Cabling for Sky Plus+

[RazorLite]

I thought this would be more appropriate to place in this category to gain more exposure as its more of a generic question but apologies if its not and please feel free to the more relevant sub topic.

Ok then, I've got Sky Plus being installed this Friday Morning (Friday the 13th I know I know heh) and to be honest I dont trust the engineer to 1) agree to what I want and 2) to use decent cabling. Based on this I have decided to install the cabling myself so the engineer just needs to fit the sky dish really and to get the set top box working. However, doing some initial research has indicated that for SKY+ to operate properly it requires two LNB's - does that mean I need two cable runs from the dish to the sky box? Basically I have 50metres of WF100 cable so would like to know if I need to install two sets up cable if that is a requirement?

In addition to this I will upgrade to Sky HD eventually (however I refuse to pay their rip off charges for SKY HD at the moment) so will two cable runs (if that is the requirement for SKY+) be also sufficient to future proof for a Sky HD installation?

Any help would be as always, most appreciated.

Mark

 

[Tuscan]

A dual LNB is used, so 2 runs of cable are required allowing 1 channel to be recording whilst another is being watched. 1 cable run goes to input 1 and another goes to input 2.

Regards..........Tuscan

 

[andykn]

The installer may not be prepared to use cabling not installed by Sky because they're expected to guarantee the whole install.

 

[RazorLite]

Tuscan/Andykn thanks for the advice - good tip about sky not using the cable I installed.. hmm well I will be using the WF100 cabling that is approved by sky apparently so maybe that will be good enough.

Cheers!

Mark

 

[SamRadford]

A dual LNB is used

No, a twin-output LNB is used - or more likely a quad-output LNB, since twin-output LNBs are not made for the Sky minidish.

A "dual LNB" is one with two feedhorns that are aligned on two different satellite positions. The DiSEqC version is usually referred to as "Monobloc".

The Sky installer will probably be delighted to find the cable already installed. He'll get home half an hour earlier!

WF100 twin cable will be fine, although it's not very flexible and could put a strain on the Digibox connectors.

 

[Tuscan]

Yer....sorry i missed the word "output" out !! SR

but the question was about cabling

 

[RazorLite]

Again, thanks guys for all your help.

Doh! I didnt realise that twin wf100 existed - oh well two cable runs of WF100 will have to suffice.

Mark