I'm having a bit of trouble getting my antenna to work with my DirecTV cables. The satelite has a total of 4 coaxial connections that I have tried all of to no success. What am I doing wrong?
Using DirecTV cable for OTA antenna
- Thread starter EmelianenkoF
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Is it possible there is a switch in between the Receivers and Dish?
Is the FTA Dish already aligned?
Is the FTA Dish already aligned?
to Satellite Guys! Post what type of dish and receiver your using and that will help everyone figure it out. Pictures would be good too, if you can. How old are the Direct TV cables that you are trying to use? If your FTA dish is easy to get access to, you could bring your receiver and a TV right out to the FTA dish and try hooking to it with a short piece of coax to make sure that your problem is indeed the cable.
It's an Antenna's Direct brand outdoor antenna that I have had hooked up and used in my house as recently as 3 weeks ago. I have it mounted on the old DirecTV dish mount that was here when we moved in in July. It's about 15 ft off the ground and east facing in Fargo ND.
The first pic is the cables at the dish (with one still attached to the antenna) and the second is a spot on the side of my house where the cables are re-split into 4 and 3 are run into the house and one is blunted off. This makes sense as there are three coaxial cable points in the house. (Bedroom, Living Room, Basement) I had my converter box hooked into my bedroom TV as I tried all 4 cables into the antenna and got a signal from none. When I've had the antenna hooked up in the house sometimes I get a pretty weak signal, but it always picks up stations after a scan and it did not with the antenna hooking into the DirecTV cables
If you are trying to use the wire mesh antenna for fta use, it will not work no matter what.
for the dish, if you want to experiment you need to scrap the lnb and get one just for fta use. the one on it now is not compatable
you will get a few for the size, but a 36" dish would be a better candidate
for the dish, if you want to experiment you need to scrap the lnb and get one just for fta use. the one on it now is not compatable
you will get a few for the size, but a 36" dish would be a better candidate
Wow, I had that wrong! I thought you were trying to get an FTA satellite dish working with one of the DirectTV cables, I see from the pictures that it's an OTA antenna! Ok, disregard my previous post! Check what Lak7 suggested, that there isn't a satellite switch somewhere in the cabling, it'll look something like a splitter. if there's a switch somewhere, it won't pass the OTA signal.
If you have an ohmmeter, with both ends of the cable disconnected, you can measure from the center conductor to the outer and it should read infinite, no continuity, if it doesn't then the cable is probably bad, or there is a switch or something somewhere in the mix. If that test is good, with both ends of the cable disconnected, short the center connector on one end to the outer and measure across the center and outer connector on the other end, you should have continuity that way with very low resistance. If the resistance is high than the cable is probably bad, or a switch or something is in there somewhere.
Check that the cable is RG6 and not RG59. It's probably [and should be for an OTA antenna and DirectTV] RG6. IT should be marked right on the side of the cable somewhere what it is. RG59 doesn't work well at all with OTA signals.
If the cable run is real long you may need a pre-amp to boost the signal, how long is the cable that you're trying to use? The F-connector on some of those Antennas Direct antennas break loose very easily, check that it doesn't feel loose and wobbly, if it is, the connection inside of the junction block may be broken. That one looks like a DB4 or a DB4e maybe? Those are decent antennas for the size and price.
If your TV is newer and has a built in ATSC tuner you'll probably get much better signal with the TV's ATSC tuner than using the converter box. All of the converter boxes I've used cut the signal way down. If the TV's an older one and you can't tune ATSC with it, then you'll have to use the converter box. Most TV's made after 2008 have an ATSC tuner, even some earlier ones, Panasonic put them into their plasma TV's as early as 2006.
You can check on TvFool.com and see what stations you should be able to receive and signal strength for them. Here is the link....
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29
If you go to TvFool and post the result of the report for your area here, someone on here will be able to tell you pretty much what you should be able to receive for stations.
You could try bypassing that grounding block in one of your pictures with a splitter or double F connector just to eliminate that as a suspect. I doubt it's that but it's easy enough to do and could possibly be the culprit.
If you have an ohmmeter, with both ends of the cable disconnected, you can measure from the center conductor to the outer and it should read infinite, no continuity, if it doesn't then the cable is probably bad, or there is a switch or something somewhere in the mix. If that test is good, with both ends of the cable disconnected, short the center connector on one end to the outer and measure across the center and outer connector on the other end, you should have continuity that way with very low resistance. If the resistance is high than the cable is probably bad, or a switch or something is in there somewhere.
Check that the cable is RG6 and not RG59. It's probably [and should be for an OTA antenna and DirectTV] RG6. IT should be marked right on the side of the cable somewhere what it is. RG59 doesn't work well at all with OTA signals.
If the cable run is real long you may need a pre-amp to boost the signal, how long is the cable that you're trying to use? The F-connector on some of those Antennas Direct antennas break loose very easily, check that it doesn't feel loose and wobbly, if it is, the connection inside of the junction block may be broken. That one looks like a DB4 or a DB4e maybe? Those are decent antennas for the size and price.
If your TV is newer and has a built in ATSC tuner you'll probably get much better signal with the TV's ATSC tuner than using the converter box. All of the converter boxes I've used cut the signal way down. If the TV's an older one and you can't tune ATSC with it, then you'll have to use the converter box. Most TV's made after 2008 have an ATSC tuner, even some earlier ones, Panasonic put them into their plasma TV's as early as 2006.
You can check on TvFool.com and see what stations you should be able to receive and signal strength for them. Here is the link....
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29
If you go to TvFool and post the result of the report for your area here, someone on here will be able to tell you pretty much what you should be able to receive for stations.
You could try bypassing that grounding block in one of your pictures with a splitter or double F connector just to eliminate that as a suspect. I doubt it's that but it's easy enough to do and could possibly be the culprit.
Probably someone should move this thread to the OTA section rather than FTA? It's an OTA antenna that the OP is trying to get working, not an FTA dish.
Thanks a lot! According to the TV station map I probably don't have my antenna facing the ideal direction, but at this point I'm just trying to figure out if I can use these old cables to get this antenna to work at all. I'm going to try your suggestions and hopefully get this thing working
After looking closer I see the cable in my bedroom (the one I was using to test the connection) is RG59. The cables coming off the dish are all RG6, as is the one in my basement. The one in my living room is unlabeled. So looks like I'll need to use the basement cable to check the connection
Your market is unique for OTA due to some issues
-CBS & NBC have to cover both parts of the market (Fargo and Grand Forks) so their towers are between the two towns
-PBS & ABC are in Fargo proper as Grand Forks has their own PBS (well its state run) & ABC
-Fox has their tower 30 miles E of Fargo in MN
looking at tvfool Fargo Proper you should be fine with all nets except Fox. PBS, CBS, NBC and ABC are all in the same vicinity compass wise (300-320 on a compass using Fargo downtown) but Fox is E/SE at 117 degrees so it may be harder to pick that up. Also NBC is on VHF Hi (11) so make sure the antenna can do VHF Hi
-CBS & NBC have to cover both parts of the market (Fargo and Grand Forks) so their towers are between the two towns
-PBS & ABC are in Fargo proper as Grand Forks has their own PBS (well its state run) & ABC
-Fox has their tower 30 miles E of Fargo in MN
looking at tvfool Fargo Proper you should be fine with all nets except Fox. PBS, CBS, NBC and ABC are all in the same vicinity compass wise (300-320 on a compass using Fargo downtown) but Fox is E/SE at 117 degrees so it may be harder to pick that up. Also NBC is on VHF Hi (11) so make sure the antenna can do VHF Hi
KVLY is on 44, UHF. 
It's KFME on 13 that is a concern for VHF, but it's a lot closer to Fargo than KVLY is, and so should be easier to handle.
- Trip
It's KFME on 13 that is a concern for VHF, but it's a lot closer to Fargo than KVLY is, and so should be easier to handle.
- Trip
ahh crap you're right....I got the two mixed up (plus here in Mpls NBC is on RF11 so maybe thats where I screwed up)
I would suggest you start a new thread in the OTA section. You have almost 2 pages of bad information about FTA seeing you started in the wrong forum. Create a new post with the information that applies to OTA equipment and TV fool report. You do need to trace your wiring to find a cable that goes all the way to the roof and the Directv dish.
It looks like you had a Directv High Definition dish before they started using SWMs so each cable went to 4 different rooms and they had a multiswitch on the roof at the dish. Or if they had dual tuner receivers a pair of cables go to 2 different rooms in the house.
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You cannot enter gate mash antenna in this way anymore and what kind or she really trying to hook up
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no need to as there are THREE whole posts about FTA. Post 5 shows pics of the antenna and the info
