Cables and splitters

[flyin]

Don't get me wrong peeps most channels are fine but there is a minority that are glitchy. Thanks.

[Wellinever]

Flyin

I have a splitter which is 5 - 2450mhz and it made absolutely no difference to mine

What channels are glitching? Are they on the lower frequencies (shown on menu when u change channels)

[flyin]

Disney channel itv 2 MTV music channels.

[Wellinever]

Just done a quick check

Disney tiny bit of glitching for me
ITV2 pretty unwatchable
MTV channels ok.

For me its SS4 that's really bad and only one im bothered about

[flyin]

Ss4 is to on mine. How about if you ran a direct feed into box then used out or loop and then split it.

[Wellinever]

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work. In fact i'm positive it wouldn't.

[TheCoder]

...I have a splitter which is 5 - 2450mhz and it made absolutely no difference to mine

Usually it will make no difference whatsoever. A 1000Mhz bandwidth device is the minimum you can practically get away with for cable, the 2450Mhz one is over-spec'd (they're mostly for sat work) but will work fine.

Unfortunately neither splitters, cable or connectors have linear signal response over frequency. Because of this your various transponders will give different signal levels at the box. If all the channels your having trouble with are on the same transponder (or very close frequencies) then its quite likely your levels are falling into a range which your box isn't capable of handling. Unfortunately, if this is the case, theres often little you can do to fix the problem except perhaps better quality cabling/connectors (shorter cable runs/less connectors). An amplifier may help but it can often cause more problems than it fixes.

[Wellinever]

Thanks The Coder

I've tried shorter cable runs with factory finished f connections and a cable with f connector to RF male (so i could remove the f connector to rf adapter) and it actually made things worse.

The cables seemed like cheap rubbish to me though. I may try some better quality shorter cabling then.

Thanks for the advice.

[flyin]

Thanks The Coder

I've tried shorter cable runs with factory finished f connections and a cable with f connector to RF male (so i could remove the f connector to rf adapter) and it actually made things worse.

The cables seemed like cheap rubbish to me though. I may try some better quality shorter cabling then.

Thanks for the advice.

Let me know how you get on, thanks.

[Wellinever]

Will do flyin

Thanks

[TheCoder]

Standard low loss sat cable should do the job fine although its often worth checking the response characteristics if you can get hold of them.

Generally, the cable run from from green box to your house is far longer than any internal cabling so cable itself doesn't have much effect (as long as its not grossly the wrong type). Connections, on the other hand, can have significant impact with each one upto 10% signal loss (more if they are badly terminated). Each 2-way splitter in the path will also reduce the signal level by half or more. Unterminated cables (ie unused splitter paths) can also cause problems.

One way to evaluate whether your cables/splitters have much effect is by running the box directly from the cable feed ingress box and comparing.

[flyin]

One way to evaluate whether your cables/splitters have much effect is by running the box directly from the cable feed ingress box and comparing.

Please explain. I pondered this myself but I need to split to box and router.

[Wellinever]

As promised

Even though I think the problem is not at my end i went and bought some good quality (& expensive) flyleads to go from the splitter to the box and router and it made no difference, so don't go wasting your money.

I'm pretty content now that I've done all I can so now I will just wait and see if the KV team can get the lower frequency channels working better on the a850.

For anyone wondering though I would still recommend the box.

[TheCoder]

Please explain. I pondered this myself but I need to split to box and router.

Try it without the modem/router to get a signal level baseline. You should be able to view fta channels and I think you can also view signal level on encrypted channels whilst the box isn't actually decrypting

[Wellinever]

Unfortunately the A850 doesn't have an option to see the signal level like the A780. Hopefully a firmware update might introduce it but I have read that the reading given is pretty meaningless anyway.