How to Link Multiple TV’s to a Single Cable Box

In this first article I’ll tell you how to run multiple TV’s from a single cable/satellite box. it is actually very simple and relatively low cost, assuming you already have purchased the TV’s that you want.

It is a common problem in flats, particularly leasholds, where there is no main tv aerial on the roof to allow cheap easy freeview. Adding extra cable boxes can get expensive on a monthly basis. I’ll write this guide with the intention that you only have the intention of adding one extra TV to your set up. Of course you can add as many as you like.

Female-Female Aerial Converter switch

Remote Control Infrared extender

Assuming you already have your cable box set up, the first thing to find is your TV Aerial Out socket. most should have them (if not don’t bother reading the rest of this article). then you want to run a standard TV aerial cable from this out socket into your additional television. to do this you will need to use the female-female aerial converter. This is because most aerial cables are likely to be male-male, as is the socket on the television (the reason that they are called male and female is fairly obvious if you look at the connection types)

Once this is complete you should be able to receive the digital signal from the box into your tv once you have tuned your tv to pick up the signal.

Receiving the signal is all very well and fine. The next problem though is how to use the remote. Boxes located metres away and in other rooms will not be able to receive the remote signal. This makes it a bit pointless. This is where the main expense comes in. You will need to purchase some sort of infrared remote extender for the remote. these usually consist of a receiver and sender. one is placed in the room you have the extra TV and the other is placed in the room where the cable box is located. Look for extenders that convert a signal into RF format and then back again into infrared. I can personally recommend the PowerMid XPM10 remote extender as one I use.

Voila You will now be able to run an additional TV from your single cable box. by the way if you wish to add more TV’s than just one you will need to purchase an aerial cable splitter and plug this into the TV aerial output of your cable box. then you just need to repeat the process above for every additional TV. There are a number of points to be wary of with this method though: multiple people watching multiple tv’s at the same time will cause arguments if the channel is constantly being switched