cheapest set up for the father in law

[awhitey44]

Hi all,
im after some kind words of help/support. The father in law just recently downgraded his sly sub to the bare minimum as he's been made redundant. So ive picked up an S9 for ?15 off fleabay, the hdmi no longer works but the component has been tested and thats ok. His LCD aint the best as it only has 1 hdmi input which is currently connected to his sky box. So i was thinking of a hdmi to component cable which would solve the box issue however he still wants to use his sly box in conjuction with the s9 ive got him - he's thinking he can still record his soaps whilst he flicks over to the s9. Now the problem ive got is with the LNB's, theres twin cables running to his slyplusbox - can i take one of these and use a coax splitter?? running another coax to the s9 or will this not work?

What set up do you reccomend. Ive got a feeling the consensus is going to be disconnect current box and just use the s9 but thought id ask as i could do with understanding a bit more.

any ideas??

[awhitey44]

After further reading I now get that he wont be able to have them both turned on, but If i teach him to turn one off then turn the other on is this ok - or should i just disconnect his slybox all together??

[Shady]

has he only got a twin lnb? if hes got a quad you can easily connect some more coax to an unused connection on the quad

[awhitey44]

He's only got a twin mate. If i use one of them with a splitter and he turns either off (whichever he aint using) would this work?? suppose my only other option is to quad it but then its ladders/drilling/?? you know what i mean.

If it was me Id bury the sly box in a shallow grave in my garden but hes a stubborn mofo

[Shady]

if hes only recording one sly channel then surely he doesnt need to the two coax anyway? he can just unhook one of them for the s9. changing an lnb wont require drilling mate, just unscrew the bracket on the old one and replace it.

[mezzyg]

Just get a quad lnb off eBay for around 6-7 quid and get someone to run a cable for you. Will only cost 15-20 quid

[awhitey44]

coolio he can for the short term use the other - I thought I'd read that even though one tuner would be off - it wouldnt work
I let u kno how i get on

[cactikid]

skybox and provider box may run into the no signal issue which is a very common thing with lnbs

[ramjet]

if he has a sly plus box he should have a quad lnb, even if its only a twin coax feed, as sly only fit single/quad/octo lnb,s . not twins

so he is best to get a 3rd feed from a quad lnb to the sly box f9

[Benzade]

Unless he's downgraded to whatever the bare paid minimum package Sly offers or is paying them ?10 a month to use the PVR facility on his Sly+ box all the talk of swapping LNBs is irrelevant as the official Sly box will be useless for anything other than FTA.

The only benefit I see in keeping the + box hooked up is his ex subscription card will now become a Freesat from Sly card other than that he already has the FTA channels on the S9 unless he's wanting to go down the record one channel (his soaps) off one box coupled to say a VCR and watch the other box separately in that case the quad LNB and an extra feed cable is the way to go and the cost should be minimal. If all he's after is recording the soaps then he can record those off the Freeview side of his TV and do away with the + Box.

I sympathize with you on this awhitey because my father will not bin anything either and I've ended up rigging him up a very strange combo of Technomate 5402, Sly+ HD box, DVD player, Freeview box, and VCR all coupled up to an old pre digital CRT TV with only two scart sockets and an AV input!

[happy_highlander]

I sympathize with you on this awhitey because my father will not bin anything either and I've ended up rigging him up a very strange combo of Technomate 5402, Sly+ HD box, DVD player, Freeview box, and VCR all coupled up to an old pre digital CRT TV with only two scart sockets and an AV input!

Lol it must be a dad thing. Mines is exactly the same if I ever get like that just shoot me is all I can say

[Hadron]

coolio he can for the short term use the other - I thought I'd read that even though one tuner would be off - it wouldnt work
I let u kno how i get on

You can set up a $ly+ box to "single feed mode" if you only have 1 LNB connection.

For an HD box, press "Services" button on remote. Press 001 then "select" on remote. One of the options in the Engineers menu is to select single feed mode. This is used with dish input 1.

If he wanted to use the full twin recording function of the $ly+ box, he could keep 1 LNB connection to dish1 of the $ly+ box, & connect the other LNB lead to the S9. Then use another cable from the S9 loop output to the dish2 input of the $ly+ box. You could only have 1 box switched on at a time using this method though.

Or you could use a switch box to switch the feed between the dish2 input of the $ly+ box & the LNB input of the S9.

Doesn't the TV have a composite or component connectors? I'm wondering why you were talking about HDMI to component cables?

[Hadron]

Unless he's downgraded to whatever the bare paid minimum package Sly offers or is paying them ?10 a month to use the PVR facility on his Sly+ box all the talk of swapping LNBs is irrelevant as the official Sly box will be useless for anything other than FTA....

As in the first post, he is still subscribed...

...The father in law just recently downgraded his sly sub to the bare minimum as he's been made redundant...

[awhitey44]

thanks a lot geezers some useful tips there, yes the tv has only one hdmi and the hdmi on the s9 isnt working. It gets worse though he rings me before and I think ive convinced him to bin the the sky + then he hits me with this little bombshell "oh by the way what sgoing to happen to my 2nd tv in the conservatory?" To which i replied dont worry youve got freeview aint you - he said no i run a coax into the 2nd tv so i can watch whatever is on in the lounge hahaa. Then i shit you not I went round to me dads house and he says that since I kitted him a sunray sr4 he no longer gets a picture on his lcd in the kitchen. I takes a look at the lcd (mounted/channelled cable) and the bellend who plastered over the cables to sink them has ran 1 coax lead!! arggh. So now to sort him out im thinking rf modulator from the scart in the back of the sunray - but would this work as Im using the hdmi to provide a pic to his main tv. Dads/In laws are off their tits

[ramjet]

yes an rf modulator will convert from scart or phono to an rf channel, so as long as the secondary tv has an ****ogue tuner it will tune in just fine

as for tv,s with 1 hdmi , I bought a 3 way auto splitter that allows me up to 3 devices into the one hdmi on my tv, the autoswitching works great and the unit has a manual override button too , so if you need to plugin more than 1 box then these hdmi switchers are great (and cheap too)