[DIYJohnny]

Firstly, hello all, glad to be here

I have been browsing these forums for many years and never registered or posted, mainly because I always found everything I needed. Great forum thanks

However I am in the process of renovating my flat and want to include POSSIBLE SKY+ / FREEVIEW / BT cables under the floor in all bedrooms and lounge. If you can bear with me I will detail my problem and perhaps you can help (hope I have the right forum!). It’s driving me nuts as I am getting really confused

Ok so ...

Set up.

• 2nd story flat in block of 4, 4 bedrooms and 1 lounge
• Freeview aerial and sky dish on roof, I LNB (I think).
• Currently I have standard SKY installed in the lounge
• BT master socket in Hall, connected to another master socket (not sure!) in lounge .
• The cabling from both the freevew and SAT dish come down the external wall and into the lounge
• Signal strength for Freeview, good (london)

What I desire
(As I am putting hardwood floors down I want to put possible cabling underneath first)

All 4 bedrooms and lounge to have the possibility of having SKY+ and FREEVIEW and a phone line. All these are independent from one another, so 5 separate phone numbers, 5 separate sky+ installations. I admit the chances of this happening are slim but I don’t know who will want what services and what room they are in.


My installation plan

Freeview:
The cable from Freeview Aeriel to lounge already installed by me
Install a 4 WAY UHF/VHF splitter. Run 4 separate, WF100 cables to all 4 bedrooms. Therefore lounge has no Freeview access but 1 output cable can be changed over if need be. If signal strength is power, change splitter to powered one (no signal loss)

SKY+ / SKY / SKY HD:
Run 4 shotgun cables (or better still 8 WF100) from Lounge to 4 bedrooms. I would have to change the LNB and run extra cables down the external wall if someone actually wanted the SKY or SKY+ in their bedroom. That can be done anytime

Additional BT phone lines
Install 4 extra BT master sockets in hall so the can be connect by BT engineer at ant time. 1 there already so 5 in total
Run 5 extra phone cables from the 5 sockets in Hall to 5 new extension sockets (4 bedroom, 1 lounge). Use cable 2 pair 4 core


Outlet plates
This is confusing.
So in a bedroom I would have 3 sat cables and 1 phone cable. I would like to join these all to the one double socket. Would I just get a double face plate and box and connect each wire its corresponding module (i.e. 1 phone, 2, F plugs and 1 coaxial). I could of course join each to an individual socket.

Questions

1. Is this plan ok? All thoughts welcome
2. Rather than getting modular sockets that slot in, can I get all this in one socket
3. Where would a Screened Socket Quadruplexed suffice? I see that they only take 2 sat cables.
4. I see SKY require a connection to a working phone line. Now if I connected a SKY box to the inactive phone connection, can I just connect the inactive master socket to active master socket, in the hall?
5. I have been looking at Labgear HDU641/S Home Distribution Unit 4-Way but don’t understand where this fits in?
6. I mentioned 2 pair, 4 core phone cable; I have no clue if this is right

Thanks all very much for reading my long post!

[Stevenage Neil]

Quick thoughts:

The Freeview signal will need to be amplified.

Lounge + 4 bedrooms each with Sky+ = 10 LNB outouts - not common/easy

BT Master sockets - have to be installed by BT

Do you really want your lounge to be the Master Control Centre?

[davemurgatroyd2]

Is the dish a communal installation or solely for the use of your flat?

[DIYJohnny]

Hello Neil, thanks for your reply

I read a lot of posts advising for people to put cables in under the floor if they have the opportunity. There is tiny chance of having all 4 rooms using sky at the same time and I am more concerned with having the cables in place before the hardwood floor goes down. This flat will be rented most likely

I was not going to run the cables from the dish to the lounge so no 10 LNB outputs required and only do it as needed. As I say if I have a scenario of 1 bedroom with SKY+ and we wish to change it to another bedroom, well it’s simply a case of swapping the cables over in the lounge, do you agree?

I see your point on the free view signal but I have the same set up in my flat 2 doors away and its pretty good, no amplifier. Can be done later if need be.

Regarding the master sockets, Assume 1 bedroom has SKY+ and doesn’t want a phone (but requires a connection) and Bedroom 2 wants a phone line but no SKY. I need some way of connecting the SKY box in bedroom 1 to phone socket in bed 2, I was thinking this could be done at the master sockets in the hall.

I should add also

• Dish is mine only (I note your reply davemurgatroyd2 thanks)
• In the hall I have a cupboard for the elect box & gas pipes so can dump a lot in there
• In the lounge I would have 8 cables running to bedrooms, I was going to have a small access hatch in the floor behind the TV to hide all the cr#p

[Stevenage Neil]

Originally Posted by DIYJohnny

I was not going to run the cables from the dish to the lounge so no 10 LNB outputs required

So no Sky in the lounge, if all bedrooms want Sky+?

Originally Posted by DIYJohnny

Regarding the master sockets, Assume 1 bedroom has SKY+ and doesn’t want a phone (but requires a connection) and Bedroom 2 wants a phone line but no SKY. I need some way of connecting the SKY box in bedroom 1 to phone socket in bed 2, I was thinking this could be done at the master sockets in the hall.

You'd be best putting the 5 master sockets, and slave sockets, (going to the other rooms), in the hall cupboard so you could patch as necessary.

Originally Posted by DIYJohnny

..but I have the same set up in my flat 2 doors away

Your name isn't Rachman by any chance is it? (Oldies only need laugh)

[DIYJohnny]

Yes that’s correct, the limit is that if all bedrooms want SKY+, the lounge cannot.

This won’t happen as what happens frequently is that one year one wants one service and the other doesn’t this changes year on year. I wish to minimise that mount of re-cabling done in my flat. The key is flexibility rather than quanity

As regards the master sockets: why do I need a slave sockets, do you mean have 10 sockets in total in the hall cupboard. My thinking is that if I have 5 master sockets I am covered for 5 lines in 5 locations, yay Do you agree? I don't know much about phone wiring sorry

I have no clue who Rachman is you have got my interested!

ta very much

[Stevenage Neil]

Originally Posted by DIYJohnny

As regards the master sockets: why do I need a slave sockets, do you mean have 10 sockets in total in the hall cupboard. My thinking is that if I have 5 master sockets I am covered for 5 lines in 5 locations

You are correct, the phone leads to the other rooms just need a BT plug on the end in the cupboard.

Originally Posted by DIYJohnny

I have no clue who Rachman is you have got

Peter Rachman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some of us on this forum can remember the story........

[DIYJohnny]

thanks Neil, very helpfull all afternoon, Am getting there.
could you be so kind as to give me your thoughts on 2, 3 5 and 6 in my original post.

if you think this whole plan is all wrong, feel free to lay in the boots

This is basically what I formulates from reading the forums

Bought a 2nd property at top of the market and needed a hude amount of work done, smart move so lots of work for me to do

[Stevenage Neil]

I have no experience with wall plates but reading your responses regarding your plans:-

All four rooms to have two Satellite connections, ( F connectors), one terrestrial connector, (Belling Lee), and one phone outlet.

I'm sure they are available - though make sure they, (the connectors), are all individually connectable and not multiplexed.

[DIYJohnny]

ok good, I haven't seen any that are not multiplexed but will keep searching, hard to tell on the web, not obvious to me

Will read up about distribution thingys, not sure if they will help

[davemurgatroyd2]

There is a major problem in the satellite cabling in that each joint in the chain is going to give a significant signal loss both in your patch cabling and wallplates (probably in the order of 30% for each joint) and may lose channels due to reflections in the cabling at those joints (which can be recovered by changing length of cable - so leave a fair amount of spare cable at each joint). So your setup may need a larger than standard sized dish or even in-line amplifiers to compensate for these losses.

[DIYJohnny]

Interesting didn't know that!.
Dish to lounge is about 10 / 12 meters, and lounge to furthest bedroom is about 8m. Leaving 10 / 12m of spare cable under the floor is fairly significant (8 cables).

I am wondering if I should use 2 x WF100 cable rather than a shotgun one (WF65) or use a twin WF100

Also I suppose I should avoid running along side electric wires as much as possible!