DirecTV Installation

First of all, you will need to know which way to point the dish. It will be facing the southern sky. A couple of terms you will need to know are azimuth and elevation. The azimuth is the direction from east to west that the satellite is from your home. It will be read on your compass in degrees. The elevation is how far above the horizon the satellite is. The azimuth and elevation will be different depending on where you live. See the table to find the azimuth and elevation from some major US cities. The RCA and Sony receivers have on-screen satellite locators if your city is not listed.

You can put the dish on your roof, on the side of your house, on the chimney, on a pole in the ground, or any other place that has a view of the satellite. The dish can also be mounted inside looking out a window if the window does not contain too much lead. If you are installing in the winter, make sure you will still have a view of the satellite when the trees have leaves.

Using a compass, point the dish close to where the satellite should be. The signal strength meter in the receiver will show you how to find the signal. The difference between a good and bad signal is not the quality of the picture, but whether you will experience the loss of picture because of rain.

If you're not able to acquire a signal you can send the system back. In most cases, there is some location on your property where you'll be able to acquire the DirecTV signal.

If you want to order Direct Ticket Pay Per View by remote, if you have more than one receiver, or if you want to get certain sports programming, you will need to have the receiver connected to a phone line. The receiver has a modem which calls out on a regular phone line. It will not interfere with your use of the phone.