Best LNB for 8 Feeds To House - Hybrid Options

[*Dan*]

i now have eight feeds going to the loft and to the wall behind where the sky dish is (4x shotgun WF100 cables for four rooms).

I currently have a ‘hybrid’ LNB with 6 connections on it but need space for another two so need a new LNB.

I can’t seem to find a hybrid LNB that has 8 connections on it only a non hybrid octo LNB.

I don’t have sky Q at the moment but it would be good to have a wideband LNB for the future if I was to go back to them. If I can only get a hybrid with 6 then it will have to be just the standard octo LNB unless there are any other options ?

 

[Sureitsoff?]

put another dish up (I have three with four outputs from each dish)

 

[*Dan*]

put another dish up (I have three with four outputs from each dish)

It’s not really an option where I live so think I’m going to have just stick with an Octo LNB.

 

[plugwash]

How about keeping your existing LNB and feeding it to a multiswitch. Afaict this would give you the ports you need for your legacy tuners while leaving two ports on the LNB free for sky Q. You would need a multiswitch that is compatible designed to work with "Quad" rather than "Quattro" LNBs.

Something like https://cpc.farnell.com/triax/318109/tms-508-se-aq-bs-5x8-quad-multiswitch/dp/AP03341

 

[*Dan*]

How about keeping your existing LNB and feeding it to a multiswitch. Afaict this would give you the ports you need for your legacy tuners while leaving two ports on the LNB free for sky Q. You would need a multiswitch that is compatible designed to work with "Quad" rather than "Quattro" LNBs.

Something like https://cpc.farnell.com/triax/318109/tms-508-se-aq-bs-5x8-quad-multiswitch/dp/AP03341

Yes it is an option and all comes down to compromises I presume. That way I guess it would just be one feed to four rooms and no way of recording one programme while watching another channel if it’s fed through a multi switch? I have a couple of freesat boxes which I like using - the other way is keeping the hybrid in the garage and buying an octo and if I ever go back to sky then I can change it over. Who knows by that time there is a ‘better’ LNB out.

 

[plugwash]

No, a multiswitch allows all tuners to tune to whatever they want at the same time.

This works because there are essentially four modes a regular LNB can be in (two frequency bands * two polarisations). The multiswitch takes four feeds from the LNB, one in each mode and then switches the required signals to the receivers.

 

[Lucid]

i now have eight feeds going to the loft and to the wall behind where the sky dish is (4x shotgun WF100 cables for four rooms).

I currently have a ‘hybrid’ LNB with 6 connections on it but need space for another two so need a new LNB.

I can’t seem to find a hybrid LNB that has 8 connections on it only a non hybrid octo LNB.

I don’t have sky Q at the moment but it would be good to have a wideband LNB for the future if I was to go back to them. If I can only get a hybrid with 6 then it will have to be just the standard octo LNB unless there are any other options ?

You're not going to fix this with an LNB alone.

What you need is a solution that will service the requirements of your standard Freesat gear now, but also cope with any stuff that requires a wideband signal such as Sky Q and the latest generation of Freesat receivers that work on the same principle. There is an answer...

The new range of dSCR multiswitches combined with a Quattro LNB will do this.

The Quattro LNB simultaneously supplies the switch with all four switching states of a satellite signal. The new type dSCR switch takes those signals and makes them available to any of its outputs. Now here's the clever bit of the new dSCR switches: It senses the type of signal request from either n conventional or wideband receiver/recorder, and then it formats the signal going down each wire to match.

What this means is that you can mix and match legacy receivers with wideband receivers in the same system. To clarify that, say two of your rooms have conventional Freesat recorders and one room has a Sky Q box and the remaining room has the latest generation wideband Freesat receiver. All can co-exist in the same system, and all get exactly the signals they need even though you have just four wires coming off the dish and feeding the switch and just two wires going to each room.

Quattro LNBs are different to Quad LNBs, so make sure you get the right type as this won't work with a standard Quad LNB.

Various manufacturers make dSCR switches. They come in 4-output, 8-output and 16-output versions. Have a look at the Triax TdSCR 508 as a starting point.


As always, if this or any other answer helped, please click the THANKS button on those posts. It costs you nowt to do and is quicker than typing a post with the words "thanks"

 

[*Dan*]

You're not going to fix this with an LNB alone.

What you need is a solution that will service the requirements of your standard Freesat gear now, but also cope with any stuff that requires a wideband signal such as Sky Q and the latest generation of Freesat receivers that work on the same principle. There is an answer...

The new range of dSCR multiswitches combined with a Quattro LNB will do this.

The Quattro LNB simultaneously supplies the switch with all four switching states of a satellite signal. The new type dSCR switch takes those signals and makes them available to any of its outputs. Now here's the clever bit of the new dSCR switches: It senses the type of signal request from either n conventional or wideband receiver/recorder, and then it formats the signal going down each wire to match.

What this means is that you can mix and match legacy receivers with wideband receivers in the same system. To clarify that, say two of your rooms have conventional Freesat recorders and one room has a Sky Q box and the remaining room has the latest generation wideband Freesat receiver. All can co-exist in the same system, and all get exactly the signals they need even though you have just four wires coming off the dish and feeding the switch and just two wires going to each room.

Quattro LNBs are different to Quad LNBs, so make sure you get the right type as this won't work with a standard Quad LNB.

Various manufacturers make dSCR switches. They come in 4-output, 8-output and 16-output versions. Have a look at the Triax TdSCR 508 as a starting point.


As always, if this or any other answer helped, please click the THANKS button on those posts. It costs you nowt to do and is quicker than typing a post with the words "thanks"

So if i used a Triax 508 with a quattro lnb with say 4 freesat receivers that had two connections in each of them would they work completely fine if I wished to record one channel and watch another on every box at the same time? Are they using limitations for this receiver as it only has four satellite feeds going into the switch? So, its not really about weather I would want sky q in the future but also future proofing myself by going down the wideband route as more and more boxes are going wideband like as you say the new freesat receiver. My current LNB is a hybrid providied by sky which has two wideband connections and four other connections. Would these other four connections on the lnb be the same as a quattro setup or a quad?

BTW thanks for the explanation this is getting way more complicated than I first thought - I was thinking now the cables are in the loft I can plug them into an octo lnb and job done. I suppose I could do that but is it worth doing that to then have to change it further down the line when I upgrade the receivers in a room.

 

[Lucid]

It would work just fine, @*Dan*

A bit of background: In an ordinary Sky/Freesat setup, say with two feeds to the box, each cable connects one satellite tuner inside the receiver to one of the four LNBs inside a Quad (means four) LNB unit. Hence the four cable connection points on it. This also means you have two spare LNB connections to hook up to some other satellite receiver(s).

What's going on between the tuner and the LNB is different to the way that ordinary TV aerials work. In a satellite receiving system the signals are grouped in to four distinct "bands" for lack of a better word. The satellite channels are spread between these bands. We've seen something sort of similar with radio: Short Wave, Medium Wave, Long Wave, FM. If you want to listen to a certain station then the radio first has to switch to the correct band, and then tune in to the rioght frequency for the station itself. IOW, you can't listen to Talk Sport on FM, you have to switch to medium wave. Similiarly you can't pick up Radio 1 on anything but FM.

With a Sat receiver/LNB pair, the satellite receiver sends a high or low voltage signal up the cable to switch between two bands. It then discriminates between stations grouped by either horizontal or vertical polarity. You'll have already worked out for yourself then that that gives four distinct groups of channels. With a twin channel satellite receiver, the second channel is doing the same thing.

The difference with a Quattro LNB is each of the four outputs is tuned to one of the four satellite signal groups. There's no switching of modes. The LNBs are fixed.

The second part of this equation is the multiswitch. At its heart it's a smart switch and distribution amp in one. Whether there's four, eight, sixteen or however many outputs doesn't really matter. It looks at the signal requests from each connected satellite receiver and serves up the correct channel group for the stations required. Lets say all your sat receivers requested a channel that's in the Low Voltage Horizontal Polarity group. The smart switch would route that one signal group through its eight amplifier channels. Any combination of channels to any/some/all sat receivers is possible. This is exactly how big blocks of flats serve all the residents without the need for a forest of satellite dishes on the roof.

 

[*Dan*]

That makes a lot of sense now so low voltage, high voltage, horizontal or vertical polarity. Quad LNB tuned to one of the four groups. So I need to work out if my hybrid LNB is a quattro LNB or not and if not swap this over and then get a multi switch in the loft.

I presume the octo LNB that I have seen online are useful if you don’t want a switch and power devices separately. Or is an octo LNB two quattros on the end?!

 

[Lucid]

Your hybrid is not a quattro LNB. That's not how this works.

With a quattro and a dSCR multiswitch there's no need for a hybrid LNB or even a wideband LNB.

Since multiswitches don't work with standard quad LNBs (they have no way to force the LNBs in to the four different states), then AFAIK you're either going to have to go the whole hog with a quattro + dSCR Multiswitch combo, or swap out your hybrid with its 4+2 outputs for a standard octo LNB until you get to a point where you need a wideband signal and then review your options.

What you're not going to be doing is trying to rig the standard outputs on your hybrid to replicate what a real quattro does just to try saving a few tens of Pounds.

 

[plugwash]

Since multiswitches don't work with standard quad LNBs (they have no way to force the LNBs in to the four different states)

Some multiswitches have the feature to work with regular "Quad" LNBs. I see no reason why you could not fit such a multiswitch to four of the outputs from the hybird LNB, leaving the remaining two for SKY Q.

 

[Lucid]

Interesting. Do those multiswitches also support the same mix-n-match combination of standard and wideband signals on their outputs? If so, that's useful knowledge and a potential solution for @*Dan* What's the makes & models please?

If not, then what you're suggesting would be routing the two wideband outputs direct to say a Sky Q Silver box, and taking the four standard outputs to the switch so that the switch just does legacy support. What happens then when one of the legacy boxes gets replaced with a 3rd gen wideband box and the owner wants to use its multiple tuners? i.e. more than the standard two tuners in a legacy box. Can that be supported?

 

[plugwash]

I haven't seen (though I haven't looked extensively) a full-sized multiswitch that supports both working with a quad LNB and supplying dSCR for modern multi-tuner boxes. Triax do make an "add-on switch" (TMDS 42 C) though that can take four regular feeds and turn it into two regular feeds and two regular/dSCR feeds.

 

[Lucid]

I haven't seen (though I haven't looked extensively) a full-sized multiswitch that supports both working with a quad LNB and supplying dSCR for modern multi-tuner boxes. Triax do make an "add-on switch" (TMDS 42 C) though that can take four regular feeds and turn it into two regular feeds and two regular/dSCR feeds.

I can see the value of that with big existing installations such as block of flats. The £100-ish for the TMDS 42 C as a quick and relatively cheap bolt-on to a system has got to be appealing to landlords. The alternative is to rip out perfectly functional distribution and then spend several thousands of Pounds installing Q-compatible gear, not to mention the significant disruption for a day or more to people's Sat' reception. I know which I'd choose

What I'm not so clear on is the value to someone starting pretty-much from scratch without any headend gear.

Apart from say owning the hybrid LNB that might have come as part of a Sky Q install, someone in @*Dan*'s position isn't really invested in any hardware already. I'm struggling a bit here to see the benefit of spending £100 or so on some extra bit of hardware to make a Hybrid LNB compatible, all to avoid spending £30 on a proper Quattro LNB. Maybe I'm missing something, but the sums don't seem to add up.

Is it not cheaper and less complicated just to do this correctly from the word Go?

@*Dan*'s goal here (unless it has changed) is to have something that serves his immediate needs but that is also future-proofed as far as a possible return to Sky Q. He hasn't said as much, but it's sensible too to look at where satellite receivers/recorders are going. The next generation gear (*Gen 3) is already here. These Freesat receivers/recorders break the link between 1-cable = 1-tuner.

He needs to serve signals to four rooms; two cables per room. This means he'll need eight connections at the headend. Obviously an Octo LNB is the simple and cheap solution, but it means having eight cables coming from the dish to the distribution point. It's cheap but ugly and not future-proofed.

One alternative is to keep the existing hybrid LNB (new value £25-ish?), and then buy a Quad-compatible multiswitch. Yes, they exist. But I can't find anything from Triax, Televes, Fracarro, Whyte or Iverto that offers both Quad compatibility and the skill of providing both wideband and legacy support on its outputs. AFAICT, there's no overlap with those two functions in a single product. You can have Quad compatibility but no wideband output, or you can have legacy+wideband output future-proofing so long as you buy a £30 Quattro LNB.

This brings us to the TMDS 42 C. TTBOMK this type of product is the only way to add wideband compatibility to a multiswitch that supports a standard Quad LNB. The catch is the cost (TMDS 42 C + an 8-output multiswitch + power supplies) and additional complexity all to save £30 on a Quattro LNB.

Is that really a sensible solution?



*The Arris boxes marketed under the Freesat brand support multiple tuners, similar to the Sky Q recorder. In the case of the Arris, it's possible to record up to four channels simultaneously when the box is getting two wideband feeds. In legacy mode, the standard 1-cable = 1-tuner rule applies. The box adjusts accordingly.