Over in this thread our member zenno discusses his Televes 4041 UHF/UHF mixer and his realization that it does not pass VHF signals via the UHF inputs:

Stacking/Ganging questions not in the OTA FAQ :-) (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=114637)

It looks like the Televes mixer was not designed for combo antennas, just 2 separate UHF antennas and 1 separate VHF band antenna.

http://www.zennodesign.com/setup.jpg

Marbles_00, the OTA side of it looks fine, but is your goal simply to have OTA and Satellite on one coax lead between the SW21 switch and your PC?
Yes, then use a Diplexer at the HTPC to seperate the signals, routing the sat signals to the Twinhan and the OTA signals to the HVR.

The other option is bypassing the OTA around the Microyal and run it totally separate to the HTPC, as right now I have two feeds anyways. I figure though that in the future, I could see two additional locations where currently I have the sat feeds, but may want to have OTA feeds as well, that is the reason for bringing the OTA feed to the Microyal.

Does the Microyal switch cascade properly with an SW21 switch? Will your Twinhan card control not only the SW21 but also see the LNBs through the Microyal switch too?

According to this post: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=682400&postcount=5, it should be possible from what I can tell. I will have to try it out though to finally verify.

Thanks for the input so far.

I live in the ground floor of a triplex, the people on the third floor will allow me to place a Channel Master 4228hd on the roof if I split the signal for them to use as well. I assume I can't just throw a cheap splitter on the line, that it must be an amplified splitter? Is it possible to have this on the exterior of the house? ie I assume it would have to be plugged into an outdoor electrical outlet. Are these made for exterior use?

Mattf

I live in the ground floor of a triplex, the people on the third floor will allow me to place a Channel Master 4228hd on the roof if I split the signal for them to use as well.

the 4228HD "hack" described in the research and development thread is to remove the balun and phaselines and put a balun on each half of the 4228hd.

If you want to split the signal, you might be better off "hacking" the antenna and using the signal from one balun for yourself and the other balun for your neighbours rather than joining and resplitting

Wouldn't hacking the 4228HD (by using 2 baluns), feeding the combined signal into an amplifier and then splitting the signal to separate TVs be a better solution? The above stated essentially reduces the 4228HD to a 4-bay antenna.

Wouldn't hacking the 4228HD (by using 2 baluns), feeding the combined signal into an amplifier and then splitting the signal to separate TVs be a better solution? The above stated essentially reduces the 4228HD to a 4-bay antenna.
Except a 4-bay typically doesn't have another 4-bay sitting right beside it. Another 4-bay that is not electrically connected to the first, will invariably cause reception issues to the second, and vice versa.

That aside, I agree that hacking the 4228HD and recombining would be a better attempt. An amplifier may not even be needed, but if it is, the top floor residents might need an attenuator on their line if they are too close to the amp.

Well I guess from the various opinions that the best would be to hack the antenna, run it to my floor, do some signal tests, the start with an unamplified splitter and see the results both at neighbours and my place and take it from there moving onto amplified if necessary and finish with the hack of creating two 4bays. I'd rather save that option to the end rather than start by splitting my new antenna in two!
Sorry for the newbie question, but if I do need an amplified splitter, can they/are they kept outside in these situations and are therefore made for exterior conditions?
Thanks again,
Matt

if I do need an amplified splitter, can they/are they kept outside in these situations and are therefore made for exterior conditions?If you need an amplifier the best way to go is with a pre-amp. that way you are amplifying the cleanest signal at the antenna. With a pre-amp you would have the power inserter plugged in at your apt. and the power is delivered through the coax up to the amp located a the antenna. This would require that the splitter you use would have DC power pass on one side of the splitter (which would be your side because you have the power inserter). If this arrangement over powers your 3rd floor friends tv then you would simply move the pre-amp from ahead of the splitter to after the splitter in your coax line. This would then only amplify your side of the split signal. The only down side to this is that it also amplifies any noise added to the line by the splitter and cable from the antenna to the amp, therefore try and keep this as short as possible. This pre-amp method is designed for weather exposure because power is fed through the coax. Hope this answers your question.

Wouldn't hacking the 4228HD (by using 2 baluns), feeding the combined signal into an amplifier and then splitting the signal to separate TVs be a better solution? The above stated essentially reduces the 4228HD to a 4-bay antenna.

what I suggested reduces an 8-bay antenna to 2 x 4-bay antennas, and since a 4228HD doesn't have twice the gain of a 4221HD, using the 2 halves separately may do better than joining the 2 halves and the splitting the signal.
Or it may not.
And there may be interference between the 2 as 99gecko suggests

Okay, just to confuse the issue a little I'll add something else: in the Grounding thread (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=62265) I'm being advised to run the coax from the third floor roof down to my ground floor where I'd attach the ground wire and the grounding block on the coax to the grounding plate, then run the coax into my floor, split it, and run it back up to the third floor. This means I'd have about 100 feet running down through my place, split, then run another 50 feet back up to the third floor. Although this doesn't seem ideal at all I'm assuming if I must do this then some amp somewhere would be necessary.

I liked the suggestion of a pre-amp just before or just after the splitter placed at the antenna, then running the coax into the third and first floor. But if that creates some grounding issues...

mattf and all, proper grounding is a safety issue so the solution is simple: follow the grounding advice you're received in that thread, then adapt your splitting and signal amplifier layout to work best in it.

I suggest making a diagram based on the grounding advice and posting it here for splitting/amplification layout opinions. :)

Okay, just to confuse the issue a little I'll add something else: in the Grounding thread (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=62265) I'm being advised to run the coax from the third floor roof down to my ground floor where I'd attach the ground wire and the grounding block on the coax to the grounding plate, then run the coax into my floor, split it, and run it back up to the third floor.
That advice is total rubbish.

Run the coax directly to where you need it, with a grounding block just before the place where the coax enters the dwelling. Run a separate, outdoor ground wire from the block at that point, down to ground level to a ground rod or plate.

Cheers

Let's take care not intertwine the two threads - grounding posts are in the other one. :)

Anyone using a UVSJ splitter as an attenuator?

What's your before and after results?

What are you trying to attenuate? I presently use the HLSJ to attenuate below channel 7 & it works great!!

I did use the UVSJ as an attenuator before the analog shutdown on my UHF only antenna. It did help with super weak UHF stations from my 2nd & 3rd market. It is now only used to combine the 2 separate VHF-HI/UHF antennas. The VHF-HI antenna is pre-filtered using the HLSJ before insertion into the UVSJ. (3 full power FM stations & an LP channel 6 only 0.3 miles away-"OUCH")

11.0 analog, 72 nm and -6 pwr.

goforit, have you read about, or tried, channel-specific coax stub filters (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=974684&postcount=638)? Something like that could be cut to knock down CHCH analogue on 11.

11.0 analog, 72 nm and -6 pwr.
Not sure if this helps, but the FM stations that the UVSJ proved very effective for were as strong as +6 dbm.

I don't know, the stub filters look a little more complicated than using a uvsj to attenuate 11.0- in theory, the uvsj should do a good job of knocking down 11.0.

Does anyone know what the approximate signal loss would be by using an RCA A/B slide switch? Picked one up at the source a while back to use near my tv to switch between analog cable and OTA.

Tonight I was getting a stating in with a very weak signal... so being curious i took the switch out of the equation and just plugged my ota cable straight into the tv set. I had a noticeable (yet small) gain in signal as the picture was solid at like 10%. (1 out of 10 on my samsung signal meter)

Just wondering if this would be about the same signal loss as a splitter? like 3.5db? I've looked and haven't found any type of switch that claims less loss... the push button ones on solid signal don't have much in terms of specs.

I really wish the tv sets these days had 2 separate coax inputs...