Satellite Dish Alignment for HD Direct TV

We just got Direct TV today with the HD dish on a tripod. We will be moving in a couple of weeks to a remote campground for 6 months. According to the technician who did our installation, I will need to call Direct TV back out to 'align' the dish. What do people do who are moving around all the time?

I'm pretty new to this satellite tv stuff and haven't a clue. Ebay has all kind of devices to supposedly align the dish. Any recommendations on what to use?

Diana

Do you have a compass? I get on dishpointer.com and put in the city or zip code and it will give you the direction, elevation and tilt for where you will be. I alway set my dish with the elevation and tilt before I get where i'm going, so all I do is level the tripod and then use the compass to get direction and turn the dish till I get the signal. I never heard of a technician having to come out and do the set up. IMO the direction finders are a waist of money.
Good luck.
Bill

bsummit said:

Do you have a compass? I get on dishpointer.com and put in the city or zip code and it will give you the direction, elevation and tilt for where you will be. I alway set my dish with the elevation and tilt before I get where i'm going, so all I do is level the tripod and then use the compass to get direction and turn the dish till I get the signal. I never heard of a technician having to come out and do the set up. IMO the direction finders are a waist of money.
Good luck.
Bill

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Some techy don't know his job...or is spouting the company line. While it is or can be a pain in the keister to set one of these up...you may need help...but, even *I* don't need tech support.

I think I'd do some dry runs before I had to do it for real...and if there are other dishes around, you can usually set yours up just by looking at the other guy.

Lefty "I'm so good at this...that I only use automatic dishes" Frizzell
Grand Poobah of the Lodge of the "Where's that d*mned bird at now."

I agree with all the others.................a tech is absolutely not needed. You can get the settings by entering the zip code into the setup menu on your remote. After that a compass is the only thing needed. It generally only takes minutes of fiddling to get the signal (unless you have an obstacle in the way like a tree). One thing that will make it even quicker and easier is get a signal meter. Dont buy the expensive winegards.............you can get a cheap one on ebay for $5 to $10 and they work great.

vangoes said:

I agree with all the others.................a tech is absolutely not needed. You can get the settings by entering the zip code into the setup menu on your remote. After that a compass is the only thing needed. It generally only takes minutes of fiddling to get the signal (unless you have an obstacle in the way like a tree). One thing that will make it even quicker and easier is get a signal meter. Dont buy the expensive winegards.............you can get a cheap one on ebay for $5 to $10 and they work great.

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There was a guy at my campground in Croton-on-Hudson...that would pick up the dish and point it by hand just to make sure you could get a signal before you went for broke. Surprised the heck out of me...I've been around satellite for a lot of years and had never seen it done that way.

Impressed me.

Silverfox, I have set up our HDTV with Direct-Tv all over the lower 48.. The most important thing you must do is get the Tri-Pod level, then hook up you RG-6 cable, turn on the Tv and when it boots up go to menue on the Direct remote. Once your there scroll to parental, fav 's & set up and then scroll to System Setup. Then just follow the prompts. It will give you elevation and tilt, when you have this go back to the dish and make sure you have a open view to the Southern sky, then set elevation and tilt and with the compass get to the Southern Sky. Then have DW go and watch the signal strength and let you know when you get the strongest signal then lock it down. You will get this by moving the dish from left to right very slowly. The problems with Signal finders they will pick up an Satellite, but you will want to hit the Direct-Tv satelite. I also have a Birdog and do use it sometimes just to fine tune the HD channels. The key to Satelite set up is one work "PATIENCE". If you don't have a Compass and have a GM Truck you can use the Truck to find the South. As for calling the Direct Tech they will charge unless you have a problem with the system. We do have the service that Direct-Tv has, its so much a month and I don't know what they charge but it has come in handy. DW takes care of all that stuff. Good Luck, nothing better than HD, once you get it you want go back. GBY....

thanks

Thanks for all the help. I'll let you know how it goes in two weeks when we have to move it.

Diana

Delaine and Lindy said:

Silverfox, I have set up our HDTV with Direct-Tv all over the lower 48.. The most important thing you must do is get the Tri-Pod level, then hook up you RG-6 cable, turn on the Tv and when it boots up go to menue on the Direct remote. Once your there scroll to parental, fav 's & set up and then scroll to System Setup. Then just follow the prompts. It will give you elevation and tilt, when you have this go back to the dish and make sure you have a open view to the Southern sky, then set elevation and tilt and with the compass get to the Southern Sky. Then have DW go and watch the signal strength and let you know when you get the strongest signal then lock it down. You will get this by moving the dish from left to right very slowly. The problems with Signal finders they will pick up an Satellite, but you will want to hit the Direct-Tv satelite. I also have a Birdog and do use it sometimes just to fine tune the HD channels. The key to Satelite set up is one work "PATIENCE". If you don't have a Compass and have a GM Truck you can use the Truck to find the South. As for calling the Direct Tech they will charge unless you have a problem with the system. We do have the service that Direct-Tv has, its so much a month and I don't know what they charge but it has come in handy. DW takes care of all that stuff. Good Luck, nothing better than HD, once you get it you want go back. GBY....

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Wow... After reading this post I felt I had a new lease on life and went out to try and set up my Direct TV Dish again. I'm sorry to say, I've come up with the same conclustion. It ain't a workin... I have an '09 3400RL and have attempted numerous times to zero in the dish with "0" signal strength. I'm beginning to think something isn't hooked up correctly. I've got 4 satelite jacks in the service port/basement outside along with a cable jack. I have 1 cable and 1 satelite jack behind the tv in the living room and the same in the bedroom. I've tried to hook the cable to all 4 satelite jacks...i've even tried to attach the cable to the cable jack and swap cables to line everything up behind the tv. I don't get it... I'm on the road a lot more than I'd like to admit and am tired of not having my channels. ...what to do???

go directly to the tv first and see if you get a signal you very well could have bad wiring

As stated before the important first step is to make sure the tripod is level!!!!!! Then you can use the settings you get from the setup menu as far as tilt and skew. Probably don't need skew with direct tv asn there's only one sattelite. Then turn the dish till you get a signal. The wife and I use our cell phones on speaker to notify each other on the status of the signal as I'm turning it.

My two cents

Okay, after reading all the posts I am going to add my two cents. I was having one heck a problem setting this satellite dish up for direct TV when I first got it. I discovered that I was holding the compass to close to the dish and it was skewing it. I also have a handheld GPS that is mean't for hiking and I discovered that the electronic compass on it is more accurate and I now use it all the time. I must admit also that just plain doing it four or five times you start to get a feel for it. The first thing to check is that you have the direct TV logo on the screen. This lets you know that the satellite dish is actually hooked up to the receiver properly. From that point you are ready to go. Practice at home with a clear southern sky and you will begin to get it. I use a signal meter also. It does help. I have shocked myself several times by setting the dish level and setting tilt and just turning it slowly into the southern sky and hit the sweet spot without a meter or anything. Practice begins to make perfect.

The simplest way is to do what I did. After spending 3 hours trying the get a signal I bought an automatic one. Now I just turn it on, wait a miniute and wham I have the signal. All you need it a clear sky. The down side is, don't park under trees.

My nickels worth. After viewing this forum for a few years I have come to the conclusion that at least 75% of the RV's purchased has a cable system that is screwed up or has shorts in the cables. First thing is to make sure every thing is plumbed right and has no bad cables. Now to the tri-pod. Make sure it is LEVEL. I repeat LEVEL. Get your north-south direction as close as you can but does not have to be perfect. Set your azimuth on the dish. This should be close as possible. Now listen for a tone on your receiver. Turn the dish until you hear a good tone. The reason why you don't need to make sure you are absolutely perfect with the north-south is because turning the dish makes up for the correction. Tweak the azimuth if you have too. I have set mine up dozens of times this way and have got 90 plus readings many times just by guessing and no added adjustments. If it takes me more than 2 minutes to set up I start looking for other problems in the system.

I see you are in texas. Below info will help you. You can go to directv site and dig around and you can find the page that will tell you the settings for your dish before you go to any camp grd. We travel around to the same places a lot going to mcneese state football games. Below might help you. Good luck. Easiest is to look at the dishes as you drive in the camp grd and see which way is really southwest. Do not adjust your dish until you set it up and aim free had for a minute or so. Normally if you move only a few hundred miles, you will still be able to hit the sat. Without moving your dish. Good luck.

Alexandria, la. 71301 52.5 191.8
austin, tx. 78701 54.6 183
baton rouge 70809 53.1 96.7
baytown, tx. 77521 54.71 86.6
beaumont, tx. 77708 54.11 89.1
canton, tx. 75103 51.9 184.1
chicago 60675 39.8 199.6
conway, ar. 72027 48 190
dallas, tx. 75201 51.7 181.4
deridder 70634 53.2 190.5
eunice 70535 53.3 193.2
galveston, tx. 77550 55.2 189.1
hammond 70403 52.7 197.8
houston(downtn) 77001 54.8 191.2
houston(swest)77099 55.0 185.4
humble, tx. 77396 54.6 186
huntsville, tx. 77341 53.8 190.5
irving, tx.75062 51.6 181
jasper, tx. 75951 53.2 189
katy, tx. 77450 54.9 185.1
lafayette 70508 53.6 194.1
lake charles 70601 53.7 190.9
los angeles 90002 46.5 136.6
monroe, la. 71201 511 92.9
nacogdoches, tx. 75964 52.9 191.9
natchez, ms 39120 51.9 195.6
natchitoches, la. 71457 52.1 190.4
new orleans 70112 53.1 198.8
new york 10001 35.5 231.7
pasadena, tx.77505 54.9 186.3
plano, tx. 75023 51.3 181.4
san antonio, tx. 78209 55.6 177.8
san marcos, tx. 78666 55.1 182.7
shreveport 71106 51.6 189
spring, tx. 77388 54.5 185.6
thibodaux, la. 70310 53.5 200
toledo bend sp 71486 52.4 189.4
ville platte, la. 70586 53 193.4
vinton, la (nibletts) 70668 54 190.2
westlake, 70669 53.8 190.7

Actually I checked out the website that Bill posted. http://www.dishpointer.com/. I like this web site. I went to the map put in the address where the Rally was located and then worked it down close to the site I am going to stay and there is my numbers. Cool web site.

Thanks Bill.. I have that URL saved and will use it when I move after the Rally.

BC

I use a VuCube which is fairly easy to set out and find the satellite with the remote. It beats setting out a tri-pod, etc.

nemo45 said:

As stated before the important first step is to make sure the tripod is level!!!!!! Then you can use the settings you get from the setup menu as far as tilt and skew. Probably don't need skew with direct tv asn there's only one sattelite. Then turn the dish till you get a signal. The wife and I use our cell phones on speaker to notify each other on the status of the signal as I'm turning it.

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Incorrect. DirecTV has multiple satellites and skew is important if you are using any of the newer oval dishes. The old round dish is the only one where skew does not matter since it does only pick up one satellite. My regular oval picks up three satellites and my HD dish picks up five.

As someone mentioned earlier, I use dishpointer.com also. Just put in the campsite address and select the satellites you want and it gives you all the info you need to align your dish without having to change your receiver setup every time. My receiver always stays set for my home address. In addition, if you go to the system setup on your receiver and select the option that has the sound for the meter strength you can stand outside alone and align your dish just by listening to the clicks. Simply turn up the volume so you can hear it outside or open a window. When you hit the signal, they start speeding up. Just slowly turn the dish until it starts to slow down and then backup until the clicks are the fastest again. Really very simple.

When I first had trouble I ran a wire in the window and right to the box. My problem was in the wall and we had to run a new wire. Not easy. LEVEL THE TRI POD POLE.
This is the most important thing I think. Good Luck

If you have an automatic Motosat 5LNB for HD DirectTV mounted on your roof, you need to update the software every 6 months or so, or your satellite will spin for a half hour with no lock on. First step is to go on Motosats website, motosat.com and check to see if you have the latest version which is 38.8 as of now. Unfortunately, these turkeys don't send out an automatic email everytime they update the satellites, so beware and stay alert for the latest version. For a price, they will send u a small device with the new s/w and you can load it directly to your unit, then download it to your computer from their website every time they have an update. All for a cost of course.