Sky around the house

Once you have your Sky system installed you will probably want to watch Sky television in another room in the house, whether it’s Soccer AM in the bedroom on a Saturday morning, or Jamie Oliver in the Kitchen every tea time, it’s a lot easier than you think.

To start you will need to decide how many extra points you want now and how many you may also want in the future, it’s much easier and cheaper to build a distribution system that can be expanded easily, rather than trying to expand a system at a later date.

For most people a four point system is right, that will give you your main point usually in the lounge, and then four extension points, usually three bedrooms and a point in either the kitchen or a conservatory.

In this example we will actually design a three point system, however we will install a four way amplifier, so that there is a spare point just in case we want one for the future.

We’ll start off with a list of equipment you will need –

Cable – You will need enough cable to run from the back of you Digibox to where the amplifier is going to be placed (usually the loft) and from the amplifier to each point. Most customers buy a drum of 100m cable, it work out a lot cheaper to do this than buy cable by the meter.
Cable clips – a box of 100 is normal.
Coax connectors – you will need 2 coax connectors for each extension, plus 2 for the run from the Digibox to the amplifier.
Amplifier – we’ll go into more detail later but they come in either, 2, 4, 6 or 8 way.
Magic eyes – You don’t need these, but they will allow you to change your Sky channel in any room. (By changing the channel in one room, you will change the channel in every room, just remember that if you’re watching a horror film, and you’re kids have Sky in their bedroom)
Extra Remote controls – you probably won’t want one for every room, but it is handy to have at least one extra, so you don’t have to get up on a Sunday morning to get the remote from downstairs to change the channel in your bedroom.

Choosing the right amplifier

There are two different types of amplifier -

Mains powered - These are the most popular amplifier, they plug into a 13 Amp socket as normal.
Line powered - These are incredibly handy if you are going to put your amplifier where there isn’t any mains power. These amplifiers only come in 2 or 4 way and take there power directly from the Sky receiver.

The system

This is much easier than you might think. Basically you need a cable from your Digibox to an amplifier, and then a cable from the amplifier to each extension point

Installing the system

Once you have run all of your extension points and installed your amplifier, simply connect the cable going to the amplifier to the RF2 output on the back of your Digibox and that’s it, you just need to tune your TV’s at the extension points and your done.

Using line powered amplifiers

If you are using a line powered amplifier, you will need to switch the power on to RF2 on your Digibox.

Press services
Press 4
On the handset type ‘0’ ‘1’ then ‘Select’
This will take you into an installer menu.
Press 4
Scroll down to second outlet supply and switch to ‘ON’
Scroll down to ‘Save New Settings’ and press ‘Select’
The LED on the amplifier should now come on.