Help hooking DirecTV at new house

[YanksfanGA]

Hi all,

Recently moved to a house that the previous owner had DTV. At my previous house I had HD DVR with the slim dish...1 receiver. I'm pretty sure at the old house I just had one line running off the dish to the slim box near my TV.
I figured at the new house I'd just be able to hook the receiver up and be good to go since the previous owner has the slim dish on the roof. However, things never work out that easily!
Got cable internet hooked up and I'm not sure if the internet guy messed something up with the routing of the DTV cables.

I have narrowed down which cable runs to the room I want to have the DTV.
There is a 16 port multi switch under the deck. The receiver doesn't seem to be getting a signal from the dish.
I noticed there was one cable running into the 16 port swtich. I followed to see where that was going to and it was running into the cable box hooking to nothing!
I noticed there are two cables paired together running from the dish to a splitter mounted to the side of the house. It didn't seem like anything was attached to these.
Can someone give me a crash course on what I need to do!?

I tried to run a cable directly from one of the wires coming off the dish directly into the house to the slim box to the receiver and still not getting any signal!

Thanks for the help and sorry if this sounded really confusing!

(I can't call DTV to have them send someone out so please don't suggest that....I may just have to call an independent guy from Craigslist but I'm sure that will cost $100)

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys!
It sounds like there are two cables coming from the dish, which is a Slimline, yes? If so, it's not a swm type lnb, which you likely had at your previous house since you said there was one cable coming in from the dish. That means in order to make both tuners work, you need both lines connected. You should be getting a signal with only one cable, though. It sounds like the dish is out of alignment or the lnb isn't working correctly. First, make sure the mast is plumb. A post level works best for this. Let's assume the skew (tilt) is still correct. Using the menu in the dvr, find out the right compass direction to point the dish in. It may take some adjusting, but you should be able to get the 101 satellite to show some signal. Then check the other satellites. Signal strengths should be in the 90s if possible. Good luck and come back if you need more advice!

 

[Jimbo]

Before you go out and start moving the dish around, I would hook a pair of coax lines to the ones coming off the dish and run them into both Sat 1 and 2 and re run the Repeat Sat Set Up in the menus and see what it comes up with, make sure the correct dish is selected when doing this. then it will check for your signal.
BTW, you'll need BBC's for each tuner if this is the SL3/5 dish, if your not going to use the SWM set up.
That said, you should get a signal on the 101 Sat regardless.

 

[YanksfanGA]

A lot of this technical talk is foreign to me but I think I'm catching on!
My Slim dish at my old house was about 6 months old. There was one line coming from the dish into the house that ran into the box that plugged into the wall outlet and then the other line from the box ran to my receiver.
The previous owner at the new house also had this same box plugged into the electrical out at the wall. He left it behind when he left.
The dish on the roof looks just like the one at my old house. (I guess I could just take the dish from my old house! I was trying to avoid having to get on the roof of either house!).
What I could tell or see at the new house...one line ran down from the dish into the 16 port switch and one line ran off the switch into the basement to a 3 port splitter and 3 lines ran off the split to different rooms in the house. I'm just trying to get 1 room hooked up for Dtv and have taken the splitter inside the house out of the equation and I'm running the line coming into the house directly to the cable that goes to the room I want to get the Dtv working.

It seems currently 2 lines comes off the dish on the roof and run down the house and are split off and plugged into their own junction bolted to the side of the house.
I really don't think the dish needs to be moved or adjusted. The previous owner was using it.

The 16 port switch has numbers on the bottom of it...ports to plug into 101, 113 etc. Seems like the cable coming from the dish should be plugged into one of these. Then there are 3 "exit" ports on the top right of the 16 port switch and one of these should have the cable doing into the house plugged into it. Seems (from my looking online) there are 2 ports if you are doing to use a splitter inside the house or 1 port if you are going to run the feed directly to the box plugged into the wall.

All this stuff is confusing!

 

[YanksfanGA]

I spoke to the previous owner and he said the whole system was upgraded not long ago and they had 8 DVR receivers in the house!!! LOL
He said the reason they had the 16 SWM switch hooked up was b/c they had so many receivers they were losing signal strength on some of them.
Sounds like the multiple wires I see running down the roof may be old wires from an install of an old system and there is just one line running from the dish and it should have a SWM lmb. I just have to find that cable from the lmb and hopefully my problems will be solved!

 

[mdram]

doesnt there need to be power to the dish?

 

[YanksfanGA]

Isn't the power supplied by the small black box that plugs into the wall outlet?

 

[mdram]

it should be, and there should be something going from it to the multiswitch iirc, and a dedicated port on that

 

[YanksfanGA]

From what I'm understanding....the multiswitch was only used since the previous owners had so many receivers.
Since I'm only hooking up one receiver...I don't really need the switch....so if the dish has the newer SWM lnb....then I can just run the cable from the dish into the house to the box that plugs into the wall outlet and then the other side to the receiver. At least that is what I'm hoping!

 

[Jimbo]

From what I'm understanding....the multiswitch was only used since the previous owners had so many receivers.
Since I'm only hooking up one receiver...I don't really need the switch....so if the dish has the newer SWM lnb....then I can just run the cable from the dish into the house to the box that plugs into the wall outlet and then the other side to the receiver. At least that is what I'm hoping!

Sounds like you got the idea, the box that you "plug into the wall" is a Power Inserter (PI). this box provides power to the dish.
The older set ups sent power to the dish from the recvrs themselves.

 

[YanksfanGA]

I tried to work on the this last night but my ladder wasn't tall enough to get me up to the dish and the slope of the roof the ladder did get me to was too steep I'd roll right off!
I did notice there is a single lmb and the dish is a Slimline HD dish.
I have not been able to tell what line or lines are coming off the dish since I can't get close enuf to it to look.
So...I'm just gonna have to have a tech come out for $100 and have it make it right!

I think years ago (the house is 13 years old) there was an older non HD system with multiple wires coming off the dish and they were never removed from the roof line so when I look up at wires coming from the dish it looks like a mess!

I'll update what I've really got going on once I get it working.

 

[YanksfanGA]

Met a DirecTV guy at lunch.
He said I have the single lmb with 4 cables coming off it. He said I need to get a new single line lmb....
However...I told him the previous owners were using the dish (I think the Comcast cable guy cut dish lines and didn't tell me) and they were using the 16 swm switch. He looked at my receiver hook up and said the 21V PI I had from my new swm dish was not strong enough to power the 16 switch swm and I needed 29v. So luckily the previous owner left behind the 29v one. He ran 4 new lines from the junction on the side of the house to the 16 swm switch and we were back in business!

Thanks for all the help and thoughts.

 

[raoul5788]

:up