I am sure we must have an aerial installer/expert on here......

Please see attached current installation that I have, and all works well.

I want to tweak this installation by installing a digital aerial and distributing this around the house by utilising the existing cables that are in place.

How do I do it?

My theory is to run the co-ax from the new aerial into the sky digibox.

Will this signal then come out of the digibox on the existing cable that is connected to RF Out 2?

If so, then this will get the digital/terrestial signal up into the loft space.

Then do I need to install a mains powered splitter box so that it will allow the current on the RFout2 cable through it, as well as boosting the signal?

What I want to end up with is the option to view either terrestial/freeview OR Sky in all locations, with the magic eyes still being able to control the digibox.

Also the ability to be able to watch Sky on one TV and Freeview/terrestial on another TV at the same time

At present only two TV's are fed by the RFout2 cable, but I want to increase this to 4 TV's in the future.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Tv Layout.pdf

You have two options.

Either go down the route you already have described with your drawing. Limitations are that you'll only ever be able to have one channel at a time in your extra 2 going onto 4 rooms. If you have several people watching TV at the same time, they'll fight over who's watching what (on Sky).

The alternative is to get a proper sky muxing / distribution box that would sit somewhere (in the attic) and you can then distribute this. The upside is it's far more flexible, but it costs more (pay for sky multiroom).

It's been a while since I had a Sky+ box, and can't remember if it will distribute normal terrestrial UHF out of the RF2 socket as well as a modulated output of the Sky channel.

Or do you already have a normal terrestrial aerial which is distributed to each room? (but not shown in picture)

You have two options.

Either go down the route you already have described with your drawing. Limitations are that you'll only ever be able to have one channel at a time in your extra 2 going onto 4 rooms. If you have several people watching TV at the same time, they'll fight over who's watching what (on Sky).

The alternative is to get a proper sky muxing / distribution box that would sit somewhere (in the attic) and you can then distribute this. The upside is it's far more flexible, but it costs more (pay for sky multiroom).

It's been a while since I had a Sky+ box, and can't remember if it will distribute normal terrestrial UHF out of the RF2 socket as well as a modulated output of the Sky channel.

Or do you already have a normal terrestrial aerial which is distributed to each room? (but not shown in picture)

Thanks for the response

The idea of the normal aerial was to get the option of watching freeview on any TV or watching just one sky channel on any TV (ie not multiroom)

No Aerial at present anywhere in the house.

The reason I have been against multiroom is that I thought you needed to have a Sky+ box in every room, but you have suggested a mixer box in the loft, can you tell me more about this?

The RF2 socket only outputs what is being viewed on the sky box. For multiroom, you need a sky box on each TV and each of those must be connected to the same phone line as per the T&C's of multiroom or you could end up with a big sky bill.

Freeview (DVB-T) cannot be picked up by your dish, and will need another aerial in the loft or on the chimney. You could multiplex the signal into the same coax in the loft, using a multi input/output splitter like they sell in maplin. Make sure you get one that the magic eye can pass through, because not all will do this. You will still only be able to watch one sky channel though (the same on on each of the 3 TV's, switch channel on one and it will change all of them. Doing it this way then each TV will either need to have builtin freeview, or the signal passed through a freeview box. To watch sky you would use an analogue channel, and switch to DVB-T for freeview.

Getting sky and freeview working together can be an art to itself.

Edited 29 November, 200817 yr by mannyo

Remember though that even if you go down the distributed satellite feed, you'd still get all the "freesat" channels at no cost with just any dvb-s satellite box, including all Beeb channels, itv, channel 4, 5, etc./

If you want to watch a sky proprietary channel (Sky One, movies, sport, etc) then you do need a multiroom subscription.