Cable TV / HDTV Antenna Question.

[shilala]

Thanks for the legwork, Adam.
I can make this thing go one way or another. It'll be nice if I can do it on one wire, at least at some level, but we'll see.
If worse comes to worse I'll have to run to the basement and flip a couple switches once or twice a year. I think I can live with that.

[Savor the Stick]

Originally Posted by shilala

Here's what I have going on...
I have regular cable with a dvr at the living room. I then serve out just the basic cable to the rest of the tv's in the house which is more than enough. The rest of the tv's don't get any HD stations though. That's not a problem, really, but the story gets deeper...

I have an HDTV antenna that I use specifically to get local HD Stations from Youngstown, OH so we can watch the Steelers when they are out of market (we're in Browns territory here).
That antenna has a little gain amp right at the tv. In order to split that signal, I need another pre-amp, which I'm buying today. It's right here. I'll do away with the little preamp at my tv or give it to my father-in-law who needs it for his new antenna.

What I need now is a box that will take the input from the cable and antenna, do whatever it does with it, then give me a way to output it to my system.

All this will happen in a box mounted in my basement. There's power there and I have dedicated cables run to every device. They're all marked and ready to go. I have to pull some cable to the antenna and some more stuff to the ground floor, but I have the cable and tools and everything I need for that.
I just need to know what to use to mix these two inputs into one output.

Thanks, guys!!!
Scott

Originally Posted by shilala

I agree, Browns territory, ugh. I'm not allowed to move though, Weeze won't let me.

I think I figured it out. Some guys say you can just flip over a splitter and combine the two signals. They tend to overlap and cause problems, but sometimes it works.
I had to get DC voltage/IR passing splitter/combiners because normal splitter/combiners block the dc voltage that I'm putting in on purpose to amplify my antenna signal.
In case the splitter/combiner option doesn't work, I got a couple simple coax A/B switches.
I chose this pre-amp because it had a much higher gain for just a few more bucks.

Originally Posted by T.G

Scott,

The device you are looking for is a multiplexer. You would want to get one where it has the ability to reassign one of the inputs to a higher band so they don't stomp all over each other (this will change the channel numbers of one of the inputs).

Unfortunately, good ones ain't cheap.

Originally Posted by T.G

Scott, my apologies, looks like I sent you on a chase for something that really only exists at the station level. I just talked to a friend from back in the production days and it seems that in my head I had combined the satellite OTA diplexers with the programmable RF headend signal combiners which can be used to shoot video/audio feeds down open frequencies on a line. He said the equipment for reassigning as many channel frequencies as you are looking at trying isn't financially practical for someone to do at home.

My head hurts----- it's too early in the morning here in California for that kind of thinking.