SatSig topic:

Install system choices

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Sep 28^th, 2012 at 6:27pm

Hi all, I’m trying to design an internet system around a Tooway package.

The house is in the Franche Comte region of France

Large rooms with 500mm thick stone walls
Dish position is 40 meters away from modem position.
Routers 10 -17 meters apart.

Is the Tooway dish, LNB, modem and supplied cable a good option or should I be looking at an independent dish with a better quality cable, LNB and modem?
The best routers I can find are Netgear , Buffalo, or linksys 802.11ac routers, and I guess I need one in each of the 4 rooms. Or should I just go with the Tooway routers?
To link all of this do I need a Tooway Pro package or can I achieve this with a standard home package?
The more I read the more options seem available and the more complicated it gets.
I am also in need of a satellite system for BskyB tv. Should I be looking at these systems as separate systems or is there a system that integrates the both under one umbrella?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks, Steve.

Oct 1^st, 2012 at 1:42pm

The standard kit is fine: well engineered and easy to install. The essential thing is a firm vertical mounting for the dish (easy for you with stone walls; tricky for me with"colombages").

A 40m run to the modem may be on the long side (ca 25m is fine for me): if the kit comes with that much it should work. If not ask your prospective supplier or move the modem (which should be no problem if you will need multiple wifi access points anyway).

An 802.11ac router seems over the top given the speeds you wii achieve: wireless n works fine for me throughout the house and outside (that's an advantage of flimsy walls). If you need repeaters, they can be done relatively easily using Internet-over-mains connections. But I suggest you start with one router and go from there: best bought in France if you want the power supply block to fit a French socket (eBay.fr is your friend, much cheaper than you will pay your Tooway supplier: I use Belkin - they offer a lifetime guarantee and honour it).

I don't see any point in the Pro option: it isn't going to make the maximum capacity any better, and the home packages are quite sufficient if properly set up.

For tv, you can in theory set up an additional satellite LNB off-axis on the Tooway dish to capture a Sky/freesat signal: in practice I found it excessively fiddly (but I already had a freesat dish set up: I was just trying to tidy things up). A professional installer, with proper meters to do the set up, could probably succeed. If you want to do it all yourself, I would go for separate dishes.

Oct 1^st, 2012 at 1:53pm

By way of afterthought, you perhaps haven't appreciated that the Tooway system uses a dedicated (and big and heavy) transmitter/receiver unit on the dish, which the dedicated Tooway dish is specifically built to accommodate
: it isn't just an LNB as on your sky system back home. Substituting another dish would not be at all straightforward, even if it were necessary which it isn't.

Oct 1^st, 2012 at 8:11pm

Good advice from Martyn94 ... just to add 2 things:
40 metres from the dish to modem will just work ... the modem will see a resistance of 3 ohms and it can't really be any more than that. In France, you should use 17VATc cable terminated in compression F types if at all possible.

I've tried the TV arm and, even using a pro meter, it's just not up to the job. Here in the Limousin, the Astra channels like BBC etc were OK but the Eurobird channels like Classic FM were a bit crap.

Oct 1^st, 2012 at 9:50pm

Quote:

Hi all, I’m trying to design an internet system around a Tooway package.

The Tooway installation manual will give you all the answers.

Buy any (cable) router in a local shop, connect it to the modem (don't use the setup cdrom) and just test the signal level in every room with a laptop, nobody can tell you upfront how a wifi signal travels in a house. If you use more than one router makes sure only one is dhcp enabled. Use a separate system (dish) for TV. The Tooway systems is a complete system, don't mess around with third party stuff.

For more info about a local network setup [broken link europe satellite ]

Oct 3^rd, 2012 at 2:34pm

I use a portable laptop with inbuilt WiFi to measure local wireless signals using inSSIDer software from

Best regards, Eric.

Oct 3^rd, 2012 at 2:52pm

Quote:

I use a portable laptop with inbuilt WiFi to measure local wireless signals using inSSIDer software from [broken link metageek ]
Best regards, Eric.

Another good one as long you don't loose it (the dongle)

Oct 3^rd, 2012 at 3:56pm

I think both WiFi analyser software systems can operate additionally with special USB WiFi spectrum analyser dongles.

Expensive, but these devices give proper spectrum analyser functions over either 2.4 or 2.4/5 GHz bands.

Note that some regular spectrum analysers used by VSAT engineers may already cover the band from DC to 2.1 GHz, so all you need in such cases is an antenna and knowledge of the frequencies involved.

Oct 3^rd, 2012 at 5:58pm

A big thank you to everyone who has answered my initial query.
I have made my decision to keep the Tooway and tv dishes separate and have identified all of the components needed to get the best possible reception. I will be using the linksys E2000 router on the 2.4GHz setting and linking several more in using different ip addresses so they don,t clash. The dish to modem will be cabled with Webro WF125 cable and the Ethernet cable will be CAT5e UTP solid core 350 MHz CMR rated.
As for the TV I will go for a 1.2m dish as a precaution, due to the recent satellite launch of Astra 2F. if it replaces Astra 1N then the BBC signal will be tighter on the UK and the result could be decent reception could be more difficult.
Anyway thanks again for all comments.