Good DirecTV Primers?

[Pingmeister]

Greetings. My first post here. Am happy to find such an active forum for DirecTV.

We have been subscribers since April with 1 HD tuner and 2 SD.

I have been curious about several things and after adventuring through the receiver menus I have a lot of questions. Poking around this forum I now have about 8 times as many questions.

Before I start 127 newbie threads can you point me to a good online primer for new DirecTV owners?

Some of the stuff I'm interested in:

- How are the Dishes lined up?
- Can we switch which satellites we use? We have an amazing amount of sky space to point to at our house.
- How common are video dropouts? On HD channels we go through several times a week where our picture stutters as it looks for the satellite.
- How susceptible are dishes to wind? Will just a small move in a dish ruin your reception or are they forgiving if lined up well?

A Google on some of these questions got me here, but no good overviews.

Thanks!

 

[jdspencer]

Well, with the use of the search functionality on this forum you should be able to find the answers to your questions.
Check the FAQs here as well.

There is also the DBSRalk forums.
DirecTV™ Products and Services - DBSTalk.Com

You can't change which satellites you use as they are a function of the channels located on them.
Video dropouts are most usually caused be misaligned dishes. A properly installed dish shouldn't be affected by wind.

 

[Pingmeister]

Fair enough. Thanks for the feedback. I will be a bit more aggressive in my searches. Just a whole load of terminology blasting me in every thread I choose.

 

[jdspencer]

Yeah, the first time I joined a few forums I was overwhelmed as well.

It does take some time to use search strings to narrow down what you want info for.

Like I said, check the FAQs.