TV distribution in apartment block.. Help?

[TPES]

Evening all!

I have a job to tender for.. The information i have so far is it is a big apartment block in the city that needs its TV points upgrading. Many of the tenants have complained about very poor signal on there TV's.
There is probally 70 seperate apartments that will need new TV points installing..

My question is.. What type of distribution unit would you install to feed this many TV's?

I have installed many domestic tv points with Distribution units to bedrooms but this job is on a alot bigger scale.

In the past working on new build apartment blocks we split the apartments up into groups with each group of coax meeting in the loft of the comunal area..would you recomend a simillar thing?

 

[Timmi]

When fittin smokes and communial lights on PIRs on blocks of flats i noticed all 18 flats ran off one airial but i dont know how it was wired. Although i noticed there was a signal booster hidden under the stairs

 

[kung]

Split apartments into groups as you said and labgear do some good distr amps.
Hope this helps.

 

[Spudnik]

Sorry to hijack your thread Sid, but

I have a very similar job to look at, but they also may want a communal sky dish and feeds to each flat.

Looking at a couple of TV suppliers websites they are talking about multiswitches etc for sat feeds.

Has anyone installed such systems?

Would appreciate any hints and pointers!

 

[kung]

Hi Jason you may find labgear will also help.
Regards

 

[desertbootz]

Not sure how many ways the largest splitter will accomodate (commercial jobs not withstanding) but know that 16-way are available for terrestrial, digital and cable. Google 16-way splitter. I would suggest you don't boost an already boosted signal, that is don't take the output of one amp/splitter to another. It's more important on analogue and low signal strength areas than digital but better to take the direct feed from the aerial (better the quality and alignment the better the SNR obviously) and parallel that as near source as possible to splitters for distribution throughout.

 

[kung]

This is norm done via splitter then to each booster for 16way dist

 

[Nenedata]

Hi There,

Normally you would fit a dish and the aerials (DAB, UHF and VHF) on the roof and run a 5 core feeder
cable down to the top floor riser. Here you would fit a Launch amp and then a multiswitch. Depending on how many flats you need to distribute to, would decide whether it was worth fitting a multiswitch on each floor in riser cupboard. You would then need to run 2 coax's to tv location in each room and run a telephone extension to this point aswell. The reason for this is Sky requires a telephone line connected for subscription. 2 coax's allow for sky plus to be installed or use one for sky and one for freeview.

You could also offer to run a coax from tv point in lounge to the main bedroom of each flat, this would allow a sky digieye to be used.

This may be a bit over the top but it gives the tenants every tv option available. They could use freeview lcd, freeview set top box or a freesat box.

Mark

 

[Mac]

I have done this type of work.I would install a multiswitch system.Take main aerial(for freeview) and possibly sat dish and dab aerial into a mid point in the building.Then all you have to do is take one lead to each flat possibly 2 if they want sky plus.All the signals are diplexed down one lead(tv,sat and dab).Just fit diplex plates at each flat.You dont need to install telephone points as nenedata said as this is down to sky.Hope this helps

 

[TPES]

Hi There,

Normally you would fit a dish and the aerials (DAB, UHF and VHF) on the roof and run a 5 core feeder
cable down to the top floor riser. Here you would fit a Launch amp and then a multiswitch. Depending on how many flats you need to distribute to, would decide whether it was worth fitting a multiswitch on each floor in riser cupboard. You would then need to run 2 coax's to tv location in each room and run a telephone extension to this point aswell. The reason for this is Sky requires a telephone line connected for subscription. 2 coax's allow for sky plus to be installed or use one for sky and one for freeview.

You could also offer to run a coax from tv point in lounge to the main bedroom of each flat, this would allow a sky digieye to be used.

This may be a bit over the top but it gives the tenants every tv option available. They could use freeview lcd, freeview set top box or a freesat box.

Mark

Sounds good mate.. Ive been to the job, They have these fitted already..

Connected as you have described.

There will need to be 2 X WC100 Coax to the back of each TV in lounge.

Also some flats want additional points in there bedrooms.. what would you use to split ths signal again once in the flat to then feed a bedroom????

 

[Nenedata]

Hi,

There's quite a few different manufacturers you can choose from, but i like the Triax brand. Basically you could fit 2 gang box and the components are modular. Each apartment could have a different setup. To supply bedroom just run CT100 grade coax from main tv point to plate in bedroom, you would then fit extra module in plate to allow Rf2 output on skybox to be patched through. Like previously mentioned you can combine a phone extension module in 2 gang plate aswell. My preference if i had a nice apartment i wouldn't want a sky engineer to trail a phone cable round the floor. Apparently not insured to drill any internal wall so will clip round skirting and run under doorways. Any opportunity to add extra element to a job the more work the better.

Take a look at this page it has the type of components you'll need:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/level5/module.jsp?moduleId=cpc/438499.xml

Cheers

 

[Mac]

you cant split the feed.you need to take a separate feed to each room.the multiswitch system allows you to add on extra multiswitches as and when.they do a special splitter for these systems but are not very reliable

 

[TPES]

you cant split the feed.you need to take a separate feed to each room.the multiswitch system allows you to add on extra multiswitches as and when

I cant, the multiswitch already feeds 3 flats.. thats 2 coax to each flat, using 6 x coax from the splitter. This only gives me 2 more feeds (as its an 8 way switch) what do i do if all 3 flats want tv points in the bedrooms ??

Can i not just take a feed from the back of the first tv point in the lounge straight to the bedroom ?

 

[Nenedata]

The triplex plate will allow you to receive 2 sat feeds and freeview thats 3 signals. 2 could be used for sky plus so you could then patch the freeview signal to bedroom tv. Or you can patch the rf2 output on sat box and via a magic eye change sky channels from bedroom tv. If the tenant wanted they could fit a passive splitter in lounge and feed as many freeview boxes or freeview tv's as they wanted. As for the multiswitch only has 8 ports you can link another multiswitch to the existing and they come in 8, 12, 16 24, 32 may even 48 way. They just link together via the 5 inputs and 5 outputs top and bottom.

Give me 20 mins i'll dig out an indepth breakdown of how the system fits together.

Mark

Found it!

Read this should make it easier to understand:

http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/reference/residents2008.pdf


And this will help with the multiswitch setup:

multiswitches - Satellite TV support forum & Digital TV support forum.

Cheers

Mark

 

[TPES]

Thanks mark..

You've been alot of help