Help with how wire satellites to my new Duo

[Chills]

Hi all - yes, another newbie here...

I bought a shiny new Duo and had a load of questions but having searched your forum I've sorted most and have it all working now.
But I am not sure how best to wire the dishes in so I can watch a channel while recording another from the same satellite.
I have two dishes - 1 pointed at Hotbird 13 for Polish TV and 1 aimed at 28.2 for UK Sky TV.
Polish dish has 1 LNB, the Sky dish has 2 with 2 cables coming into the house.
And just to further confuse things, i would ideally like to wire the Sky dish into both the Duo and the Sky+ HD box.

The guy at Maplins said I just need a splitter to split one of the feeds from the Sky dish and all would be fine.
Tried what he said but doesn't work. Don't seem to be able to use the feed from both boxes. Am I being a complete muppet?

Current wiring setup is below and I would really appreciate any advice on how best to wire up the new toy.
Would I be better to change to quad LNB for the dish(es) and if so, how is best to wire them in?



If it makes a difference, I am using the ViX image and have the tuners setup as:

Tuner A: Single, Hot Bird 13A
Tuner B: Single, 28.2E Eutelsat

Configuration mode: Simple
Mode: Single
Sat: 13.0E Eutelsat / Hot Bird
Send DiSEqC: no

Thanks for any help peeps can offer - would really appreciate it.

Chris

 

[Larry-G]

Go tell the bloke from maplins to come on here so i can call him a idiot in person.

You cant split satellite feeds in this way, doing so puts the lnb and receiver at risk of damage.

Ideally you want a quad lnb on the sky dish and a dual lnb on the other dish. Then using two DiSEqC switches you can have both 13.0 east and 28.2 east going to each tuner on the Duo and your 28.2 east feeds still going to the official sky box.

 

[basilyoung]

First of all, if you want your sky+ box and the duo working on 28 east, you will need 4 coax cables, and a quad lnb on the dish

2 cables for the sky unit, 2 for the duo one would go directly to tuner B, the other would go through a DiSEqC switch which would also have the 13 east dish connected as well, and then a single coax from the switch to tuner A

so tuner B would remain as it is
tuner A would be set to simple, but DiSEqC A/B port A would be either 13 east or 28 east and vice versa for port B

you will then be able to record and watch independantly on 28 east, or watch 13 east whilst recording/steaming on 28 east

 

[Larry-G]

or if you fit a dual lnb to the 13.0 east dish you can use two switches and have both 28.2 east and 13.0 east on each tuner of the duo allowing for even more flexibility in your viewing.

basically never take advice from the muppets at maplins.

 

[Chills]

Woah, you guys are quick...
Posted my question, grabbed a cuppa and all this info awaited my return.

being new to all this I've not even heard of these switches but will do some research and get what I need.
Would be great to have so much flexibility so (unless they cost loads) I'll try 2 switches and the different LNBs.

I didn't have much faith in the Maplins guy but he said they sell loads of these and even told me to get the more expensive splitter with the power line thingy... more money wasted.
Link to the splitter that he recommended:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/2-way-satellite-splitter-9273

Cheers all for your help - really is appreciated.

Chris

 

[Larry-G]

yeah i bet he forgot to say that by using such a splitter you would only be able to use one receiver at a time ?. Typical salesman full of crap.

as for the kit you need have a word with the site sponsor pm him this thread see what he can do for you.

 

[Chills]

No, he said I could use both no problem just to make sure that the receiver connected to the 'powered' LNB was always on or neither receiver would work.
Didn't have much faith in him to be honest - its the Maplins in Brislington, Bristol in case anyone else uses (suffers) that store.

And thanks again for your help, will try World of Satellite - they're who I bought the box from anyway and their speed and service was perfect.

 

[zappahey]

I would be taking it back for a refund as he's sold you something that doesn't do what you asked for.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Chills]

I would be taking it back for a refund as he's sold you something that doesn't do what you asked for.

Indeed I will be - £11 is £11...not throwing it away, espesh to Maplin after them giving me dodgy advice.
Their website says:

feed two receivers from a single LNB. One of the outputs has DC pass, and the receiver connected to this supplies power to the LNB. In the case of most systems, this ‘master’ receiver will also select polarity, and thus determine the channels available to the slave receiver. Although an inexpensive method of running two receivers from a single dish, it is not as flexible as a twin LNB which allows two receivers to select channels of either polarity independently. Frequency range: 5MHz to 2GHz. To protect one receiver (and its user) if a fault should develop in the other, this splitter has screw terminals for earthing.

As for my wiring, can I just check that I understand this right... Quad and dual LNBs, and 2x 2 way switches wired as below:


Would there be any advantage to getting 4 way switches and a quad LNB to the Hotbird dish too?

And lastly... (sorry) when I originally tried the following setup, it wouldn't work on the Astra dish side of things... But why not?



Cheers again everyone for your help.

Chris

 

[Larry-G]

Indeed I will be - £11 is £11...not throwing it away, espesh to Maplin after them giving me dodgy advice.
Their website says:

As for my wiring, can I just check that I understand this right... Quad and dual LNBs, and 2x 2 way switches wired as below:
View attachment 21150

Would there be any advantage to getting 4 way switches and a quad LNB to the Hotbird dish too?

And lastly... (sorry) when I originally tried the following setup, it wouldn't work on the Astra dish side of things... But why not?

View attachment 21151

Cheers again everyone for your help.

Chris

yes the first diagram is absolutely spot on, thats exactly how it will work

as for the second one sky digi boxes are setup so that they wont work without both feeds being present

 

[Chills]

Cheers mate - good to know...
And the Sky needing 2 feeds explains it all... was tearing my hair out with that.

And if I fit a quad LNB to the hotbird dish and use 4 way switches it won't hurt and could give the option of recording more channels while watching another?
And its OK to only use 3 of the 4 inputs on the switch?

Sorry to ask so many questions.

 

[Larry-G]

no it wont give you more options on the Duo as it would already be getting one feed from each dish to each tuner, but if you did have a quad lnb on the 13.0 east dish it would allow you to fit another receiver or two for this service or even get rid of the sky box altogether and run two duo's with access to both dishes on all tuners.

If you dont ask questions how are you expected to know ? lol.

 

[Chills]

OK - I get it. Finally I think I've got my head around how these things work.
My wife insists on keeping and using the Sky box cos she doesn't want to learn a new box, channel numbers, etc.
Won't need more receivers - running outta space in the unit.

Thanks for your patience and really clear information - think I'm sorted now.

Muchly appreciated! :thumbsup:

 

[Larry-G]

No worries, and when you do get things setup if you need help again dont hesitate to ask on the forum. There is always some one about to help.

 

[TomD]

Set-ups is always a great discussion. Just to add an option I have two dishes, one motorised and the second my good old little sly dish for 28e. All wired up to the duo which handles it great.

 

[Chills]

A motor as well... think I've got enough headaches with just the two fixed dishes...
Already got over 3,000 channels. How many more can there be?

 

[Chills]

Thanks!

Hiya

Just wanted to say thanks again to all...
With new feeds coming from a quad LNB I wired the cables as recommended and it all works a treat.
I can now watch and record something else at the same time, on both satellites and am really chuffed!

This Vu+ Duo unit is really impressive. Recording is SO much better than the Sly box with much better fast forwarding, etc...
I'll get my head around the timers, etc. and I'm still ironing out a few niggles with some channels not showing on the EPG but MOST do.
E.g. Strangely the local ITV EPG is no prob but ITV1 HD = nothing. Plus a lot of the channels only show the current prog and next but nothing for rest of day and only show these once you go on the channel.

But I'm doing lots of forum reading and I'm sure I'll get there...

So thanks again for the help and happy to report the advice all worked. \/

Cheers,

Chris