Combiner/reverse splitter

puttoos

I want to feed satellite dish signal to my existing ntl-wired cable without drilling new holes or running new cables inside my house. The way i'm planning is, if i run the satellite cable till the main ntl access point on my outside wall, and connect it to the ntl switch there, i will get dish signal to all ntl points inside the house. The problem with this is, either i get ntl or satellite channels but not both since i have to reconnect the cable to either ntl input or satellite input. I cannot find a device which does the opposite of a splitter, called reverse splitter or combiner which can take two inputs and produce one output!

SouperComputer

Off the cuff, I would say the more fundemental issue is that the signals cannot be combined. I could be wrong though. But then there is the issue of different voltages being fed to the devices. IE the sat signal could blow the bejasus out of a TV via coax input, even though it cant tune in the signal.

Perhaps you could get a device that converts\combines the signals, but then you would need a device at each client to split the signal back to Sat and NTL.

pH

Yep what SC said

You cannot share NTL cable and satellite on the one cable. (don't even think about doing this you could damage a lot of expensive equipment)

You might be able to reuse your cable wiring as Sat wiring (after disconnecting it from NTL and the back of all TVs) but the cable coax is not normally good enough and is not recomended either.

Satellite connections are active, the box sends voltage to the LNB to tune in a transponder, you cannot 'share' satellite cable easily between multiple devices, you use a single cable from each sat device up to a mult (quad/octo) LNB.

SouperComputer

What you could do, is take the RF out from your Sat receiver (get a modulator if it doesnt have RF out) and combine that signal with the NTL signal going through your home. This could be done easilty with a coaxial splitter.

You would then tune the TV's into the frequency that the Sat Box\Modulator is set to.



Failing that....

MythTv will sort it out

Vote for the forum below!

shabbyroad

<cough> You can share NTL signal and Sat feed on the same cable.

while the hardware you need is not outrageously expensive and is easily available, the problem you might have is with the cabling around the house - it might not be the right spec.

You'll have to buy some hardware and will probably need to change your LNB.

I have a 10 way active splitter in my attic. It has 4 feeds coming from the LNB on my dish. On the splitter I have a UHF input and back in the bad old days I fed NTL to that input.

Nowadays I have the RF output of a UK Sky box with FTA Channel 4.
This is fed to multiple locations around the house along with the Sky feed.

At each point I have a 3-way splitter designed to split this signal into FM. UHF(TV), SAT

SouperComputer

good info, any links to the active splitter you have?

byte

I assume it's a Multiswitch which has the 4 inputs from a Quattro LNB (Vert High, Vert Low, Hor High, Hor Low).

http://www.triax.com/Products/TVsystems/Multiswitches/4%20pol.aspx?alPage=1&rkPage=&productId=
That's an example of Multiswitches from Triax.
Note, that site seems to work best with IE

There are combiners/decombiners for terrestrial/satellite signals. Made by Global
http://www.tvlink.co.uk/diplexer.htm Definitely wouldn't be as reliable as seperate cables, and most cable used by cablecos is not suitable for satellite signals (CT100 cable is needed).

shabbyroad

Yeah it's a triax box alright. About 6 years old so the model might have changed. Same inputs/outputs. The thing "just works".

Not sure who manufactures the splitters I have at each TV point, I bought them from Electroplus in their Beaumont shop (again, about 6 years ago).

I honestly cannot remember if the cabling around the house is CT-100. There's every chance that it's not and is some other RG-59 type cable. But it works and I've had no problems with it. Given the choice of course I'd have CT-100 in place... and for all I know I might

byte

http://www.satelliteonline.co.uk/diplexer_wall_plates.htm

There's an idea of a Triplexer (TV/FM/Sat). As seen from the picture, the triplexer is fully screened. These should be sourceable from other sources too, just giving an idea as to what it looks like.

shabbyroad

The Triplexer is exactly the one that I've got.

puttoos

thanks guys,

exactly what I was looking for.