiver and into the 4-way amplifier, and
then run 4 lines out of that into each individual tv. While watching
channel 3 on each of my tv's, all of the tv's should pick up the one
channel being watched from the satellite receiver. I also purchased
the diplexer (test pilot as well) from Best Buy as one of the
associates suggested that I could run the 'rabbit style' antenna into
one side of the diplexer, and the satellite line into the other (this
requiring a diplexer for each individual tv). According to plan, if I
was watching channel 3 I would pick up the satellite signal and if I
was watching any other channel it would be a standard antenna feed
(letting the family have the option of watching other local channels
without having to watch what the original tv was watching). Keep in
mind that I do pay the additional monthly fees for the local channels.
Nothing has gone as planned. I've had the Direct TV for over a year
now, and I wanted to install satellite on all of these TV's before I
finished the rest of my basement. A few questions:

What am I doing wrong? Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV? If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee? Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Jason

If you want to watch the same program on all the TVs then using an amplified
splitter on the output of the satellite receiver and feeding some number of
TVs should work fine -- virtually any number of TVs could be fed with the
correct combination of amplifiers and splitters. What results are you
seeing? Have you taken into account that any one of the critical components
in the system migh be bad "out of the box"?

Oh, and if the signal levels are wildly different a simple diplexer might
not give you the results you are seeking -- you might want to leave it out
for testing purposes. Even using selective channel inserters it gets tricky
sometimes and adjacent channel interference is often a problem.
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]

Return address will not work. Please
reply in group or through my website:
http://johnmcgaw.com

I'll suggest to run RCA cables from the receivers instead of using the
composite signal. Quality improves a lot.
You'll need also IR repeaters for controlling the DTV receivers from the
room where you are actually seeing the TV

In article
,
says...


What am I doing wrong?

Only one thing. In your case, you _don't_ want a Diplexer
to add the off-air antenna. A simple splitter/combiner will
work just fine.

Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV?

As long as you're accepting the limitations you've noted,
sure.

If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee?

Yes.

Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Other than changing diplexers for splitters, no.

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working.

The only reason I can think of for it not working is that
you're connected to the wrong F jack on the back of the
receiver.

--
Mark

The truth as I perceive it to be.
Your perception may be different.

Triple Z is spam control.

SNIP

Others have already touched on the general plan -- splitters vs. diplexers
and so forth. Assuming that you're taking the signal from the DTV unit and
splitting it to your systems, you should be fine.

If you decide to actually set up additional DTV receivers throughout the
house, you will be subject to the $4.95 per unit fee from DTV. The units
will be nothing more than pretty paperweights until you activate them with
DTV so expect to pay the monthly fee if you want to use them. In order to
use them though, you'll need to buy a multiplexer and multiple LNBs for your
satellite dish -- you can NOT simply split the satellite signal. The
multiplexer will ensure that the signal remains even across the connections.

A single LNB on a dish, run to an internal multiplexer, can successfully run
two feeds with no problems. A dual LNB run to a multiplexer can run up to 4
without issues. TriLNB could knock you up to 6 or so as well. Single and
dual LNB configurations run from a single dish with a single LNB mounted on
it -- tri LNB has 2 mounted on them and will likely require a special
purchase (i.e., you won't be getting them at your local Circuit City). I
currently have two receivers with 2 feeds on each that hook up to a 4 way
multiplexer which in turn goes to a dual LNB -- signal strength is typically
in the low 90% range.

James

I have a satellite receiver on our main TV. I have run coax from the VCR
output through a splitter to three other sets. It goes through the LR floor
into the basement, along the joists and upstairs again.. You can only get
the one program the receiver is tuned to. But we also have an antenna so
when we do want different programs, I can watc h the antenna in the LR
while my wife watches the satellite upstairs in the bedroom.
I used to have a switching arrangement. But it got too complicated and there
was some signal loss through the switch even with a boosting amplifier.
Another advantage of this set up is that I can duplicate tapes very easily
by running the master on the main VCR and copying at one of the other
locations (two of which have VCR's connected.)
ds

"SQLit" wrote in message
news:aWkIb.23423$i55.21016@fed1read06...

"jason" wrote in message
om...
Here's what I have. I've got a family room downstairs with one Direct
TV satellite receiver, and another receiver in the upstairs family
room. What I want to do is to run multiple lines from the receiver
downstairs to an additional 3 tv's (plus my wide-screen of which it's
hooked up to now by an S-video line), and run the satellite receiver
that's upstairs to an additional 3 tv's as well. I've purchased a
4-way distribution amplifier as a test pilot for the downstairs line
as well as a diplexer. My thought process was that I could bring the
satellite line out of the receiver and into the 4-way amplifier, and
then run 4 lines out of that into each individual tv. While watching
channel 3 on each of my tv's, all of the tv's should pick up the one
channel being watched from the satellite receiver. I also purchased
the diplexer (test pilot as well) from Best Buy as one of the
associates suggested that I could run the 'rabbit style' antenna into
one side of the diplexer, and the satellite line into the other (this
requiring a diplexer for each individual tv). According to plan, if I
was watching channel 3 I would pick up the satellite signal and if I
was watching any other channel it would be a standard antenna feed
(letting the family have the option of watching other local channels
without having to watch what the original tv was watching). Keep in
mind that I do pay the additional monthly fees for the local channels.
Nothing has gone as planned. I've had the Direct TV for over a year
now, and I wanted to install satellite on all of these TV's before I
finished the rest of my basement. A few questions:

What am I doing wrong? Is this possible without buying additional
receivers for each TV? If I do buy additional receivers, will I have
to pay the $4.95/month service fee? Is there something else that I
need to purchase to make my game plan work?

Please let me know as I thought I had this "perfect plan", but nothing
seems to be working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Jason

Sound like you ran into what I did. My big screen has the ability to see
the
cable connection(same situation as the satellite). All of my other TVs are
older and require a converter box because they can not see the digital
channels. I ended up with separate boxes so I could change the channels
and
watch different programming on each.