Question
I have Sky+ HD and a normal tv aerial. I want to pipe them both to another room, so that you can watch either Sky or normal TV. I’m thinking that this can only be done by a loft box, is that correct?
Submitted online by Brian
Our Answer
That’s not entirely correct. You can feed other TV sets from the Sky box, as follows:
- Connect the main TV aerial feed to the Sky box RF In socket
- Connect one end of an aerial extension lead to one of the Sky box RF Out sockets
- Connect the other end of the extension lead to the aerial socket on your second TV set
- Tune in the second TV to get the output of the Sky box (Help: Using the Sky RF Socket)
In this scenario, the TV aerial will “loop through” the Sky box, feeding the aerial to the second room, and the output of the Sky box will be sent to the second room
What can I watch in the second room?
In this setup, the second TV socket will just ‘see’ a connection to the roof aerial, as the aerial loops through the Sky box. This means that if you want to watch Freeview in the second room, then the second TV will be able to watch any of the available Freeview channels.
The Sky box, however, is only capable of outputting one channel at a time, so if you have the box tuned to Sky One, all connected TV sets tuning into the Sky box will all see Sky One.
If you wanted to be able to watch different Sky channels in two rooms at the same time, you would need Sky Multiroom
Multiple rooms?
You could use the method listed above to feed more than one room, although be aware that when you start to run lots of cables to multiple rooms, you start to get signal loss, and the output of a Sky box will struggle to feed lots of TV sets and long cable runs. The workaround is often to get a signal booster that has multiple outputs, one for each TV set. You’d connect the Input of the booster to the RF Out of the Sky box, then feed each room.
TV Aerial signal booster for distributing to six TV sets.
If you have lots of rooms to feed, then going back to the original question, yes, this is often done using a loft distribution system, partly for convenience, partly to do the distribution close to the TV aerial (preventing too much loss), and partly to reduce the amount of cabling running around skirting boards and under carpets
Handy links
- Looking for aerial extension kits or cables? See the range at Maplin: Maplin Aerial Cabling
- Sky in other rooms: Using the RF Out on a Sky Box