Request help with a unique multiple dish setup

[Sanjeevnuts]

Please advise how I can set up my cables. Here's the situation:

- 2 dishes on one side of the house, connected by a diseqc switch and a single cable (from diseqc switch output port) coming to my living room - Call it cable 1
- 1 dish on another side of the house, cable coming directly to my living room - call it cable 2.

Presently I switch off receiver and manually connect/disconnect cable 1 or cable2 to it depending on what I want to watch.
How can I keep them all connected? Obviously a second diseqc in my living room connecting these 2 is not going to work and an A-B slide switch is probably a bad idea because you are not supposed to connect/disconnect to a diseqc switch while the receiver is powered on.

One solution would be to rig a new cable from the third dish to the existing diseqc switch (and remove the direct line from the third dish to the living room).
Is there another solution?

[Nostradamus]

not really but I suppose there is a reason why the dishes are that far apart.

one other option is to remove the diseqc from the one dish and replace it with a 22Khz switch and then you can put your diseqc in living room and hook your cables that way. It would just mean reconfiguring your sat settings in your receiver a bit

[Terryl]

Depending on the type of LNB's, you could put the 22 kHz switch at the receiver and connect cables 1 and 2, the use 22 kHz off for the dish with the Diseqc switch, and 22 kHz on for the one without the diseqc switch.

[satchick]

You can use an Ecoda brand 22K switch in the living room, the Ecoda switches will pass Diseqc commands just fine.

[Sanjeevnuts]

Love you guys, solutions in minutes!

So I have 2 options:
Option 1 : Replace diseq (presently connected to 2 dishes) on roof with 22KHZ switch and bring diseqc to living room, connect diseqc to cable 1 and cable 2 in living room.
Option 2: Leave diseqc on roof and use a 22KHZ switch in living room to switch between cable 1 and cable 2

Is one option preferable over the other? I must say my signal from the 2 dishes (with diseqc) is quite weak due to trees
And this is the answer to the mystery for the 3rd dish placement which would not get any signal if placed with the other two but now has the strongest signal.

Coming back to my question, which of the two options is preferable if I want to preserve what little signal I have?

[Terryl]

You could go with the 22 kHz switch inside as it will save a trip up on the roof.

One thing that can help compensate for a weak signal is to use bigger dishes, if you have 18" dishes now, then go with 39", the extra gain on the bigger dish can help with a poor signal.

Also using better coax can help, if you have the single shield RG-6 then go with the RG-6 quad, and be sure it has the pure copper center conductor.