There are a couple things to consider when setting up a dish. You should have already chosen a place that is free from obstacles and has a free line of sight. You'll need to point your dish in the general south direction, so keep that in mind when choosing a location. Once you've got your location picked out, install the dish mount to the surface (the manual will help you out there).
Once you've setup with actual dish, you now need to connect with cable. You should have already gotten an RG-6 cable. RG-59, which is more common, will work, but you will get a degraded signal after time, and depending on the length of your cable, you may not get a signal at all. Also, keep in mind, that the cable should be no more than 100 feet. You will need to find the best way to run the cable in the house.
Depending on how your house is setup, and where the dish is located, you have a couple options for pointing the dish. You can bring a small TV outside with the receiver and check the signal like that, you can have someone yell from inside the house (this is complicated, and can take a while), or possibly the easiest way, is to use a cell phone and talk to someone inside the house. Once you've got that figured out, you need to start the actual pointing of the dish. In your manual you can find the right elevation (this is the vertical adjustment) and azimuth for your location. For DirecTV, you can find this, by entering your ZIP code in the menu.
The actual only important one is the elevation. You will notice the elevation reading on the dish base. You should set this a few degrees lower than what is in the manual. Now using a compass, point the dish in the general south direction. Slowly move the dish from left to right along the southern horizon. If you don't get any signal, increase the elevation by 1 or 2 degrees. If you use this method properly, you should be able to point your dish in about 5 minutes. Don't forget to secure all bolts securely, once you've got it in the right position.
Keep in that that you don't need to have a 100% signal reading. Chances are you won't ever get 100%. Usually anything above 65% works, but keep in mind that the lower the signal, the more susceptible it is to interference such as snow or rain.
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by EveryName 
last modified: 2004-04-06 15:27:33 |
