I am having a bitch of a time trying to pick up a signal with this Direct TV setup i'm trying to install at an apartment on the second floor and the dish is mounted on the balcony. I know we have line of sight because i got the signal the first time i walked out there and it peaked at about 83. I havn't been able to get it ever since. All i get is that stupid beep every 3 seconds. There is a green light in the LNB, but i've only seen it flash once.

any tips?

When I set up my DirecTV antenna, I remember that it was rather tricky. It seemed for the longest time that I was never going to get it, and when I was about to admit defeat, I got it and it stayed strong ever after (in the 70s).

Double check all of the wiring connections and re-read the manual regarding the setup, just to make sure that you didn't accidentally just miss something.

Also remember that the elevation (vertical angle) is not the dish itself. The antenna is off-center from the dish, so it's actually "looking" a lot higher than you think it's looking just based on the direction the dish faces.

If you have a light on the LNB, I think that was only present on older Sony branded dishes (white colored). That being said, I have no experience with this dish so I am just pulling suggestions out of my ass.

I assume the light on the LNB should be lit all the time. The LNB gets its power from the DirecTV receiver (5V IIRC). If the light is not constanly lit, I would assume it is not getting power from the receiver. This would indicate a cabling problem. Are you using quad-shielded RG6 by any chance? This seems to be all Home Depot is selling lately. I've had bad crimps on the quad shielded before. I would check that first. Even though it looks like a good crimp, it may not be making a proper connection.

[rant]I don't know why they don't stock double shielded any more. Much easier to manage and much easier to make a proper crimp with their cheap F connectors.[/rant]

The first system I had was Direct TV too. The first time I mounted it, (on the 19th floor of my building) I had the dish too high up on the balcony wall...an installer friend came to offer me advice and had me move it down to the bottom of the wall, almost on the floor of the balcony. I thought that the railing would get in the way of the signal but as Tony desribes above, the angle is so high that it clears even though it may look like it will not. Turned out that it was the roof of the balcony that was blocking the signal. Maybe it was moved or bumped since you last tried to adjust it? My Expressvu dish is mounted really solid however I have to occasionally re-aim it anyways...

How about the weather there the last few days? Has high-level precipitation been blocking the signal while you attempt to aim?

Third, is she using a unlooped/pirate card by chance? It seems that here in Canada that our (illegal) Direct TV systems are being zapped on a daily basis now...

I understand that my suggestions may be no-brainers but these are all things I have experienced. I think it saves major frustration when someone says..."gee I never thought of that"...

John

Rob brings up a good point... Did you use a different piece of cable between the time when you got the signal before, and when you're not getting the signal now? A common mistake is for people to use ordinary cable-TV wire instead of the more specialized wire required for the dish. See, ordinary cable-TV wire only carries a weak signal, whereas the wire to a direcTV dish must also carry power to the antenna.

Hi Tony

I actually use ordinary RG-58U cable (the TV kind) for both my receivers (livingroom and bedroom) and they work just fine with it. I usually get 85% signal strength through 40' of cable to my bedroom... however I don't need to feed power to my LNB though.

See this picture of my dish from this old post:


I get low to mid 80s signal strength with the dish seemingly pointing directly into my balcony border/railing thing. It is a stealth installation to keep my condo board out of my hair.

Geez Rob, are you sure that's not my balcony you took that pic of?????

That is the perfect accompanying shot to my post above....

John

ok so,

i've been using the same RG6 cable from the beginning and i'm pretty sure thats not the problem. The green light i was talking about is in the LNB itself. I've seen the Sony dishes you speak of Rob, and its not like those where the light blinks on the outside. Anyhow, i didn't actually see it flash, my GF did, while i was fidgiting with the dish.

the thing is, i either get the signal at 83, or nothing.
How well do those signal finders work?

thanks for the input fellas.

I have hooked up my StarChoice system twice now, and it was a bitch both times. I knew a local installer who lent me a Satellite Finder. Basically it is an analog meter that sits inline with the LNB. It is very responsive and allows you to find the sat fairly quickly. The problem I found with the StarChoice receiver anyways, is that it is very slow and seems to delay the signal strength reading. If you are moving the dish around, it never has enough time to lock and give a good reading. I found the sat with the finder, but the receiver did not show the signal until a few seconds later. Anyways, I would suggest finding someone to loan you a satellite finder for the afternoon if all else fails.

Ive gotten really good at aiming mine using a small LED that caps onto my LNB from Sony. The only time that I didn't have any luck was because I had a bad crimp on a cable that fed my receiver. So double check all your crimps...