DISH Network ViP 722 Configuration & Wiring Schema

Coming from the world of cable TV, one of my primary concerns was that I'd have to install a box into every room that wanted to view satellite television programming. With cable, you can simply plug a QAM-enabled television into the wall and you're good to go with SD and HD channels. My first thought was that satellite is going to potentially cost me a lot of money in order to get at least something into the other rooms in my home.

And then I was enlightened by the DISH Network installer who handled my install. You see, with the ViP 722 and some neat RF tricks, I could send two lines into my main theater room (the dish feed and my antenna feed) and backfeed the second tuner out of the room on the same Dish line. That backfeed line could then be split and fed to all of my rooms. What this meant was that I could watch HD content in my primary theater room as expected, but I could also pick any other TV in my home to watch standard definition courtesy of the second tuner. If I wanted to upgrade down the line I could just add additional boxes with HDTV, but this was a start.

Tech Note: Backfeeding the second tuner and splitting it throughout the house means that all the other TVs will show the same thing. You don't, as with cable service, get to tune different channels on each of the televisions. Still, most families don't watch more than two TVs at a time, so this presents a nice solution for those who aren't looking to fill their homes with additional satellite receivers right away.

We proceeded to wire up the dual tuner ViP 722 such that it could be used in dual mode and we could use the RF remote to tune in stations and use the discrete programming guide throughout the rest of the house. This was done simply by running an orange twin feeder of coax (3 GHz quad shield) where one side carried the antenna and the other handled the dish signal and backfeed. We placed the hardware into my rack system and the DISH installer hung the 1000.4 dish on my roof and configured it to received signal from the Eastern Arc of MPEG-4 satellites.

Things were looking up... literally.

If you've never wired up an antenna system or DISH receiver and satellite system, it's best to let their professional installers do it for you. It's not terribly expensive and it will save your hours of hassle. Doing it yourself involves a knowledge of splitters, combiners and often RF distribution that is quite often beyond the understanding of many consumers. In our case the backfeed system entailed the use of special diplexers to make it all work properly. If you're confused, move on - there's a lot to enjoy once you get past installation and DISH will gladly (and professionally) handle that part for you.