[gareth_01]

Hello

I have posted a couple of posts before and received a great amount of help.
Here is the latest challenge…

I am building a new house and have to decide on where to have all the cables, sockets etc before the end of Wednesday, 19th August (yes 2 days).

I will have a sky + box in the living room and will have wall mounted flat screen televisions in the following:
 Kitchen
 Master Bedroom
 3 other bedrooms

I want each of the TV’s to be able to display the sky + channel.
I want to have the option of putting the TV in the living room into two different corners.
I also want to have the ability to add an ordinary sky box to each room in the future.
I also want each TV excl the living room (with built in freeview receiver) to be able to get freeview from an aerial in the attic.

I know I don’t want much…

This is the way I see it, but please remember I am as useful as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to stuff like this.

I need a Sky Dish with four coax cables coming from it – 2 to each corner of the living room. 2 of these cables go into the Sky + box – two will lie redundant unless I move the TV.

I then need a cable going back up from the Sky + box (one cable in each corner) to like a coax hub in the attic (not sure if this is the right name). So I would have 2 cables going into it and 5 coming out, feeding down to the 5 other rooms.

I then need 5 cables coming back up from each of the TVs to another hub thing which then goes to a big metal aerial thing – so each TV can get freeview.

For each room excl kitchen, as I said, I may add an ordinary box, DVD player, games system and I like the idea of cables and sockets going from behind the TV to a corner in each of the bedrooms where I can put a small cabinet housing the DVD player etc. I might run HDMI cables and scart leads if need be from one socket to the next.

I know there is lots of technology, special cable etc that does wonderful things but I am easily confused…

Can you let me know if the above would do what I need it to and if I am missing anything really obvious?

[Andy98765]

The hub thing is a distribution amplifier capable of passing magic eye signals.
Labgear MSA283LP/S Remote Power Distribution Amp 8-Way - Screwfix.com, Where the Trade Buys
Ideally you should feed your external aerial down to the SKY box and then back to the distribution amp UHF in and then you will have 8 outputs (RF2 feeds magic eyes).
The TV associated with the SKY box can get it's aerial feed off RF1.
Aerial - SKY box aerial in.
RF1 - to local TV
RF2 - distribution amp

[neilball]

In simple terms you need the following cables:

TV (and maybe FM aerial)
coax from aerial/s to central distribution point

sat dish
4 x coax from dish to central distribution point

distribution point to Lounge
4 x coax to each main TV point

distribution point other rooms
2 x coax to each TV point


Note that you would ideally run the cables from the dish direct to the Sky box location without any breaks. However you will only have 4 feed from the dish and many more points where you could place your Sky boxes. As long as you only need 4 feeds (i.e. 1 x +/HD box and 3 standard boxes or 2 x +/HD boxes) then you will need to connect the dish feeds to the relevent coaxs that run down to the rooms using f-type couplers. If you need more than 4 feeds then you can either fit an octo LNB with 8 coax cables from dish to the relevent TV points or fit a satellite distribution unit (which needs a special LNB) and allows you to have lots of satellite feeds from the original 4 cables coming from the dish.

Your aerial connection then gets connected direct to your main Sky+ box, the RF2 feed connects to your TV distribution amplifier in the central distribution point and all of your TV freeview/aerial connections come from the TV distribution amplifier (which feeds the Sky RF2 signal, analogue TV and freeview down the same piece of coax).

[gareth_01]

So is this what I need to do cable wise - see attached.
With the central distribution point being the distribution amplifier recommended by Andy.

G

[gareth_01]

What to you think folks - is the attached amateur drawing what i need?

[SamRadford]

I recommend you look at the various Loft Box wiring layouts here:
Loft Box Help

READ all the available information then take a very large piece of paper and DRAW your own wiring diagram. Label it with stock codes and cable lengths. I find it impossible to visualise even the simplest layout in my head so I strongly recommend including every detail on paper, otherwise you'll overlook something vital.

WF100 cable is generally the best choice and, as it's available in 6 different colours, it makes life easier when you have a bunch of cables coming out of a wall and you need to figure out which is which!

There's a useful book to download here:
http://www.The-Cool-Book-shop.co.uk/book.htm#pipingtv

Originally Posted by gareth_01

I also want to have the ability to add an ordinary sky box to each room in the future.

Then you might like to consider using a 5x multiswitch that will feed both aerial and LNB signals round the house. Use an adequate dish size. Some info here:
Multiswitches

If you use a 5x16 multiswitch, you can feed two LNB cables to (up to) eight rooms.

.

[gareth_01]

Cheers Sam
That has proved very useful.
I have a good idea now of what i need and just in time to inform the spark

[SamRadford]

Just found another page: Installing a multiswitch