any direct tv experts out there?

[AnnMorin]

We have direct tv (satalite dish duel line) in our home and basic cable. We have three recievers with the dish set up one in the child's br, our br and family room. We have an additional set in the basement playroom but only the basic cable runs to it. Is there a way to have the direct tv in the basement when kids are playing without an additional reciever? I was going to bounce it off of the child br or the family room but don't know how. I hate to buy another reciever when they don't go down there hardly at all.

 

[Tony-NJ]

will need another receiver.

 

[Mskanga]

No, you need another receiver for every TV. That's the pain with satelite. I have a collection of receivers downstairs, I have two C-band satelite receivers, one dishnetwork, one direct TV from FIL somewhere , and another one from Starband for my satelite internet. None of them are working now since cable internet and TV are cheaper and we can get all TV's hooked up, but if you look at my house it looks like NASA, two dishes on the roof and the big c-band in the backyard, none of them in use now. LOL.

 

[pumba]

but sometimes at best buy they have good sales on the extra receivers......

 

[AnnMorin]

I just took the child's reciever down to the playroom. Told them f they want to have it down there we can move it down there when they play and then put it back in the bedroom when they are done, only took about a min. to do. I will watch for sales at best buy though and pick up one more reciever.

 

[Karista]

Not sure who your provider is, but our DirecTV is through a company called Pegasus. I called them with a similar question earlier this summer and they have a "customer loyalty program". For $19.95 they shipped me a new receiver AND had someone come out and install it. Of course, now I have to pay an extra $5 per month but having the extra t.v. in the basement is well worth it to me.

 

[ToyStory Fan]

You DO NOT need another reciever IF you are able to do this:

Is it a question of them using one tv or another, or will both tvs need to show independent channels?

If the answer is that they would only be watchnig one tv or the other then you can set it up.

What you need to do is take the line out from the DTV box that goes "TO TV", and plug that into a 2 way coax splitter (like $2 from Home Depot or Radio Shack). What this will do is give you 2 outputs of the exact same channel from that DTV box. You connect one to the TV where the DTV box is located and then connect the other to the TV in the "playroom". Obviously this becomes a problem to route wires every which way, but there are different approaches for that too.

This gives you some flexibility in the sense that the palyroom TV and one other will unfortunately always be on the same channel, but it allows you to expand your DTV programming to another tv. The other thing you need is an IR repeater, or one of the RF remote controls that works through walls.

 

[RUDisney]

Why would you need another receiver? When it was just me and DH, we pretty much watched the same thing all the time anyway, so we had one receiver hooked up in our living room, but it was split to all of the TVs in our house. There were 4 TVs for the 2 of us. When the kids moved in, we still had the same arrangement, but we added 2 more TVs. The problem started when the only channels ever on were Nick, Disney, and Cartoon Network. I can only handle so many animated shows per day. What we did have, was a radio frequency (RF) remote that could change the channel in any room of the house on the receiver.

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to split the signal in the kids' room to the basement. The same show would be on both TVs and you wouldn't have any additional cost. The only thing you might want to do is get one of those RF converters for their receiver so they can change the channel in the basement from the receiver that is upstairs.

 

[Mskanga]

That's the reason why I switched from satelite back to cable, besides that cable internet finally came to my area , I added the fact that I could watch the local channels, hook up all tv's without running into more expenses for more receivers , AND it was also cheaper fos us this way. Now everyone is hooked up , all computers are hooked up , everyone can watch what they like instead of the same channel , and it cost 45% less than it did with satelite. I don't miss satelite at all.

 

[AnnMorin]

Because DH is a massive football fan- the whole reason we have satalite is for the NFL sunday ticket.... we do have cable internet, hense why we have basic cable. I may just call pegasus to check on that extra reciever, too hard to run wires from child's room to playroom , kids room is on second floor. For now I will just bring the reciever up and down.