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Old 11-13-2014, 01:53 AM   #1
jfaberna
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DirecTV SWM installation

I just went back to DirecTV in the Monty since it was not going to go away at home. I wanted HDTV so that meant going with a Slimline SL3 SWiM dish on a tripod. In case what I've learned helps someone else, I'll list some key points below.

1. SWiM only has one wire coming from the dish LNB. I put the special SWiM splitter in the Convenience Center.

2. SWiM also needs a power supply "brick". I put it in the Living room cabinet with the Blue-ray player. It connects between the receiver (IRD) and the SWiM LNB, so I connected the Living Room sat connection in the Convenience Center to the DC passing connector of the Splitter.

3. I have a HR44 Genie DVR in the Living room and C31 Genie clients in the bedroom and basement. These are the same units I use at home and move them back and forth. The recorded shows come along for the ride.

4. I need to permanently run a cable from the Convenience Center to the basement TV outlet replacing the cable Keystone runs from the Bedroom TV to the Basement TV. I hate to disable the bedroom TV just to get TV in the basement.

5. Taking a cheap TV from home and mounting it in the Basement with a extending bracket.

6. Having a basement TV that is movable makes it easier for me to aim the dish on the tripod. The TV and satellite receiver are the best signal strength meter, especially since you have multiple satellites and need to tweak azimuth, tilt and elevation.
 
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Old 11-13-2014, 04:21 AM   #2
bncinwv
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With regards to your number 6, the next step is to add one of those new-fangled auto-seek dishes on top!! Love ours! Sounds like the overall installation went well!
Bingo
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Old 11-13-2014, 04:24 AM   #3
jfaberna
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Quote:
quote:Originally posted by bncinwv

With regards to your number 6, the next step is to add one of those new-fangled auto-seek dishes on top!! Love ours! Sounds like the overall installation went well!
Bingo
I would love to add one, but can't get it by the purchasing committee if you know what I mean. However, I feel, we will always need the tripod dish as we have been places that didn't allow for a roof dish to see the satellites
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2014 Montana 3402RL Level UP, Sailun S637's, TST 507, 500W solar
2014 Ram 3500 Laramie® 4x2 diesel dually crew-cab 3.73 axle, Reese R20
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Old 11-14-2014, 01:56 AM   #4
dieselguy
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I'm with Jim on the tripod ... we frequent the lakes alot west of the Mississippi. There are easily as many sites without a clear shot to the satellite as there are with, so the ability to "roam around" a bit within your campsite boundaries to recieve a signal is beneficial. It's amusing how many people we run across on their cell phone with Direct TV trying to get help with their roof mount dome not working ... all the while they are sitting on a nice shady site surrounded by trees.
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Old 11-14-2014, 12:47 PM   #5
richfaa
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Would love to have the dish on the roof but we observe that just about all the folks that have the roof dish also carry around a tripod and remote dish as backup when the sat is obscured by trees ,etc. we have a real good meter and it take me maybe 5 mins to get a signal . We do have the SWM 3 99,101,103 sats.
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Old 11-14-2014, 01:01 PM   #6
jfaberna
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Rich,

I agree it's not hard to setup the SL3 on a tripod. While wiring everything up in preparation for our next trip, I setup the antenna at the storage lot so I could fully test everything. I set the tilt and elevation per the Zipcode settings. I knew the azimuth but start a ways outside that setting and worked my way to where the signal meter on the TV/Receiver reached about 95%. While the initial setting were good enough to reach 95 on 101, 70-80% on 99-103, it isn't what the "initial setup" in the receiver calls complete. But if it isn't raining it's good enough. I have tweaked it perfect before when I had the time, but it takes a lot of patience and a big glass of bourbon.
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