MoCA setup to share both TV and DATA in the UK, some advice needed please.

[DeadMode]

Hi all,

I'm moving house to a rental property very soon and I already have access to the house. I'd normally run network cables, drill through walls as and where necessary but I can't do that here.

So I'm going to use MoCA. The first aim is to simply put a new AP in the loft to provide WiFi for upstairs. There is an existing coax distribution which is in the loft. TV aerial comes in, and goes into an old 3 way booster, to 3 different rooms in the house.

I have a couple of the GoCoax adapters, and I've linked these between the loft and what will be my office, and getting a decent speed - not quite 2.5Gb, but about two thirds of that which is fine for my needs. This is isolated from any TV side of things.

What I would like to do though is have data in the loft still (for the AP), but combine the TV aerial feed & MoCA signal down the coax to both the office and living room. I have a Homerun twin tuner which I use with Plex, so I'd like to send a TV feed to that in the Office, then it's just on the network. If possible, I'd like to send TV + Network to the living room as well. I could just stick with data and watch TV via plex, but it's not as good as having the aerial feed going into the TV's own tuner.

So I've done the diagram below to describe the setup, but I'm a little lost on how I send MoCA + TV down the coax to both rooms, assuming that is possible. Not sure what splitters / adapters I would need.

I can see that you can get these StarMax MoCA adapters that have TV, MoCA and LAN on them, so I'd assume you'd have these in the rooms like the office / living room, and it would do the splitting for you. As mentioned, just not sure how to combine and distribute from the loft to achieve this. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi all,

I'm moving house to a rental property very soon and I already have access to the house. I'd normally run network cables, drill through walls as and where necessary but I can't do that here.

So I'm going to use MoCA. The first aim is to simply put a new AP in the loft to provide WiFi for upstairs. There is an existing coax distribution which is in the loft. TV aerial comes in, and goes into an old 3 way booster, to 3 different rooms in the house.

I have a couple of the GoCoax adapters, and I've linked these between the loft and what will be my office, and getting a decent speed - not quite 2.5Gb, but about two thirds of that which is fine for my needs. This is isolated from any TV side of things.

What I would like to do though is have data in the loft still (for the AP), but combine the TV aerial feed & MoCA signal down the coax to both the office and living room. I have a Homerun twin tuner which I use with Plex, so I'd like to send a TV feed to that in the Office, then it's just on the network. If possible, I'd like to send TV + Network to the living room as well. I could just stick with data and watch TV via plex, but it's not as good as having the aerial feed going into the TV's own tuner.

So I've done the diagram below to describe the setup, but I'm a little lost on how I send MoCA + TV down the coax to both rooms, assuming that is possible. Not sure what splitters / adapters I would need.

I can see that you can get these StarMax MoCA adapters that have TV, MoCA and LAN on them, so I'd assume you'd have these in the rooms like the office / living room, and it would do the splitting for you. As mentioned, just not sure how to combine and distribute from the loft to achieve this. Any advice would be appreciated.

I use a MOCA2.5 adapter paired with a Holland DPD2 2-way diplexer (low insertion loss, MoCA compatible 2-way splitter) to allow tapping into MoCA+Amped OTA coax around the house (US Region).

Diplexer coax connections:
IN/OUT port connects to MoCA+Amped OTA (house coax wall plate)
SAT port connects to MoCA adapter (to Ethernet)
VHF/UHF connects to TV antennas/tuners (will not connect a MoCA adapter)
Maximum of 16 MoCA adapters on one network.

MoCA2.5 adapters that have a 2.5GbE port seem to not include an internal 2-way coax splitter... this is an advantage, imo, that permits using your own select 2-way splitter such as the Holland DPD2 2-way diplexer suggested here.

My network notes and layout. I have one HDHomeRun Dual TV tuner near the garage attic TV antennas (best antenna signal and wired to garage node/AP LAN1-4 port restricted to Guest VLAN for Internet and peer access only)... and another in the house at the living room media center wired to unrestricted main LAN. (The Guest VLAN is used by all mobile devices that do not need main LAN access, including my own... Guest users get their own TV tuner hardware for the VLAN segmentation.)

My impression (no measurements) is that the MoCA+Amped OTA coax network does not require amplification... the MoCA adapters handle this. The OTA TV antenna signal likely deserves preamplification at the mast and then maybe distribution amplification before connecting to the MoCA+Amped OTA coax network.

My cable ISP coax is kept separate from the MoCA+Amped OTA coax, so a POE/MoCA filter is not required at the ISP demarc (and also not at the TV antennas).

OE

 

[degrub]

You want MOCA modems with the built in diplexor for TV signals if you run MOCA and TV signal on the same coax. i would not use a splitter. The best layout is if you can put your HD-Homerun on a direct cable from the antenna ( no splitters, POE filter needed ) . Otherwise, you will likely need a low noise 15 dB amp on the downlead from the antenna. You will loose about 3.5 dB for every insertion connection on the TV frequencies. The diplexor in the moca modem will not incur the signal loss, just the connection.

MOCA requires 75 Ohm impedance. Make sure the cable is 75 Ohm. You will have to replace the existing amplified splitter if moca signals are to be passed through it as it will filter them out. Best to put the AMP at the antenna if one is needed.

ChannelMaster , in the US, makes a good low noise amp that also filters LTE cell phone signal. Here is the one i use

Amplify Adjustable Gain Preamplifier

Official Channel Master Website - Learn more about the Channel Master Amplify (CM-7777HD) and buy direct from the manufacturer.

www.channelmaster.com

Since the existing tv setup had a 3 way amplified splitter, the amp will be required if you cannot put the HD Homerunn on the direct cable.

 

[DeadMode]

Thanks for the replies guys, plenty of food for thought there and a few devices I didn't even know existed. Perhaps the best bet is to have the Homerun in the loft coming off a switch that is also going to the AP. I guess that way, it stays pretty simple and I can just stick with sending data down the two coax runs to the Office and Living room.

There is a further slight complication in the loft in that I had to splice a power cable going to the loft light, so I could power the existing MoCA adapter and also a POE injector for the AP. I'm concerned that I don't want to put too much power draw on the cable I spliced, I'll have to have a look at the load from the HomeRun, a small switch, MoCA adapter + POE injector. I guess I could use a small POE switch and eliminate the injector!

 

[krkaufman]

Ditto what was posted to your reddit thread...

---

I can see that you can get these StarMax MoCA adapters that have TV, MoCA and LAN on them

Yes, such MoCA adapters use an internal diplexer (dual filters) to strategically route the signals where needed with less loss than using a passive coax split. In an OTA+MoCA setup, you can use antenna/satellite diplexers to achieve the same functional effect (if with a bit of additional clutter) if using MoCA adapters lacking the RF pass-through port's built-in diplexer:

• MoCA+OTA endpoint alternatives

Your diagram would work as shown, presuming you were using MoCA adapters w/ RF pass-through ports throughout (or with antenna/satellite diplexers employed). The only tweak might be to use two 70+ dB MoCA filters instead of the single MoCA filter upstream of the 2-way, with a MoCA filter installed on the antenna side of each MoCA adapter in the loft to ensure no MoCA signals hit either the antenna or the other MoCA segment -- and making the scheme useful whether you use a 2-way booster or a passive 2-way splitter, and even if you don't have a MoCA-optimized splitter.

But there are other ways to try it as well, such as installing a single loft MoCA adapter upstream of the 2-way splitter, creating a single 3-node MoCA network with the Office and Living Room adapters communicating via port hopping between outputs of the 2-way splitter -- necessitating the splitter be one optimized for MoCA. Or just using a 3-way splitter rather than 2-way, with one output feeding a loft MoCA adapter.

 

[degrub]

Thanks for the replies guys, plenty of food for thought there and a few devices I didn't even know existed. Perhaps the best bet is to have the Homerun in the loft coming off a switch that is also going to the AP. I guess that way, it stays pretty simple and I can just stick with sending data down the two coax runs to the Office and Living room.

There is a further slight complication in the loft in that I had to splice a power cable going to the loft light, so I could power the existing MoCA adapter and also a POE injector for the AP. I'm concerned that I don't want to put too much power draw on the cable I spliced, I'll have to have a look at the load from the HomeRun, a small switch, MoCA adapter + POE injector. I guess I could use a small POE switch and eliminate the injector!

i run both ways. i have an amplified TV signal running through a 2 way splitter - 1 branch to the HD Homerun, 1 branch to the pair of MOCA modems to an old TV in Living room. The MOCA ethernet goes to an AP in the room. No issues.

 

[krkaufman]

But there are other ways to try it as well, such as installing a single loft MoCA adapter upstream of the 2-way splitter, creating a single 3-node MoCA network with the Office and Living Room adapters communicating via port hopping between outputs of the 2-way splitter -- necessitating the splitter be one optimized for MoCA. Or just using a 3-way splitter rather than 2-way, with one output feeding a loft MoCA adapter.

Since the diagrams were needed in the reddit thread, might as well copy them here...



edit: p.s. Along w/ the caveat Re: the 3-way splitter approach...

This is effectively the same as your just prior diagram using two 2-way splitters, assuming an unbalanced 3-way splitter, though you'd want the HDHomeRun location fed via the lowest loss path. (i.e. flipping the Office and Loft MoCA adapter splitter connections in your diagram)