Installation this Monday - Cable Currently

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nitemare

SatelliteGuys Family
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Feb 2, 2010
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Getting direcTV installed Monday. Currently I have Time Warner run through house. I have 3 TV's (one in basement, one on first floor, and one on second floor). Its a 2 story standalone house. Now, before we moved in they did have Satellite installed. I actually removed the old dish which was mounted on the side house about 2 ft from ground against vinyl. I have no idea why they mounted it there and so low.

Anyway, I want DirecTV to use the same coaxle wiring for all 3 tvs. I do not want them running new wire, drilling new holes, etc. All they should have to do is connect the Dish to the roof. Now, I dont want a black wire running along my white vinyl siding. Can they enclose the black wire in some type of white tubing?

Any thoughts or recommendations on how they should be installing this? I read so many horror stories about bad installs. My location is Cleveland, OH - ice, snow. But many of our neighbors already have dishes on their roofs.

Thanks in advanced!
 
I believe that if you have HD on your DirecTV order and you explain about the existing cabling, they will install the Slimline SWM LNB dish. The only problem might be that the existing cabling isn't RG6 or of lower quality than what DirecTv uses. In this case the installer should change the cabling. They may have white cable on the truck. If you know can contact the installer, I'd ask them.
 
Other items:
The cable will probably be fine...but if there are splitters in use they will have to be removed and cable runs to the dish installed.

There is a chance the dish was installed where it was to allow running cable under the bottom edge of your siding. Look for a dish location at a corner of your building on the south side near the electric meter and cable entrance. It is not hard to hide cable in the corner moulding of vinyl
siding. The wise installer will not attempt this on old and brittle siding. Horizontal runs can be tucked under siding with a tool made to lift and replace the siding. This is not part of the FREE installation. The white cable may be on the truck.

Joe
 
OK, the cable I have says RG6. So thats good. I also noticed there are 2 splitters coming from the meter outside. These splitters contain the RG6 Cables going to my tvs and modem.

Outside -the previous owner just had black cable running along the outside of the vinyl horizontal to the back corner of the house. It looks horrible. I had since removed the dish and the cable and plugged the holes with caulk.

So, it seems like my best bet is to have them use WHITE cable? If not, then have them tuck the cable under the vinyl.

I tried to call DirectTV twice to ask them to bring white cable, but im put on hold and then I go into a recording "866-693-5689".
 
More than likely if your getting Hd services they will only run 1 line from the dish. As far as the previous location of satellite dish...higher doesn't always mean better.The installer will look for a clear line of sight as close to power meter as possible. If you have to clear snow off the pan it would be better closer to the ground. Most vinyl is very friendly at hiding wire and if tucked properly they should be able to hide over 90% of the cable. A good installer will provide you custom options like using a tool to hide 100% of the wire or placing dish elsewhere and trenching cable back to entry point. These custom options would be provided at an extra cost. Beware of an installer who tries to charge without offering a "free installation"alternative.
Good Luck
 
no worries about the splitter. the tech will assest what has to do,, you plan on keeping your internet? if so, they may have to run new cable for that certain room you have your modem and tv location.


first thing i usually ask is this, you keeping cable, (some ppl do both cable and satellite) and are you keeping internet?

from thre i can see what kind of a job its gonna be. if u want a roof mount, you can do that, its your house but the dish has to be near grounding source such as meter box to assure you if a lightning strikes your dish, the recievers and your household wont be fried.



lots of things, really you shouldnt be nervous. i wouldnt worry bout it and if something comes up that youre not happy with... believe me, complain to high office such as CEO will lead this account to be put on OOP means a supervisor and that tech would have to come and do it right the right way. so just let him do it, then see if your happy with it, then if niot, call it in. Take pics too. before and after.
 
I am only keeping internet. Im dropping TV and phone. I am only getting TV from DirecTV. Im using the 'magicjack' for phone - which works perfectly on cable internet.

Just went outside and toured the neighborhood. Looks like most homes next to mine on same side have the dishes mounted near ground in the back pointing in same direction. So it appears where the old dish was mounted was probably the best place for it. There is no obstruction. I thought higher was better, but evidently it does not matter as long as nothing is in your way.

So this should be real easy for installer. They can use the same exact holes that were already in my vinyl siding from last time. The meter was only about 4 feet away from dish.

*Oh, I also read getting the dish mounted on your roof ruins your Roof Warranty? Is that true? My house was built in 2004 and the roof is in great shape. I dont want to mount to roof if my roof warranty will be voided?
 
Make sure you let the installer know about the magic jack plan. I think that means at least some of the cable runs will be used at least as far as your cable modem.

Height of the dish is not important. The signal is coming in from a satellite 23,000 miles out. The footprint is North America. Just do not hit the dish arm with your lawn mower.

Joe
 
I placed tags on each coaxle cable marking it 1st tv, 2nd tv, 3rd tv, internet. There should be no way this installer screws it up. I will tell him to keep the incoming cable line intact along with the internet cable (which will allow for magicJack to work too). He then should only need to unplug the cables marked "1st tv" "2nd tv" "3rd tv" and attach them into the satellite cable.

I hope.
 
I don't recommend mounting ANY dish over vinyl!

nitemare said:
I am only keeping internet. Im dropping TV and phone. I am only getting TV from DirecTV. Im using the 'magicjack' for phone - which works perfectly on cable internet.

Just went outside and toured the neighborhood. Looks like most homes next to mine on same side have the dishes mounted near ground in the back pointing in same direction. So it appears where the old dish was mounted was probably the best place for it. There is no obstruction. I thought higher was better, but evidently it does not matter as long as nothing is in your way.

So this should be real easy for installer. They can use the same exact holes that were already in my vinyl siding from last time. The meter was only about 4 feet away from dish.

*Oh, I also read getting the dish mounted on your roof ruins your Roof Warranty? Is that true? My house was built in 2004 and the roof is in great shape. I dont want to mount to roof if my roof warranty will be voided?
Click to expand...
The warranty may be voided by penetrating it (even if done properly) If you ever have a claim and the roof is leaking (even on the opposte side of the house) you could be denied because of the penetations.

About the old holes in the siding. This may not work. If you are getting HD and previosly had a smaller dish the paterns not the same and the mount is bigger. It is not recomended to install ANY dish over vinyl sidyng(especially a 40lb KAKU). It may be possible to get a pole mount. This may incur a $50-$75 charge but is worth the peace of mind. The reason there may be a charge is you would be refusing the "free installation" option of the roof and paying the tech to perform a custom installation.
 
Hmm. So your saying the new dish might be too heavy to mount against vinyl siding? Well, hopefully its not. If he needs to drill bigger holes or new ones, then he can do it right next to old ones - as long as they are covered up thats OK.

All the other dishes near me are mounted on the vinyl sidings as well. The development was built around 2003 so they cant be too old. I never seen a pole mount setup here.

I definately wont be putting it on the roof then since it can void the warranty.
 
nitemare said:
I placed tags on each coaxle cable marking it 1st tv, 2nd tv, 3rd tv, internet. There should be no way this installer screws it up. I will tell him to keep the incoming cable line intact along with the internet cable (which will allow for magicJack to work too). He then should only need to unplug the cables marked "1st tv" "2nd tv" "3rd tv" and attach them into the satellite cable.

I hope.
Click to expand...

It is common place for people to have multiple media providers nowadays. Any tech "worth his salt" shouldn't have any problems with this. As metioned before if the coax going to your modem is split in the home(not at wiring junction) and you are wanting to hook up a receiver there. You will need a new coax run. If all that's hooked up on the other end is the modem then you won't. Hope this helps.
 
Time Warner main cable line is coming into the house. It then is connected to a 3 way splitter. One side has the main cable line. The other side has 3 ports - 1 is for the internet and the other 2 are for the TVS. So, I would think he can just leave this splitter as is, but just unscrew the 2 lines for the TV and connect them to the satellite line.
 
nitemare said:
Hmm. So your saying the new dish might be too heavy to mount against vinyl siding? Well, hopefully its not. If he needs to drill bigger holes or new ones, then he can do it right next to old ones - as long as they are covered up thats OK.

All the other dishes near me are mounted on the vinyl sidings as well. The development was built around 2003 so they cant be too old. I never seen a pole mount setup here.

I definately wont be putting it on the roof then since it can void the warranty.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I am saying. If mounted on an exterior wall it's very important that the HD dish is in a stud. The pre HD dishes weigh under 7lbs. The new HD dishes weigh over 37. Thats alot more weight. The larger pans is also susceptible to more wind force. The reason NO DISH should be mounted ON VINYL is the vinyl siding is designed to move(expand+contract with weather). If it had to go there it should mount to wall and be sided around. Just because you see others mounted this way does not make it right. I have personally installed and serviced thousands of dishes and if was my house I wouldn't do it.
 
Maybe behind the vinyl siding there was a stud.So if there is one, then they can mount thru vinyl into stud. Hopefully thats the case.

The old Dish was actually very heavy. It was definately not 7lbs. It was more like 37 pounds. It was firmly in place against the vinyl so I guess it was mounted properly. I just moved into the house so the older dish might have been only 1-2 yrs old.

Doesnt a pole mount require a hole to be dug a cement filled? If so, I dont think ill go that route.
 
SWM? Im not sure I understand what this is used for. As long as they use the existing RG6 cable, i really dont care. Unless Im missing out on something I dont know about.
 
Now, if it's HD it gets SWM

yorktown said:
More than likely they won't use SWM for a customer with only 3 boxes being connected up.
Click to expand...
SWm stands for single wire multiswitch. It is what I was refering to when I said they would only have to run 1 cable from dish to wire junction.All older systems required 2-4 cables for multiple receiver installs.
I install through an authorized retailer and we now install SWM on all new installs that are getting HD access. The only time we wouldn't use SWM is for install over 8 tuners. I am pretty sure this is the case for HSP(home sevive provider) installers as well.
 
nitemare said:
I placed tags on each coaxle cable marking it 1st tv, 2nd tv, 3rd tv, internet. There should be no way this installer screws it up. I will tell him to keep the incoming cable line intact along with the internet cable (which will allow for magicJack to work too). He then should only need to unplug the cables marked "1st tv" "2nd tv" "3rd tv" and attach them into the satellite cable.

I hope.
Click to expand...

If there are no splitters in the lines to TVs 1,2 &3...you are good!

Joe
 
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