Moving from Sky Q to multi Freesat Arris HD boxes

arrisbox

Query that I’ve Googled but couldn’t find an answer. Hoping somebody can help.

Basically how do I get wideband LNB to provide a signal to 3 rooms?

Context

I have sky Q with 1 main box connected to the sat dish and 2 small boxes connected by wifi.

I am getting rid of sky Q and want to get 3 of the new freesat Arris box, that uses the signal from a Wideband LNB like Sky Q.

Would I need 3 sat dishes, a special LNB with 6 wideband ports, or some type of splitter box?

Thanks in advance.

The Cush

Wideband splitter.

They are available, I'm on my phone right now, will have a look later if you don't find one first.

The Cush

Splitter to feed two receivers

TWS2 Wideband Splitter H/V (triax.com) - Manual

- https://cpcireland.farnell.com/triax/307778/tws2-wideband-splitter-h-v-t/dp/AP03802?ost=tws2+wideband+splitter

A wideband tap will also be required to feed a 3rd box

TWT2 Wideband Tap H/V (triax.com)

- https://cpcireland.farnell.com/triax/307779/twt2-w-band-tap-h-v-t/dp/AP03803?ost=twt2+wideband+tap

Signal strength from the dish, with a three-day split there may be insufficient signal in which case a wideband amp might be required, see the manual.

Schorpio

Apologies - don't mean to hijack the thread, but what is the difference between a Wideband LNB, and a unicable LNB?

Don't seem to do the same thing, right? I.e. a single external cable.

The Cush

Wideband LNB uses two cables to send each polarisation down a separate cable together with the full I.F. range, between 290 and 2340 MHz

Unicable LNB uses a single cable and predefined user bands in the standard I.F. range 950 - 2150 MHz to feed satellite receivers via a single input.

Schorpio

Ahh, right. I presumed Wideband also used a single cable. That makes sense, thanks.

Funny the Sky didn't go for Unicable with Q. Perhaps because most legacy installations would utilise 2 cables for Sky+ anyway.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119791744#Comment_119791744

SkyQ is also unicable compatible in a way, proprietary dSCR with its own proprietary user bands.

Someone posted here previously a SkyQ install with a unicable LNB, don't remember the reason why.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792043#Comment_119792043

That could’ve been me Cush 😁

I think it was because the apartment complex was already pre-wired for cable tv, long before Sky did communal dishes. The legacy Sky setup meant dishes hanging off the walls which were really unsightly, whereas the communal dish meant existing wiring could be used.

It’s a much neater solution, but initially I was having an issue which I thought was bad reception, turned out there wasn’t enough power going back to the dish and the incoming signal was being split between two outlets. That’s when they put an inverter on the outlet that wasn’t being used, it fixed the issues on the other outlet where the main Sky Q box was attached.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119792283#Comment_119792283

The power inserter rang a bell indeed. Found the thread (all pics missing) - Sky Q question - SCR vs Wideband — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

Glaceon

The house I'm in now has a Unicable setup for the whole estate. The satellite signal (and a FTA DTT service) are fed by fibre to each house in the utility room. In there, it comes out of a termination unit as two coax connections. I have a Freesat 4K PVR attached with a single cable and it works fine. It shows up in the signal strength page as "MDU 2".

cena

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058268785/moving-from-sky-q-to-multi-freesat-arris-hd-boxes

What channels do you get with these boxes?

arrisbox

The full set of uk freesat channels so BBCs 1-4, ITVs 1-5, Channel 5 and some C5 derivatives, Channel 4, More4 etc, HGTV and there’s a load more niche channels. I’m sure there’s a full list online. One thing is the C4 Chanel’s are in standard def due to a rights issue.

The Arris Box is 4K but I’m not sure if that’s directly related to the LNB being wideband.

I went with the Arris box because it is a simple swap with a Sky Q box. Also I found the Arris box’s user interface pretty good.

arrisbox

Thank you so much.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119797150#Comment_119797150

Did you post about that installation previously, I have a recollection of such a discussion, fibre to coax in a house.

Good to see confirmation that the Arris Freesat boxes are unicable/dSCR compatible, there's always doubts about that when it comes up in discussion.

Under LNB types there's an MDU and MDU2 and from the little info out there to activate it a factory reset has to be done on the box with a single SCR cable connected.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119797334#Comment_119797334

https://www.tvchannellists.com/w/List_of_channels_on_Freesat_(UK)

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119797521#Comment_119797521

The LNB is blind to the content carried be it SD, HD or 4k.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119798977#Comment_119798977

I don't think I mentioned it before. But yes, when I moved here from my last house, I ran through the initial setup again by putting the box in non-Freesat mode and coming back out again. That was enough to re-detect the LNB type.

The termination device is a Global Invacom GTU. https://globalinvacom.com/products/sky-q-digital-scr-dscr-gateway-termination-unit-gtu

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119798997#Comment_119798997

Or the official website

https://www.freesat.co.uk/channels

https://www.freesat.co.uk/tv-guide

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119798977#Comment_119798977

This was the post I was remembering - https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057668286/can-someone-translate-this-for-me-please