How to install and connect second satellite cable?

G

gtrance

New Member
Hi,

After being the happy owner of the fox-t2 box for a couple of years, we have moved house and the new home has a dish. So I have placed the fox-t2 in the kitchen/diner and bought the freesat hdr 1000s for the living room. Connected the existing satellite cable, gone through the setup to find I need a second cable if I wish to record and watch at the same time (which of course I do)

I had no idea I would need two cables for the freesat box. The fox t2 only required the one aerial cable to record two and watch a 3rd, I never realised satellite worked differently.

As far as I am aware there is only one cable running from my dish to the living room. What do I need to do to get a second cable connected. Can I buy some sort of splitter to attach to the existing cable which will then connect to both inputs on the humax? Do I need to buy and connect a second cable to fix to the dish and run down to my living room, through the wall and into the humax? If this is the case, is this easy enough for a novice?

Any advice and info on what my options are would be great.

Many thanks

Greg

PS - On a seperate issue, the box seems to work ok but the ondemand says unavailable. I can watch ondemand by either going back in time on the guide or via showcase but not through the ondemand section. The box is updated to latest software.
 
You need a second cable all the way from the LNB to the Humax. If your LNB doesn't have multiple outputs, then you need to change it for one that does. If you need more than 4 outputs, then it probably makes sense to get a quattro LNB and a multi-switch, otherwise get a quad LNB.
 
gtrance said:
HI had no idea I would need two cables for the freesat box. The fox t2 only required the one aerial cable to record two and watch a 3rd, I never realised satellite worked differently.
Click to expand...
The signal from the satellite dish to the receiver electronics cannot be split. Technically it would be possible to split the incoming signal between multiple tuner circuits, but this would limit the channels available to the second tuner. The reason for this is that the tuner sends control signals to the LNB (some electronics at the dish end) to select which set of channels to route to the tuner - so multiple tuners receiving the same feed from the LNB would have to agree on what commands to send to the LNB.

Consequently, to feed multiple receiver units, or even multiple tuner units within one receiver, it is necessary to have a dual or quad LNB which provides separate feeds for each receiver. I believe the Foxsat can work with one feed, but only with the channel restriction on the second tuner as mentioned above. This can only work because both tuners are in the same receiver unit, and therefore the software can ensure that only one tuner sends commands to the LNB.

The difference with a terrestrial TV signal is that all the services are received by the same aerial and sent down the aerial cable completely passively. All you then have to do is send that signal to however many tuner inputs you like, assuming there is enough signal power to do it.

LNB: see the Glossary (click)
 
Many thanks for your replies. I have had a look and my dish only has a single lnb so I have ordered a quad lnb and 15m twin coax cable. Hopefully, I'll get it all setup without issues.

Thanks again.
 
Based on my experience and knowledge of the Foxsat HDR, it might be necessary to do a factory reset so that the box will recognise the fact that you will now have two cables. Can someone confirm or deny this for the OP?
 
Thanks, I'll bear that in mind if I connect the cable and nothing works. Though having said that, I'll be replacing the existing single cable with the twin one ordered so if it doesn't work, I won't have any picture to do a factory reset, lol
 
Trev said:
Based on my experience and knowledge of the Foxsat HDR, it might be necessary to do a factory reset so that the box will recognise the fact that you will now have two cables. Can someone confirm or deny this for the OP?
Click to expand...

Correct - or change the connection mode in the hidden set up menu.

Without the reset the box will assume that tuner 2's input is from tuner 1 out, so will apply the appropriate recording limitations for single cable working.

http://www.purplesat.com/index.php?p=1_109_FOXSAT-HIDDEN-MENU...

Setting for antenna type needs to be TwoCable(Same).

EDIT - the instructions are for the Foxsat-hdr. The HDR1000s is similar but will not have the additional motorised options.

Settings - System Information - Signal Info should say Freesat Box connected with 2 cable.
 
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