Coaxial Cable and Gateway

[gera]

Hello,

I have a TV with a Motorola cable box in a bedroom and it works fine but I decided to take the Motorola out and replace it with a Gateway portal that was in a different room. I connected the coaxial cables and the hdmi cables properly. The portal doesn't get a signal. I tested the portal and the tv in other rooms but this one won't work. Is it possible for a coaxial cable to carry a signal for a basic Motorola cable box but not a Gateway?

I can't change the cable because it was installed during a renovation and runs through the house rather than plugging into a wall outlet.

Suggestions for a fix?

[rstra · Accepted solution]

The Motorola box is outside of the moca network where the portal is connected. You can accomplish what you want to do, but the cables for the two rooms would need to be swapped. You would have to identify both cables and switch there connections, if the connections terminate in the box outside, you would need. Shaw tech to do this for you,

[mdk · Accepted solution]

The other end of the "bedroom" coaxial cable must currently be connected to a cable-splitter.

That splitter might be inside the Shaw "demarcation" box on the outside of your house, with one "split" running directly into your "bedroom", and the other "split" heading towards your Gateway PVR.

Where does the other end of the coaxial cable in your "other" room go?  Since it works when a Portal is connected in this room, that other end does NOT go into the Shaw "demarcation" box.  Instead, it must go into one of the outputs of a DIFFERENT splitter. Probably, the other output from this splitter goes into your Gateway PVR, and the "input" to this splitter comes from a coaxial-cable running back to the Shaw "demarcation" box.

So. the two outputs from this second splitter put the Gateway and the Portal on the same "side" of this splitter. Thus, the Gateway can communicate through this splitter to the Portal.

Three rewiring changes are possible:

1. Shaw, not you, will need to disconnect the "other" end of the "bedroom" coaxial cable from the splitter inside the "demarcation" box, and, somehow, reroute that coaxial-cable into one of the "outputs" of the second splitter. (You will have to change from a two-output splitter to a three-output splitter.)

2. If you don't need any TV in the other room, connect a brand-new coaxial cable to the wall-outlet in that other room, and run the cable to terminate it somewhere inside the bedroom. Connect the Portal to this newly-strung cable.  Leave the current wall-outlet as "unused".

3. If you want TV in that other room, run a brand-new cable from that second splitter all the way into a new wall-outlet in the bedroom. Connect the Portal to this new outlet, and leave the original wall-outlet as "unused".

The above will be a lot of physical work, no matter which one you choose.

Instead, can you put a computer/tablet with WiFi capability into the bedroom, and use Shaw On Demand, and/or the Global TV app (which offers streaming of 10 channels), into the bedroom, and make a WiFi connection to your Gateway?

[gera]

THANKS for this explanation! I will get a Shaw technician booked when they are able to visit again.

gera