Satellite Picture Quality

I paid the "cable" guy to install my satellite TV. I have a Winegard Carryout Anser GM-5000 Hybrid Automatic Portable Satellite Antenna connected through 1 of 2 outside satellite jacks to a Direct TV STD definition box in the den. (I was told that antenna does not support HD)

The den TV is connected directly to the box with a red, white, yellow video cable and has a good picture. I wanted all the other TV's (garage, bedroom & exterior) to connect to this one box. The TV out on the Direct TV box is split back into the coax feed to the den TV from the broadcast antenna and this sends the satellite signal to the other TV's over the broadcast antenna coax cable. I can switch between satellite and broadcast in the den by changing the input and on the other TV's by re running the channel set up. This is great because the one box runs all the TV's and I have line of sight to change channels on the box from the bedroom.

My problem is the picture quality on the other TV's is kinda fuzzy. If I split the TV out coax straight to the garage TV it gets a good picture and it's close enough to the box to be set up that way. But what about the bedroom and exterior TV's...

Did the "cable" guy hook this up right? Any suggestions on how to improve the picture quality?

The problem might lie in the type of splitter being used OR a faulty connector along the way somewhere. Did you do all of the connecting to the additional TV's from the main receiver or was it done by the installer?

When you mentioned switching between sat and broadcast you didn't say if you were turning the signal booster off, if ON for broadcast, it may be screwing up the satellite signal.




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Ray LeTourneau said:

The problem might lie in the type of splitter being used OR a faulty connector along the way somewhere. Did you do all of the connecting to the additional TV's from the main receiver or was it done by the installer?

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The installer connected the TV out on the Direct TV box back to the broadcast antenna wall plug in the den through a splitter with the other end running to the den TV, so the factory wiring is running from there to the other TV's. When he installed it I questioned the fuzzy picture and he said I needed to swap out all the connecting coax cables from the wall plate to the TVs with RG6 coax cable, which I did with no improvement. When watching satellite the booster in the bedroom has to be off or it scrambles the signal and to get a good picture over the air it has to be on.

If you have enough cable, try this experiment: connect the receiver output to the cable input on the exterior of the rig. Booster off. Disconnect any other sat receiver output coax.

Basically you're testing the sat receiver coax signal going forward thru the wiring, instead of backward. If there's a difference, it probably means the splitters are not bi-directional, which may be the case.

Also, have you tried each TV on both antenna and cable input settings?

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danemayer said:

If you have enough cable, try this experiment: connect the receiver output to the cable input on the exterior of the rig. Booster off. Disconnect any other sat receiver output coax.

Basically you're testing the sat receiver coax signal going forward thru the wiring, instead of backward. If there's a difference, it probably means the splitters are not bi-directional, which may be the case.

Also, have you tried each TV on both antenna and cable input settings?

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Click to expand...

I have never hooked up the cable input.

I did notice when I removed the cover to the outside satellite input with 2 hookups, the one hooked up to the Direct TV Box ran straight and the other had a splitter right behind the input going two directions (bedroom & garage???)

So your test is to run the signal through the separate outside cable TV input and see if the picture is good... then my problem could be with one directional splitters in the air antenna line between the Direct TV box and the TV's. I also removed the booster plate over the bedroom TV and noticed a splitter right behind the booster. Maybe that's the culprit.

I didn't know there was an issue with the direction of the signal thru the splitter. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out and hopefully get a good picture all around.

If it works from the outside connection, you might need to try diplexers in place of the splitters.

danemayer said:

If it works from the outside connection, you might need to try diplexers in place of the splitters.

Click to expand...

Your test worked...

So then I was able to run the TV out off the Direct TV box back through the extra satellite feed to the exterior inlet and jump the signal with a 1ft coaxial cable to the cable in on the exterior hook up without any extra wiring. Good picture to all TV's bedroom/den/garage/basement off one box.

Thanks for the tip.