Help: FTA dish installation with really long wiring

[ben]

Hi,

I'm hoping to install an FTA dish at my home, and I'm wondering anyone can help me determine the installation feasibility.

I live in a town house. The existing cable wiring isn't entirely dish-friendly. My home is an end-unit of the building, and its length, I guess, is probably 80 to 100 feet long. Cable TV comes in from the other end of the building, where about 6 coax wires come out of the cable box and run length-wise across the building into separate rooms in my unit. From the cable utility box is the only place I have access to all the wires. The alternative, of course, is to run cable inside the house, which I prefer not to do.

I'm hoping the following strategy will work.

1. I'd like to bring the FTA dish cabling into the house from a window using the following cable, "FC200LX Eagle Aspen Flat RG6 Coaxial Cable" from Sadoun and connect it to one of the cable outlets in the house.

2. At the cable box, and once I uninstall cable, hopefully I'll have access to all the cable wiring into my unit. I'll connect the cable which the dish is connected to into a switch and connect it to all the rooms that I'll have receivers (2 or 3).

I haven't bought any equipment yet. Does anyone know what kind of effect the long wiring will have on signaling? We're talking about 200 ft. coax plus the 2 or 3-way switch. The switched output will also have to come back the whole length of the house. Anyone running a similar setup? Should I invest in the equipment and try this?

Also, do I need to get a special switch? Will a cheap Radio Shack 2x1 switch work? Also, do I need any special wires and connectors?

The real reason I'd like FTA is to receive from the Galaxy 13/Horizon 1 satellite, which I hear is really weak. I live in San Francisco area and I could get up to a 40 inch dish as allowed by the townhouse association. Will I have any problems with this? thanks.

Ben

[pmb1010]

if you can get the wall plate off in your apt, what kind of cable is run in the house part? (are there any markings on the side?)
You might be able to pull out enough from the wall to see it.

[ben]

Here's what it says:

E83032 F660BW (UL) CATV

Will it help if I put the following at the 100ft point?

"In-Line Amplifier: Amplifies signal to compensate for splitters &
long runs, 12-20dB, 950-2400 MHz, Heavy-duty housing."
(from http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Order/Switches.htm)

thanks

Ben

[pmb1010]

OK that is appears to be comscope RG-6.

I'd forget about the amplifier for now. It might be OK but I'd be leary about something that small & that cheap.

Dish's specs for their Superdish specify maximum of 200 foot of copper clad RG-6 cable, so all I can say is it MIGHT work...
200 feet is kinda right at the limit. You didn't mention installing a motor. That might be a good thing because of the cable length being considered.
A motor might give you trouble at that distance.

One thing you did mention was multiple TVs. Others here might know more about switches and multiple TV setup, but to have 3 TV's going (with different programming at the same time) might be a big problem.

One way to test this is to buy a couple 100ft spools of RG-6 from Radio Shack. Install the dish, put the 200ft of cable between dish & receiver outside next to the dish to simulate the cable run, & see what you get.
You can always return the cable to Radioshack, if you dont unroll it.

Problem with this, is you're going to have the spend the $ to get the dish & receiver to test things out...

Maybe someone else with long cable runs can comment. I'm using 100ft and it works fine, reception wise.

[ben]

Actually, I am hoping to attach a motor to it. It's going to be a fairly expensive setup, so I'm hoping there's a way to test it out without buying the equipment.

Am I correct to assume there are two problems here? There's a signal attenuation problem and a voltage drop problem. You need the signal to be strong enough to receive from the dish into the receiver, and you need to voltage drop to be small so that you can control the dish and the motor from the receiver.

The signal strength could probably be amplified using an in-line amplifier. However, the voltage drop might cause problems at the distance. Is there anything I can plug into the outlet that will amplify the power close to the dish? thanks

Ben

[bobkat]

Ben:

I agree with pmb1010. At those lengths of cabling a motor will present problems. Other than that you should be good to go -- forget the inline amp for now. Go with as big a dish as your condo board will allow.

kat