While most DirecTV subscription packages come with free professional installation, it is possible to install the satellite service yourself. To completely install it, you will need the dish antenna installation kit and the satellite receiver box you get with your subscription. When installing the dish, you will need to know things like regulations from your homeowner's association. Also, exact installation instructions vary depending on the type of dish you get.
Instructions
Connecting the Receiver
1. Connect the satellite receiver box to your TV set using whichever cable connection you want. Depending on the options your receiver box has, the best connection starts with HDMI, followed by component, S-video, composite and coaxial.
2. Call DirecTV to activate and confirm your satellite subscription.
3. Tune your TV to the channel for the DirecTV signal. While you aren't getting the signal yet, use the remote control to access an on-screen menu that will give you the coordinates that you set the dish to for best reception: azimuth, or side direction, and elevation, or vertical angle.
Installing the Dish
4. Choose a location to mount the satellite dish antenna. You need an unobstructed view of the southern sky with no large obstacles like tree branches hanging in the antenna's line of sight.
5. Connect the dish's support arm to the reflector and then to the dish. Bolt these components together through the holes in the reflector and arm using the correct size nuts and bolts. These nuts and bolts will be included with the dish.
6. Set the dish's elevation and azimuth for the best reception, using the measurements from the TV. This will be closer to 30 degrees for northern cities and 60 degrees in the south.
7. Mount the dish's mast against a solid wood, brick or cement surface by drilling holes in that surface that will fit under the mast's mounting holes. You'll need to drill 3/16-inch holes and 5/16-by-2-inch lag screws for wood, or 1/2-inch holes and the kit's machine screws for brick or cement.
8. Install the antenna's low noise block, which is the cylinder device that mounts onto the reflector. Run the coaxial cable up through the dish mast and the LNB's support arm, connect the cable to the LNB and screw the LNB to its support arm using a Phillips-head screw and hex-shaped retaining nut.
9. Mount the grounding wire the mast's foot with the kit's grounding bolt, nut and star washer. Connect the ground wire and coaxial cable to the kit's grounding block.
10. Mount the grounding block onto a good ground point like a grounding rod planted firmly in the ground or a cold water pipe within 5 feet of where it enters the building. Connect the block to this ground point using No. 8 aluminum or No. 10 copper wire.
11. Connect your satellite receiver box in the house with the grounding block using another coaxial cable. Unless you are willing to keep a window partially open to feed the cable through, drill a hole through the wall.
Tags: coaxial cable, grounding block, satellite receiver, best reception, brick cement, cable through, dish antenna