Aerials, dish and boosters

[justef]

Is there a technophobe out there who can help us? We want to have French terestrial TV and English satellite TV. My electrician has fitted an aerial (which is about 30 metres from the set) with a booster, and assures us you can use the same cable for a satellite dish as well.  We have a tv/sat/fm socket by the set. After fitting a dish and a tv/sat coupler, I can't get any satellite signal unless I bypass the booster by the aerial. Then I get a very weak signal - not enough to get a picture. Am I right in thinking that you can't run a satellite cable through a booster? If so, what can be done?

[Anton Redman]

You can amplify a SKY satellite signal to compensate for long runs of cable but not for a poor signal caused by a badly aligned dish in the first place. I would make very sure you had the best possible signal quality with a short length of co ax to a portable TV set where you can check the dish alignment.

It is possible to stack and de stack two satellite signals down the same cable but it is expensive and really only worth doing if you cannot get a decent cable run.

At 30 metres you are getting close to the point where you may benefit from a booster but we are running longer than that with a perefectly good signal.  

SAtcure site has more reading on the subject.

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/amps.htm#lnbamp

[Pierre ZFP]

You can run both signals down the same cable but I would probably choose not to.  You can only do it if the cable is proper Sat cable and not just the normal coax stuff for the TV aerial.  The losses over 30 metres of coax would just kill a Sat signal. Should be OK using Sat cable without a booster.  As was said above, you need to check if all is well with  the dish first.

[orbit]

I  would guess the terrestrial aerial booster on the aerial is powerd from a power supply in your house, therefore the power ( usually 12-24 v) is sent from the power supply to the booster on the aerial along the normal co-ax cable , you say you have added a sat/ tv coupler to attach your dish to the same cable ,  if you have added the coupler  it will seperate the sat/tv signals and re mix them at the TVsat socket in your house BUT the satellite receiver also supplies a14/ 18 v power as well as a 22khz band switching signal to the LNB on the dish  . it does not matter  which side of the aerial amplifier the tv/ sat coupler goes that particular systen cannot work as there is a conflict of voltages  , the only way to resolve the problem is to have the power supply for the aerial at the aerial end and diplexor(coupler) fitted before the amplifier power supply,  this would mean a mains feed to the aerial  external power supply ( probably not a good idea ) the best way out is a seperate cable to the dish from the sat receiver    .   30 m  of proper satellite cable should not give you any loss problems

 martin  http://www.orbit-calpe.com

soon comming to france

 

[justef]

Thanks very much for that Martin.

Sorry for taking so long in getting back to you. 

Another cable from the satellite dish which bypassed the aerial boster, then into the splitter sorted it out.  Our French electrician thought he knew best!

Thanks again.

Jules