1 dish 2 tuners from 1 account 1 from another - Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums

sparhawk77 · 2011-07-06, 07:10 PM

Have an oddball situation that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I rent a room in a house that has a Bell satellite dish with 2 4100 tunes connected to it. The connections were obviously made by someone's "satellite expert" friend. I can see 2 wires coming from the dish, into the house, and they are then connected separately to cables running to 2 different 4100 receivers in the house. The owners have been using this setup for some time, and are able to receive all of their subscribed channels without any odd problems. I told them I wanted to receive Bell as well, and I went out and bought a Bell 4100. At first the owners told me they were actually sharing a friends signal, and they would have that friend activate my 4100 on her account. In my last house I had 6 Star Choice receivers connected, and the splitting hardware they used to connect all of the receivers was still on the wall. I found an Eagle Aspen DTV4X8 in the connection room, and brought it to the house I am now at. After some research on the Internet I tried to wire up the DTV4X8, but could not make it work. Did some more research, and found this site, and the info that the DTV4X8 would not work.

At that point my landlady disconnected one of her 4100's, and connected my 4100 to it. Then the other lady called Bell and activated my box. That was 2 nights ago. After almost 2 hrs. (the Bell rep did say it may take that long) I finally got the download to my 4100, and was able to watch TV. The next day I was out for a bit, and when I came back my landlady said she had fixed things so that we could both watch TV. She showed me the connections, and to my surprise it looked like she had just bought a standard 2 way splitter. I doubted that it would work as I thought special digital splitters and switches were the only hardware that would work. She turned on her 4100 and it worked fine. I then came down and checked mine, and to my surprise I was able to see all of the channels, the guide, and everything else. I watched TV all night (had to get my fix as I haven't had TV for about 2 months), and had no problems.

This morning I turned on my TV, and of course ran into problems right away. I keep getting the "Attention 015 Standby for satellite signal" box. The TV will then come back for awhile, but after no more than 5-8 minutes, the 015 screen comes back. I went to the System Info, Installation, Point Dish screen a few times. Sometimes the Sat Lock heading under the Signal Strength bar tells me I should be on nimiq 91, and other times nimiq 82. I also sometimes see an Error Screen telling me that the dish can only see 1 satellite. Last night when the system was working I looked at the Check Switch screen and it told me that I could see both 91 and 82.

I have seen the diagrams here and other sites that show the dual LNB dish, like the one at this house, with the 82 & 91 connections from each LNB attached to a 2 input to 1 input switch with the single wire then connected to the tuner so that it can see both connections. I've got a feeling that since the connection was probably wired by some friend of theirs it may not match those diagrams. If this is true would my landlords tuners work as trouble free as they do or is their connection probably done the right way? I have since found out that their 2 4100 receivers were actually activated through their own account and not through their friends account as my 4100 was. Since there are now 2 4100's connected to the same signal is that why I now have all of the connection issues I am having?

Sorry the email is so long but I wanted all of the details to be here. Essentially the situation is this: 1 dual LNB Bell dish with 2 4100's connected to it which have worked okay for at least 6 months. Not sure if the 2 4100's are properly connected with both 82 & 91 transponders actually feeding to both 4100's. Signal to 1 4100 now split with 2 way splitter to 2 4100's each activated on different accounts. Initially connection worked fine last night. Now my 4100 keeps popping up with 015 waiting for signal box every few minutes. My Check Switch states my receiver cannot see both 91 & 82. Point Dish screen sometimes tells me I am connected to 82 but need 91, or vice versa.

Any help with this mess would be greatly appreciated. A diagram of how 3 4100's should be connected to 1 dish would be appreciated as well. A guess as to how expensive the necessary hardware, and which store in Edmonton Alberta would give me the best price would be extremely appreciated.

Pinza · 2011-07-06, 07:18 PM

Well, if you have 2 Dual LNBF's on the Dish, then the best way is to swap out the 2 x SW21's for an SW44, lots of drawings and threads on here showing how to connect etc.

A splitter will never work correctly, ever.

sparhawk77 · 2011-07-06, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinza

Well, if you have 2 Dual LNBF's on the Dish, then the best way is to swap out the 2 x SW21's for an SW44, lots of drawings and threads on here showing how to connect etc.

A splitter will never work correctly, ever.

Actually that is the odd thing. There are 2 wires coming out of the Dual LNB dish, but they go straight to the backs of the 2 4100 receivers that the landlord is successfully using right now. They are not connected to any SW21's or SW44's. I am assuming the SW21's and SW44's would be too large to hide inside the sleeve that normally covers the connections on the LNB's of the dish. I haven't slid the sleeve back to check, but I didn't think they would fit in there.

jdevlin · 2011-07-06, 10:24 PM

Your 4100 puts out two voltage to witch between odd and even transponders. With the setup you have as long you are both on the same(odd or even) it will work fine. As soon as one of you tries to go to different channel that is on the opposite (odd or even) you will have the problem you are seeing.You need a proper sw44 or sw34 switch.

Pinza · 2011-07-06, 10:57 PM

From your answer in post # 3, it now appears you have just the 1 LNBF so you do NOT need an SW44, you just neet a 2 x 4 switch, these can be picked up for just a few $'s.

You would connect BOTH lines from the dish to the 2 Inputs, then you would connect your 3 receivers to the output ports, leaving you a free port for future use.

This is what you need, if you only have ONE LNBF;

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...47&postcount=4

2011-07-06, 07:10 PM	#1
sparhawk77 Rookie Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 4	1 dish 2 tuners from 1 account 1 from another Have an oddball situation that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I rent a room in a house that has a Bell satellite dish with 2 4100 tunes connected to it. The connections were obviously made by someone's "satellite expert" friend. I can see 2 wires coming from the dish, into the house, and they are then connected separately to cables running to 2 different 4100 receivers in the house. The owners have been using this setup for some time, and are able to receive all of their subscribed channels without any odd problems. I told them I wanted to receive Bell as well, and I went out and bought a Bell 4100. At first the owners told me they were actually sharing a friends signal, and they would have that friend activate my 4100 on her account. In my last house I had 6 Star Choice receivers connected, and the splitting hardware they used to connect all of the receivers was still on the wall. I found an Eagle Aspen DTV4X8 in the connection room, and brought it to the house I am now at. After some research on the Internet I tried to wire up the DTV4X8, but could not make it work. Did some more research, and found this site, and the info that the DTV4X8 would not work. At that point my landlady disconnected one of her 4100's, and connected my 4100 to it. Then the other lady called Bell and activated my box. That was 2 nights ago. After almost 2 hrs. (the Bell rep did say it may take that long) I finally got the download to my 4100, and was able to watch TV. The next day I was out for a bit, and when I came back my landlady said she had fixed things so that we could both watch TV. She showed me the connections, and to my surprise it looked like she had just bought a standard 2 way splitter. I doubted that it would work as I thought special digital splitters and switches were the only hardware that would work. She turned on her 4100 and it worked fine. I then came down and checked mine, and to my surprise I was able to see all of the channels, the guide, and everything else. I watched TV all night (had to get my fix as I haven't had TV for about 2 months), and had no problems. This morning I turned on my TV, and of course ran into problems right away. I keep getting the "Attention 015 Standby for satellite signal" box. The TV will then come back for awhile, but after no more than 5-8 minutes, the 015 screen comes back. I went to the System Info, Installation, Point Dish screen a few times. Sometimes the Sat Lock heading under the Signal Strength bar tells me I should be on nimiq 91, and other times nimiq 82. I also sometimes see an Error Screen telling me that the dish can only see 1 satellite. Last night when the system was working I looked at the Check Switch screen and it told me that I could see both 91 and 82. I have seen the diagrams here and other sites that show the dual LNB dish, like the one at this house, with the 82 & 91 connections from each LNB attached to a 2 input to 1 input switch with the single wire then connected to the tuner so that it can see both connections. I've got a feeling that since the connection was probably wired by some friend of theirs it may not match those diagrams. If this is true would my landlords tuners work as trouble free as they do or is their connection probably done the right way? I have since found out that their 2 4100 receivers were actually activated through their own account and not through their friends account as my 4100 was. Since there are now 2 4100's connected to the same signal is that why I now have all of the connection issues I am having? Sorry the email is so long but I wanted all of the details to be here. Essentially the situation is this: 1 dual LNB Bell dish with 2 4100's connected to it which have worked okay for at least 6 months. Not sure if the 2 4100's are properly connected with both 82 & 91 transponders actually feeding to both 4100's. Signal to 1 4100 now split with 2 way splitter to 2 4100's each activated on different accounts. Initially connection worked fine last night. Now my 4100 keeps popping up with 015 waiting for signal box every few minutes. My Check Switch states my receiver cannot see both 91 & 82. Point Dish screen sometimes tells me I am connected to 82 but need 91, or vice versa. Any help with this mess would be greatly appreciated. A diagram of how 3 4100's should be connected to 1 dish would be appreciated as well. A guess as to how expensive the necessary hardware, and which store in Edmonton Alberta would give me the best price would be extremely appreciated.

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2011-07-06, 07:18 PM	#2
Pinza Veteran Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: GTA Posts: 8,577	Well, if you have 2 Dual LNBF's on the Dish, then the best way is to swap out the 2 x SW21's for an SW44, lots of drawings and threads on here showing how to connect etc. A splitter will never work correctly, ever.

2011-07-06, 10:24 PM	#4
jdevlin Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Wainfleet Posts: 469	Your 4100 puts out two voltage to witch between odd and even transponders. With the setup you have as long you are both on the same(odd or even) it will work fine. As soon as one of you tries to go to different channel that is on the opposite (odd or even) you will have the problem you are seeing.You need a proper sw44 or sw34 switch.

2011-07-06, 10:57 PM	#5
Pinza Veteran Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: GTA Posts: 8,577	From your answer in post # 3, it now appears you have just the 1 LNBF so you do NOT need an SW44, you just neet a 2 x 4 switch, these can be picked up for just a few $'s. You would connect BOTH lines from the dish to the 2 Inputs, then you would connect your 3 receivers to the output ports, leaving you a free port for future use. This is what you need, if you only have ONE LNBF; http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...47&postcount=4