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TEST REPORT on the Internet
96
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 12-01/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
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English
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1201/
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Satellite Distribution System
Satellite TV is so easily
accessible today that more
and more often you have
not just one receiver in the
living room but two or more
of them located in different
rooms of your apartment or
house. Today’s higher class
PVR receivers have usually
two satellite tuners and to
take full advantage of this
feature, you should connect
two independent coax cables
to them. How many of us
were so clever 10 years ago
or earlier to foresee the need
for that many cables?
To solve this kind of prob-
lems as well as to keep the
cabling as simple as pos-
sible, a solution called SCR
can be used. SCR stands
for Satellite-Channel-Router
and this is a European indus-
try standard for distributing
satellite signals over a sin-
gle coaxial cable - CENELEC
EN50494. SPAUN use their
own trademark UNiSEqC to
mark their products dedicat-
ed for this solution. We asked
SPAUN to send us samples
of their UNiSEqC products
so that we could test them
and inform our readers what
they should expect when ap-
plying them.
As usually, SPAUN had
been very responsive and
we received their products
very soon. It was the SUS
5581/33 NF cascadable SCR
Multiswitch and a number
of wall sockets dedicated
for the system. The sock-
ets were of three different
types: UNiSocket 310, 314
and 318.
Let us first describe the
heart of the system – SCR
multiswitch. SUS 5581/33
NF accepts either LNB Quat-
tro or LNB Quad signals plus
a signal from a terrestrial
antenna. You can configure
the multiswitch to generate
a SCR signal either on one
output or on three outputs.
If you choose one output,
you use only one coaxial
cable on which you can
hook up as many as eight
UNiSockets. The system
with three outputs lets you
connect up to three sockets
on each of the three coax
cables. So, in the first con-
figuration you can connect
8 independent receivers and
in the second configuration
– 9 receivers.
You must though keep in
mind that all receivers used
in this system must be com-
patible with SCR technology.
If SCR is not clearly stated
in the receiver specification,
check if EN 50494 standard
is mentioned or a term “uni-
cable” (another trademark
for a SCR solution). If you
can put your hands on the
receiver in question, enter its
installation menu and check
if you can set its LNB to
“SCR” “UNiSEqC” or “Unica-
ble” type. The menu should
also offer you the possibility
to program the SCR frequen-
cies or to detect them auto-
matically.
During the system con-
figuration, we need to assign
a unique SCR frequency to
each receiver. Two receiv-
ers can not operate on the
same frequency. When using
SUS 5581/33 NF in one out-
put configuration, the avail-
able frequencies are: 1068,