Use Sky dish with twin cable for single Freesat HD card

Associate
Joined
16 Mar 2005
Posts
708
Location
Staffordshire
Hi Guys

My house has a Sky dish installed and it has the twin cable stuff (I think it is used for Sky+ / Sky HD). Does anyone know if it is possible to utilise just a single core on this twin cable? Will it work, or do both cores have to be connected?

The cable connectors have been cut off, and I had stripped the cable to the copper core and 'plugged' it in to the DVB-S2 card in my computer, but it didn't work. Should it work without having a correctly terminated (RG6?) connection?

I'm trying to determine whether it's not working because both cables require connecting, if it's down to the cable having to be properly terminated (I was assuming that the copper making contact would suffice for testing), or there's something else that's not setup correctly.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
Just one connection should work fine. The reason there are two feeds is because the Sky+ boxes are dual tuner so they can record one channel while watching or recording another.

The type of connector that goes on the end is an F connector. You can get screw on plugs for these for very little money which just involves stripping the cable down and twisting the connector on the end but really it should work if the inner and outer copper wires are making proper contact.

You could try getting a screw on F connector so it's more correct but if that fails (and indeed both inner and outer copper parts were making contact) then maybe the dish is out of alignment or the LNB on it is knackered?
 
Caporegime
Joined
26 Dec 2003
Posts
25,666
Yep they're both completely independent connections, it's just shotgun cable which makes running 2 cables for dual tuner boxes more convenient.

I'd get some twist on connectors off Ebay they're cheap enough, if it still doesn't work could be an issue with the dish.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
I think the outer braid and connector acts as an Earth connection or something, not sure though.


As I recall, high frequency co-ax operates in a grey zone where it is a cross between a "Conductor" and a "Wave-guide", so yes, it needs to be properly terminated to work properly.
 
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