I have sky via a communial dish.I want sky+ but need extra cable from dish.Can u loop a cable to the 2nd input

Question

To recap question. I live in a small block of flats and have normal sky TV through a dish that is shared by 9 other flats. I would like Sky + but understand that to use the record facility an extra cable needs to be run from the LNB, as I dont own the dish the work needs to be done by a contractor which could cost a bit of money. My question is if I got the proper fittings could I just loop the 1 cable that I have now into the second connection ? Or will the signal not be good enough ?

Answer 1

Sorry mate, that's not good enough. I'll explain why. The Sky dish LNB is capable of receiving two polarizations, vertical and horizontal. Satellite providers use two different polarizations so they can reuse frequencies and squeeze more channels onto a satellite. What polarization an LNB is looking for determines what channels you will get on a specific frequency. The LNB knows what polarization to choose because the Sky Box sends up one voltage for vertical polarization, and another voltage for horizontal.

Alright, so what happens when you have a community dish with 20 different people wanting to hook up to it? Well the LNB has two feeds. A multiswitch feeds the voltage for vertical polarization to one feed on the LNB, and the voltage for horizontal polarization to the other feed. Now, the multiswitch has all the channels! This switch then has 20 hookups to it from all the flats. It senses what voltage peoples' Sky Boxes are sending to it and then switches in the appropriate feed.

If you plainly just hook up a splitter, you have a couple of problems. First, your Sky + box will be trying to send two different voltages at the same time combined onto one cable. This is liable to damage the power supply in your box! Even if you blocked the voltage on the one line, you still have a problem. The one side of your Sky + box will be asking for whatever polarization is required for the main programme you're watching, and the other side that records a different programme could be asking for the opposite polarization. Basically what it would amount to is that it would only work half the time. Both channels would have to be on the same polarization transponders. It's a rubbish solution, if you ask me.

If you can manage to get one more feed, you'd be in business. You can turn two feeds into as many feeds as you want, only limited by your wallet! I'd try to find a neighbour who might want the same thing you do. Take his feed, buy a 2x4 multiswitch then you have 2 feeds coming in, 4 coming out and the both of you can have Sky + boxes ;-) Even if they don't want a Sky + box, you can still leave the one port empty. Just somehow convince them they should let you run their feed to your flat and have their feed come from your flat, too. Good luck!