Sloop Smitten
San Marcos, CA
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I just got DirecTV last weekend for the house. It came with a DVR/Receiver and three separate receivers. Figured I could find an old dish and use one of the receivers to get access while camping. Spoke with the installer about it and he told me the satellite has three LNR’s and they are powered from the DVR receiver. Sure enough the Cat-6 cable from the DVR has a separate power wire jacketed into the cable. Hence I would need a newer dish and a separate power supply (which he was willing to sell me) if I were to use one of the three receivers. I can’t use an older receiver since the cards are married to the receivers. Anyone come up against this and what solutions might I have? Hope to avoid a major investment to overcome since I don’t need satellite service when camping often.
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old guy
Oregon (pronounced Or e gun)
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strange! I have a son who is an installer and he said I can use any dish (direct tv dish) when I go camping with one of my receivers in the house.
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JaBob
Roswell, Georgia
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Had some what similar problem. The dish is not the problem its the power supply. Older receivers have a built in power supply, on newer units its an external supply. Can't mix or match.
Bob
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schneid
In the Wind
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Been covered here before. Sounds like SWM. Some newer receivers are SWM only. Do you want to SD or HD. If HD, you;ll need a Slimline for the road an 21v Power Inserter and a receiver from home. No biggie.
What equipment do you have.
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2oldman
Winchester WA
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Never heard of any of this. Coax is not called Cat-6. Are you sure you got these facts right?
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docj
Fulltime--Home is where we park it
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Your home has been setup for what DirecTV calls its SWM (single wire multiswitch) technology. There is a lot of misinformation on the web about using SWM equipment with standard dishes, but the bottom line is that it can be done, you just have to change the receiver's settings so it knows what kind of antenna it is connected to. The following link is to a discussion forum question which relates to a situation similar to yours. If you read through it you should get an understanding of how to setup the receiver properly: Using SWM receiver with standard antenna
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docj
Fulltime--Home is where we park it
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2oldman wrote:Never heard of any of this. Coax is not called Cat-6. Are you sure you got these facts right?
He means RG-6, cut him some slack!
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2oldman
Winchester WA
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docj wrote:He means RG-6, cut him some slack! Ever seen RG6 with a separate power cable? I'm trying to make sure he really is talking about RG6. Cut me some slack.
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skipnchar
Topeka or somewhere else
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Very unusual. I still have no problems at all using my old single LNB dish while camping and my system at one of my homes was installed in the last three months and includes the whole home DVR option.
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YC 1
Yuba City Calif.
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I am betting it is SWM single wire multiswitch. There is not an extra pair of wires in the coax. Power is inserted in the coax center pin instead of the receiver supplying power. Using this setup they can run one coax from the dish itself instead of multiples.
Now if there is something new and I will research that there is a way to send power over Cat5/6 the same way. This is done with many point to point systems.
In any case one picture of the cable will answer the question or tell us if the cable has a center pin and a round outer connection. If the connector is rectangle and has multiple colored wires inside it is a new style.
As for using a SWM receiver by telling it that it has for example a round dish might be true but I have no personal experience with that. It might still need the power supply to run the dish though.
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