Will old model RF enabled DIRECT SD receivers work with 3LNB Dish?

I have trouble conceptalizing, (if I'm not on site, - staring at connections).

Any Reciever will work with the new phase III DIsh

THANKS! One worry gone.


If I understand RF she should have two lines coax running from the orginial round dish, one to Liv one to Den.

Then the Den unit sends to the Master via FR only? no coax from dish into this room at all?

so...not sure where a multiswitch might come in? (but do not understand the types switches used for diffrent multi receiver SAT setups either.)


Since the old RF enabled recievers will work in her SD rooms, there should be no prob, he will just retie old exsisting coax into new dish utilizing 2 of its outputs.


So I'm back to just worring about sorting out what the cable installers DID with the coax from her large Attic OTA, years ago. I can't find it, - I think they may have stuffed it back inside the wall outlet. It disapeared after they installed her cable but still should be therel (somewhere). I doubt (hope) they did not pull a massive run out of the wall all the way from the 2nd floor attic to downstairs, - just to get rid of it.


She still has Cable and Satelite enabled, - running into these 3 rooms, which makes mapping out connections difficult for me.


Thank you!

Thank you very much for the links. Having trouble understanding when applying the info about the (orginal) oval dishes which came with only 2 dual LNB, Neccesitating a addon after SAT 110 launched of the SATC kits. How they made those dishes work when adding a third Satilite location. At that point it would seem you needed 6 lines (2 from each dual LNB x3) feeding however many outputs the dish provides. I guess that is done all internally with the newer dishes.

There is the possibility if she has 3 receivers now there's a multiswitch in the mix which would need to be removed with the new dish. Knowing her old dish is a round but also knowing she has two coax feeding FROM dish at the roof, -through attic to rooms, would tell me (I think) she has a multiswitch 2x2 installed at the dish? I coax fed the Liv, one fed the Den, then after the Den reciever some sort of splitter to the slaved Master

What often works in conversions is to use 2 cables from the dish to what may be an already present 2x or 3x multiswitch. That multiswitch can feed all the SD receivers. The remaining 2 cables from the dish can feed HD receivers.

No splitting allowed ?

On the older SD setup, The Master is slaved to the Den.

If its a phase III dish with 4 receiver output. Unless I'm not grasping something to keep her current billing system with a single xtra reciever charged to account. I should still only need 2 lines of output from a Phase III dish?

Like her old setup only one line of dish output to the Liv (HD system) 2nd dish output to the Den which is split after receiver I believe from display output via a splitter to a coax line running from Den to the Master. Utilizing the old receivers RF controls between Den/Master. Right?

possibility if she has 3 receivers now SORRY I need to get over there and crawl over her system. Just asked the husband. I not paid attention to her original RF Den/Mst setup (I was not into AV when my husband installed it) I assumed some 3rd receiver was in the master (or other type of pass through box). He just confirmed, he thinks? (it is years since he installed it) there is ...no box from Direct in Master. So I guess what I am setting up for upgrade is a 2-receiver system with a coaxial split after Den receiver output to slave Master. The reason I am trying to grasp all this is to MAKE sure all parts necessary for her HD upgrade are purchased and ready onsite (or brought to job by installer.) I would prefer to get my husband to do the upgrade, once he sorts out what needs to be done the work would be quality I could count on. I no longer offer him up for these projects, since lately he has far too little down time. As it stands, he can never enter my Mom’s door (or other family members) without having to fix something each time he is there (no matter the occasion).


I need to understand her entire system and the upgrade before an installer arrives since I will be onsite for it, and am purchasing all materials. When I had Direct out to upgrade my SD to HD, I ended by doing everything myself (other than climbing the ladder parts) According to my onsite installer, my B&M HD receiver was bad, and that was all there was to it. NO go this install. He was leaving. I had to beg him to stay with me as I tried to logically check through the parts and find the problem. He would have left allowing me to waste trips returning a perfectly good box only to find later it was indeed his install, - if I had not done all my homework.


That was just a one receiver upgrade, therefore my concern over supervising my Mothers upgrade. It has taken me a year, - to convince her she cannot continue running that old bad horrible PQ SD receiver on her 60†LCD. Having lived through many cable/sat service call fiascoes’ at her home, she is leery of disturbing the system, since currently ….It works.


If Direct screws up the upgrade, and her system starts glitching….she will not be a HAPPY camper.

Right now she thinks her PQ is fine….she has no idea, WHAT she is missing!



Thanks for the help and links, it has started furthering my understanding slowly (but surely ).

If a receiver is sending out a signal from its RF output, it can be split because it's a simple, one way signal. got it ..thank you.


Appreciate the additional link as it alway helps so much, - to see it in PICTURES! So there is something called a "combiner¨ which can stack and later separate the SATC signal onto the SATB input, when upgrading the old 2 dual LNB dishes. I would worry about degradation without direct connections, so it seems that the new Phase III dishes might skip the combiner, - that being the better dish to possiblly avoid problems.


I think I understand what I am veiwing, - but the gadget is possibly labeled wrong? If it is a 4x4, then the outputs of the multiswitch across the body of the box should be labeled?:

OUT 1 OUT 2

OUT 3 OUT 4

(instead of Row One: Out 1, Out 2, Row Two: Out 2, Out 4)


When the unit is completely installed (the multiswitch) you finish out install by further hooking up the other SATB LNB line to SATB 13v on multiswitch), and on the other side the SAT A LNB lines into the SAT A 13v/18v inputs?


The 13v and 18v are I assume the voltage lines I saw explained in your earlier link, which for a single dual LNB will lock one LNB each to either odd or even transponders by voltage.

Somehow the SATC combiner box allows SATC (though only phyically tied in via the SATB18v line) to access (via the one voltage connection) the 13v requests for either odd/even for each (B and C) including passing of tone to determine which sat (B or C) is requested?

The labeling is moot. Their choice was to do column order rather than row order but since each output has an identical function it matters not how or even whether they are numbered.


All the Sat C transponders are even and show up as 8, 10, and 12. The Sat B transponders are 22-32 including the odds. The combiner can work because there is no overlap. The reason there is no overlap is because the special single LNB in the Sat C kit changes the frequency of actual transponders 28, 30 and 32 to virtual 8, 10, and 12. That is why an ordinary LNB cannot be used in the middle of the arm. All three satellite positions have transponders from 1-32 but Dishnetwork owns the other transponders on Sats C and B. Now that DirecTV has a newer stronger satellite B up at 119, it has tended to stomp on Sat C so adding a 6db attenuator from Radio Shack et al at the Sat B 18V connector on the multiswitch helps the Sat C numbers some without hurting the Sat B numbers much. The combiner in the Phase III seems to handle the problem better.


Once the multiswitch at the dish gets the voltage and tone request it chooses the proper LNB. It doesn't need to pass the tone because the connector it switches to is connected directly to the proper LNB. External multiswitches do need to output the tone from their Sat B connections because they need to get the proper tone to the multiswitch in the Phase III dish. If the 22KHZ tone is present the Sat B connectors on the multiswitch are chosen so the piggybacked Sat C follows along. No tone and the Sat A connectors are chosen.


The Phase III dish has the same LNB functions but has the combiner and multiswitch internally in a different physical layout.

Pat,

I wanted to get back and thank you for your responses in this thread. You helped me get through my current process in more ways than you might think. I was stymied trying to decide which route to take regarding some of my choices in this upgrade. I overthink these things sometimes when the job just needs to get done, because I want to know all possible future issues and current options without the time to always come up to speed. Very frustrating to me....and I stall. This job needs to be behind me. but I hope always to choose wisely, even when in a hurry. I needed a break from reviewing my options and your posts sent me off learning how certain parts (which are pertinant) work. I learned quite a bit (for me ) in my muddled way. With the added benifit that following your links ran me into topics (such as the possible 5 LNB future dish) the future Space one/two and Direct one/two Boeing units,- etc, topics which are best that I am at least faintly aware of.


Thank you again..Very much. and to Matt for removing the worry I might be overlooking a glitch with keeping some of the older receivers!


Thank you very much!