Satellite TV cable installation question.

[Brosky]

If you are starting new, I would say to run a hard wired network to be totally secure and if you use CAT6 you will be future proof for quite a while. It's so much easier to do when the walls are open. Run all of the coax the same way.

And make sure that they keep the coax, data and phone away from the power lines, even if it is shielded. I only have a few pics of the work in progress at my house, because I'm not done yet. More to follow when completed.

The last picture will be the wiring for the entertainment center. All wiring goes to the individual room speaker controls is home run with both CAT6 and shielded speaker wire and there are (4) coax lines run in for Cable, FM Antenna in attic, HDTV Antenna in attic and a spare to the attic for who knows what. I also have (3) CAT lines run to the center from the network for streaming audio and video, direct internet connection to the TV and a spare.

 

[PAUL161]

What does <span style="font-weight: bold">SWM</span> mean?

Single Wire Multiswitch.

An SWM "box" allows you to ditch the 2nd coax and use a single coax throughout your house. When they came out a lot of people were designing their systems so the SWM box fed a splitter, sometimes in the garage or a utility room if it was near the wall where the dish was...that way all the boxes and power supply were hidden away and the rest of the house worked like it was on a simple cable-TV system.

You'll also hear "LNB" - it means 'low noise block' but when you hear the term just assume it's the part of the dish that receives the signals (it's the antenna parts that hang in front of the dish).

Slimline is the popular style dish direct-TV started using that is a horizontal oval with a wide LNB for HDTV service. Other dishes were round, vertical oval, or somewhat square with rounded corners.

SWMLine is a Slimline dish with an LNB that is also an SWM (whew, got <span style="font-style: italic">all</span> those terms in one sentence ), therefore eliminating the SWM box and making the entire satellite system a one-coax system just like cable...sort of. You still need a splitter to make it work, but the wiring is a lot cleaner.

DVR is digital video recorder (Tivo is a brand-name of a DVR).

HR20/21/22, etc, are model numbers of the dTV receivers. If you get HD service with dTV you're likely to be supplied with an HR21 or HR22 receiver.

Uh... on the forums you'll see dTV, dT, and d* - all shorthand for direct-TV.

Whew.

<span style="font-size: 10pt">Thank you Scott and Paul for all your input, I think this old brain has absorbed quite a bit of that info. I just want to make sure the house is wired properly before the insulation and sheet rock goes in. Naturally there's the standard electrical, but also there will be security hard wiring going in also. Lot of wire. I hope the price of copper doesn't go up any more!</span>