do we have any directv wiring experts on this board?

[montster]

without going into it too much, i wonder if there's anyone who can give me advice about wiring an apartment building for directv. i live in a new building that was pre-wired for directv, and i'm convinced that the guy who did it didn't set it up to account for HDTV, so i wanted to ask a few questions. (i've tried other boards, but no one was really helpful, and people here are friendlier, anyway.) thanks.

[georgemoe]

The AVS forums are pretty friendly and helpful with D* stuff.

 

I'd try to answer if this was a question.

[Kid Cid]

<Judge Smails> Well...I'm waiting!</Judge Smails>

[Egret]

I'm guessing not set up for HDTivo dual tuners or not enough cables setup for the new and improved five lnb's. I'm guessing the answer to any question is: you're going to need more cables.

[georgemoe]

without going into it too much, i wonder if there's anyone who can give me advice about wiring an apartment building for directv. i live in a new building that was pre-wired for directv, and i'm convinced that the guy who did it didn't set it up to account for HDTV, so i wanted to ask a few questions. (i've tried other boards, but no one was really helpful, and people here are friendlier, anyway.) thanks.

 

HDTV? One RG6 is all you need for an H20 hi def receiver. Now if you are talking HR10 then you two for the D* dual tuners and another RG6 for the OTA antenna if you use one. Not sure how the HR20 hi def feeds but my guess is you need a minimum of 2.

[montster]

<Judge Smails> Well...I'm waiting!</Judge Smails>

 

 

sorry, it's kind of complicated, so i wanted to make sure someone here might be able to help. i also tried the satelliteguys forum in the interim.

 

i live in a five-story apartment building. we have a triple LNB dish on the roof, serving directv to five apartments. i'm the only one who has HDTV. the four lines from the roof go to the basement and into a 5x8 powered multiswitch. i have two lines coming from that switch back up to our fourth-floor apartment. (there's another switch down there serving other apartments.) for whatever reason, i can't get signals from the 119 and 110 satellites. two technicians have checked dish alignment and have said it's fine. there are no obstructions. because the cable runs are 175-200 feet, i tried inline signal amplifiers. that didn't work. i had a technician come out last weekend. he bypassed the switch in the basement and connected my lines straight to the lines coming from the dish. that worked. however, that solution left the others in my building with only half their directv channels.

 

i live in a complex with three identical buildings. my neighbor in another building, also on the fourth floor, gets his 119 and 110 satellite signals with no problems, with the same wiring setup. so i'm wondering if the problem is the multiswitch. i swapped my outputs on the switch with another apartment's outputs, but that didn't help. could it be the switch's inputs? the technicians who've come out have been almost no help, so any advice you have, cid, i'd appreciate. thanks

[georgemoe]

Sounds like a bad multiswitch to me. Since you were able to run directly to your two lines that rules out a bad cable run to your apt.

[Kid Cid]

I agree with georgemoe. It sounds like the multiswitch is bad. Once you removed it from the equation you got all the appropriate channels. Those ijits should have pointed that out to you when they were out there.

[montster]

I agree with georgemoe. It sounds like the multiswitch is bad. Once you removed it from the equation you got all the appropriate channels. Those ijits should have pointed that out to you when they were out there.

 

 

thanks. maybe i'll try swapping it out with one of the other multiswitches in the other buildings to test it before i buy a new one. i really think the technicians knew what the possible fixes could be, but decided it wasn't worth it to them to try to fix it. getting people to come out here to service our directv has been a nightmare. the guy who originally wired the building has written us off, so in his place he sends someone who specializes in Dish network. that was the guy who "fixed" my signal by cutting off half the channels to the rest of the building. except i didn't know he did that, so i paid him $70. the next day, i had him come back out to reconnect everything, and he said he'd come out the following day to try some other solutions. that's the last i heard from him. i call him every day and he hasn't called back. so i may be out $70.

 

on the plus side, i know a lot more about how this stuff works. so, any recommendations on which kind of 4x8 or 5x8 multiswitches to use?

Edited September 18, 2006 by montster

[georgemoe]

 

on the plus side, i know a lot more about how this stuff works. so, any recommendations on which kind of 4x8 or 5x8 multiswitches to use?

 

 

Multi-switches are not my area but you could start by doing a search over in this AVD forum on HD reception. when I had my old 2 LNB round, I bought a MS on ebay that was made for DISH but was suppose to work with D*. What a pain. While I got a signal to each receiver, some transponders would not come in so I was missing channels. Luckily these were not channels the wife frequented so I let it go.

 

If it helps you any montster, I'm having my own issue with D* reception. Replaced a wire I believed was bad coming from my 3LNB. Tested out the RCA SD receiver and it still wouldn't work (no sig). So I call D* on Saturday and this nice tech got me up and running on an older RCA I had laying around. Just swapped out the card and he was able to marry it to the old one. Nice, until I unhooked everything to tidy it up then it would work again.

 

Decided I would try again yesterday and I got a sat signal again but no programming. A different tech tried to help but made it worse. I think I have a bad LNB. Not sure if I'll try to get another.

 

I think I'm just going to disable that receiver and mirror fee. I'm losing patience with D*.

Edited September 18, 2006 by georgemoe

[montster]

Multi-switches are not my area but you could start by doing a search over in this AVD forum on HD reception. when I had my old 2 LNB round, I bought a MS on ebay that was made for DISH but was suppose to work with D*. What a pain. While I got a signal to each receiver, some transponders would not come in so I was missing channels. Luckily these were not channels the wife frequented so I let it go.

 

If it helps you any montster, I'm having my own issue with D* reception. Replaced a wire I believed was bad coming from my 3LNB. Tested out the RCA SD receiver and it still wouldn't work (no sig). So I call D* on Saturday and this nice tech got me up and running on an older RCA I had laying around. Just swapped out the card and he was able to marry it to the old one. Nice, until I unhooked everything to tidy it up then it would work again.

 

Decided I would try again yesterday and I got a sat signal again but no programming. A different tech tried to help but made it worse. I think I have a bad LNB. Not sure if I'll try to get another.

 

I think I'm just going to disable that receiver and mirror fee. I'm losing patience with D*.

 

 

i hear ya. here's the part i left out: we have two cables from the basement that come into our apartment. those are wired into a 2x4 multiswitch. two outputs go to my HD DVR, and a third output goes to a receiver in the bedroom. the dumba$$ who wired this building didn't account for HDTV. in order to get HD channels, i have to bypass the 2x4 switch, which means i'd get no service in the bedroom. he should have sent four wires to every apartment instead of two. i drive my wife crazy with this stuff. if it weren't for sunday ticket, man, i'd switch.

[montster]

it was the multiswitch. i swapped out one from the other building with the one in our basement, and it works. thanks for your help, kid cid and georgemoe.