Tidy up satellite dish cabling

[John534]

I have had sky q installed happily for some years now and can see the two cables that run to the sky q box from the dish.

There is a third cable from the dish that runs down another part of the roof duck under the gutter and reappears at a satellite coax socket in a bedroom. 

I want to remove the coax socket as it is no longer used. I have a Sky Q mini box in that room. 

Can I just cut it on the outside at the guttering and the take out the coax box in the bedroom and make good or dues it need to be disconnected at the dish. 

i don't really want to pay for an engineer to come and disconnect at the dush if I don't have to.

Thanks in advance.

[TimmyBGood · Accepted solution]

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@John534 wrote:

There is a third cable from the dish that runs down another part of the roof duck under the gutter and reappears at a satellite coax socket in a bedroom. 

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With a standard Q LNB that cable won't actually be connected: installers typically tape/tie them to the dish arm because the LNB only has a single pair of terminals.  The cable will only be screwed to the LNB if that's a rarer 'Q hybrid' model capable of Freesat signal carriage.

[bob1234]

@John534Assuming the Sky installer provided a standard Q LNB it will only have two outputs both needed for Q so the other cable will have been disconnected UNLESS they provided a hybrid LNB so you could continue to use a freesat box.

If it is the first case you can just cut it away as it will be an unused cable.

[John534]

Thanks for the quick feedback. 

It looks like I have the 6 output hybrid one and there are definatley 3 cables attached to the lnb.

Could I just cut it off and maybe protect the cut end with insulation tape.  I can tuck it up in the roof where it will stay dry. 

[John534]

Thanks for the quick feedback. 

It looks like I have the 6 output hybrid one and there are definatley 3 cables attached to the lnb.

Could I just cut it off and maybe protect the cut end with insulation tape.  I can tuck it up in the roof where it will stay dry. 

[bob1234]

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@John534 wrote:

Thanks for the quick feedback. 

It looks like I have the 6 output hybrid one and there are definatley 3 cables attached to the lnb.

Could I just cut it off and maybe protect the cut end with insulation tape.  I can tuck it up in the roof where it will stay dry. 

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@John534I don't know the circuitry of the LNB and whether shorting it out when you cut it will do any harm, many people change the plugs and I have not heard of it causing any problems, but if you do when you insulate the end make sure the braid is not in contact with the inner conductor.

[John534]

For the record I have solved the problem thanks to the support from the two contributors above.

For safety's sake I detached the power cable to my Sky Q box and disconnected the satellite feeds from it. I then Then  disconnected the third feed from the socket, attached an f socket to the end of  the cable and then added a terminator via a male to male adapter. 

Pulled the now disconnected cable down to the eaves, wrapped the f plug and terminator in electrical insulation tape and tidied the spare length into a coil, and hid it in the roof void. 

Re-attached the twin feed to the Sky Q box and plugged in the power. All looks good. 

Thanks for the help folks. @bob1234 @TimmyBGood