Last week I talked about the $49 “Disaster Readiness Kit” (DRK) that I purchased through my account on DirecTV.com. I am happy to report that the system is very complete, the tripod is very solid, and it can be setup quicker than my camp kitchen! It comes with 50-feet of RG-6 Cable, allowing the dish to be positioned anywhere around the RV that has a clear view of the southern sky. The tripod itself is very sturdy and solid, but not at all heavy, and includes long spikes that can be driven into the soil to secure it. The dish is a dual-LNB model, which means that it has two cable connections coming off of it that you can tap into, for use with two separate satellite receivers. The two satellite receivers could be in the form of two separate TV’s, or a single TV with a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). Two independent signals allow the DVR to record one channel while you watch another. My setup is rather simple, as I am just using one of the LNB connections to feed one satellite TV receiver which, in turn, outputs to two different TV’s. Under this scenario, both TV’s are limited to displaying the same channel, but that works fine for us since the kids will be asleep whenever we are watching the second TV in our bedroom.
Having never worked with satellite TV before, I was a bit concerned about the process of properly aiming the dish, not to mention figuring out where to aim the dish. As it turns out, the satellite receiver tells you everything that you need to know, right on the TV screen. The setup screen asks for either a zip code or a Latitude and Longitude, and then displays the elevation and azimuth to point the satellite dish to. I used a zip code, which was easy since I was doing this at my home, but I can see a personal GPS receiver in my future, as it is not always easy to determine one’s zip code in the middle of nowhere. Per the directions on the screen, I set 42-degrees of elevation on the side of the dish, and then used a compass to point the dish to an azimuth of 135-degrees.
Once the dish was pointed in the right direction, I inserted a Winegard Satellite Finder on the cable-line, between the dish and the receiver. The Satellite Finder is powered by the satellite receiver inside the RV, as is the LNB on the dish, displaying a signal-strength meter and emitting a tone that changes according to the strength of the signal. The Satellite Finder allows you to quickly dial-in the satellite by sweeping the dish left-and-right. It only takes about an inch in each direction to determine the perfect position; the dish can then be clamped down and you are done.
On our RV, I connect the satellite cable directly to the outside cable connection. This requires a modification to the wiring of the TV antenna amplifier inside the RV, since the satellite receiver powers the LNB on the satellite dish – and the TV antenna amplifier does not allow this power to pass through it. In my case, I simply opened the antenna amplifier, disconnected the “Cable” input, which comes from the outside cable connection, and connected this cable to the “Satellite In” connection on the satellite receiver. I also connected the TV antenna amplifier to the “Off-Air Antenna” connection on the receiver, so I can still pick-up local channels over the RV’s TV antenna. This project is nearly complete, the only item remaining (two items, if I count the GPS receiver) is a wireless universal remote control, so that we can change channels from the back bedroom – but that is a story for a future day.
