[FlipMe]

I just bought an oval dish with 3 LNBs and an integrated multiswitch (4 outs). Ideally, I could connect an OTA antenna cable to the "IN" side of the MS (to diplex signals and preclude the need to run additional cables to my 4 STBs). Since the MS is integrated (and inaccessible) in the dish, however, how best to connect the OTA antenna cable? For example, can I feed an "OUT" from the integrated MS into an "IN" of another MS, and connect the OTA antenna cable into the second MS, as well? If not, can you offer another approach? I'd like to avoid running OTA antenna cabling to each of my 4 STBs. Thanks, Kevin

 

[dswallow]

That's referred to as cascading multiswitches. Yes, you can do that. You have to use a multiswitch that is cascadable, however, such as the Terk M58.

 

[FlipMe]

Thanks, Doug. I assume that I'd cable one "OUT" from the integrated MS to the "IN" of the cascading MS? ... In other words, I'm assuming I DON'T need to cable all of the "OUTS" from one into the other MS? Is Terk offer a good MS line? Best regards, Kevin

 

[dswallow]

You would need to make 4 connections from the built-in multiswitch to the new one. That's because there's 4 possible different signals that must be available to any of the 8 outputs. The Terk M58 is one of the couple of "new generation" multiswitches recently released; that's not to say they're anything exceptionally new technically, but that they're well built, inexpensive and work in a cascadable manner as well as directly connected to LNB's. You should be able to easily get one for under $90-$100. It's also weatherproof, connecting to power via another coax cable.