My Experiences hooking up new antenna

[tsbarker13]

I am relatively new to the DirecTV technicalities, so I thought I would relay my experiences in (successfully, I might add ) setting up a DirecTV 18-inch round antenna at my cabin over the weekend.

I have an H23-700 receiver that I use a home with a Slimline-5S. I ocassionally go to a weekend cabin, so I wanted to be able to take my box with me, so I got an 18-inch round DirectTV antenna that I installed at the cabin. I don't have a fancy "bird dog" satellite meter -- just a simple "Satellite Finder" meter. I pointed the satellite dish, peaking on what I thought was the 101W orbital slot.

The choices on the satellite set up was a little confusing. Picking the type dish was easy, as was that it was a dual tuner. But the choice of "SWM" or "multiswitch" was not. To me, the appropriate choice would be "none". Anyway, the default of SWM was wrong - wouldn't work, but the "multiswitch" choice did. On the DirecTV box, I was getting satellite transponder reception, BUT neither of the tuners would go to "signal acquired". I finally figured out that I must have been locked onto the 99W satellite, for after moving a bit, I was able to get the tuners to acquire, and to get programming working at the cabin.

And the main thing (which I still don't understand), I could now use view the shows on the DVR that I recorded from home. (Without getting the DirecTV up, I could not get to my playlist.)

So, lessons learned:
1) Choose "multiswitch" during the Satellite configuration.
2) The 101W slot has a "close competitor"

 

[Jimbo]

I am relatively new to the DirecTV technicalities, so I thought I would relay my experiences in (successfully, I might add ) setting up a DirecTV 18-inch round antenna at my cabin over the weekend.

I have an H23-700 receiver that I use a home with a Slimline-5S. I ocassionally go to a weekend cabin, so I wanted to be able to take my box with me, so I got an 18-inch round DirectTV antenna that I installed at the cabin. I don't have a fancy "bird dog" satellite meter -- just a simple "Satellite Finder" meter. I pointed the satellite dish, peaking on what I thought was the 101W orbital slot.

The choices on the satellite set up was a little confusing. Picking the type dish was easy, as was that it was a dual tuner. But the choice of "SWM" or "multiswitch" was not. To me, the appropriate choice would be "none". Anyway, the default of SWM was wrong - wouldn't work, but the "multiswitch" choice did. On the DirecTV box, I was getting satellite transponder reception, BUT neither of the tuners would go to "signal acquired". I finally figured out that I must have been locked onto the 99W satellite, for after moving a bit, I was able to get the tuners to acquire, and to get programming working at the cabin.

And the main thing (which I still don't understand), I could now use view the shows on the DVR that I recorded from home. (Without getting the DirecTV up, I could not get to my playlist.)

So, lessons learned:
1) Choose "multiswitch" during the Satellite configuration.
2) The 101W slot has a "close competitor"

WELCOME to the SITE !!!!

You ALWAYS point to the 101 for starters, the 101 is where the CORE programming is.
With your current set up, you are only getting one sat worth of channels.
If you pointed at the 101 you got a few remaining HD channels, but not the majority of them (they are on the 99 and 103 sats)
IF, you decided to up up a 3 or 5 lnb set up there, you would be able to view ALL your paid programming - the locals, depending on how far away your second home is from the spotbeam and what sat your locals are on.

 

[tsbarker13]

Yeah, I know if I had put up Slimline like I had at home, I could probably get the same as home. the 101 works for me -- my main goal is to ba able to watch stuff from ym DVR, and maybe some news/weather here and there. I have an over the air antenna, so I can get local channels that way.

 

[Jimbo]

Sounds like you've got it figured out !!!