HomePNA (HPNA) and OTA on the same cable?

[Phobia]

Hello all,

I've been trying to figure out a way to run both FibeTV and OTA on the same coaxial cable.

My understanding is that FibeTV's coaxial signal is HPNA, which should live well below the frequency range of my OTA signal, which I believe is all UHF.

I believe HPNA is all sub 50Mhz.

I had read that it is possible to simply use a 2-way splitter to combine the HPNA and OTA feeds. When I do this, the OTA signal looks OK, but my HPNA signal isn't happy - with lots of constant pixelization etc. from my FibeTV CPE. I tried this :

FIBE]-------]                         ]--------[ATSC Tuner
             Splitter]-------[Splitter
HPNA]-------]        (coaxial)        ]--------[FibeTV Box

Is the most likely cause interference from the antenna that is bleeding into the sub 50Mhz spectrum?

Would a diplexer help? I had a satellite one kicking around and it didn't work - no big surprise as the frequency range isn't right.

I know I can use an A/B switch, but I'd have to house it at the electrical panel which doesn't make it very easy to toggle. I don't want to run a 2nd cable as we've just finished the basement, and we don't want to surface mount cables either.

Any other suggestions?

-- Phob

[Dr.Dave]

The best solution would be to use separate cables for OTA and Fibe TV. Hopefully you had the the foresight to run a Cat5 cable to that location which can be used for Fibe TV.

Not only is your antenna picking up all the sub-50 MHz signals, it is also transmitting your Fibe TV signals into that spectrum, which is illegal.

Here is a PDF chart of the services you are picking up and also transmitting interference.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...o_Spectrum.pdf

[Phobia]

Thanks for that - I figured that the sub-band glitches I was seeing were due to interference, and on another forum I posted at this morning, someone else suggested the same. For the record, I didn't leave this setup connected as illustrated above after it was clear that it wasn't working. I didn't realize something like this could ever be considered illegal!

I have in the meantime found a diplexer that seems to offer the filtering which I require, and at a reasonable cost. It offers two ports "Sub" and "CATV".

Sub accepts 1-40Mhz, and rejects 54-1000Mhz.
CATV accepts 54-1000Mhz and rejects 1-40Mhz.

I believe if i use this diplexer it should effectively 1) stop the sub-band interference I am seeing, and 2) stop the HPNA from being broadcast via my antenna.

Link : http://hollandelectronics.com/catalo...perator-Joiner

Correct?

Running a 2nd cable isn't an option as all of the walls etc. are finished, and I'm not open to punching holes into walls which were freshly done. I do have both coax and cat5e in all locations where there are TVs, but I have run my TV network separately from my data network, so the FibeTV router isn't accessible from my LAN, and I have other devices connected at those ports which do require LAN access.

-- Phob

[tvlurker]

Look at the spec sheet at that link. I think you want the HPNA VDSL IPTV splitter.

[holl_ands]

Sounds like HPNA is using frequencies below 54 MHz.
However, since there is ONLY 25 dB of isolation in the Holland Diplexer,
HPNA signals will still be leaking out of your TV Antenna at levels much higher
than band users need to receive signals in the Ham, Military and Misc. Utility
Radio Bands....which is not only illegal but could affect life and limb....

[Phobia]

I've ordered a high pass filter as well which is supposedly over 40db of isolation. Can I run that in series with the diplexer?

[holl_ands]

HPNA also needs an impedance matching Balun, which is built into PHA devices.
Fol. also addresses ANALOG TV EMI issues:
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...NA-030323d.doc