Satellite dish was easy to install

Here are some tips to help you with that tricky installation.
By JIM ROSSMAN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Moving to a new house brought lots of questions for my wife and me, but the one that loomed large in my mind was, "What's going to happen to my satellite dish?"
Taking the dish from the old place seemed out of the question. It was there when I moved in and was too far out of reach.
DirecTV offers a dish mover's package in which it installs a dish at your new place for $25. But I read too many horror stories online about bad installations to trust this job to a contracted installer.
I wanted the dish in a specific place and the wires to run a specific way to prevent damage to the house and make the installation invisible.
This job ended up costing more than $25, but it was worth it to me.
I bought the dual-LNB dish, which includes a basic mount and pole, at Best Buy for $49, and about 200 feet of RG-6 cable for about $75 at a hardware store.
Since I already had an established DirecTV account and satellite receiver, all I needed to do was mount the dish and run the wires to the TV.
At the new place, I scouted the best location to mount the dish. The garage roof offered a clear view of the southern sky with no buildings or trees in the way.
Good to know
In my research, I learned a few things about satellite TV.
The signal comes in at a steep angle. Once you find a prospective location, hold your arm at a 45-degree angle pointing due south. If you can see clear sky over your hand, you are in a good position.
You need to mount the dish to a solid base so that it will not move in the wind. I screwed some small boards to the garage siding as a mounting point for the dish.
There are also mounts available for chimneys and balcony railings. Many apartment dwellers mount their dishes to poles placed in 5-gallon buckets of cement.
The bucket option is best if your apartment or condo won't allow you to attach the dish to the building exterior.
The most important aspect of the mount is that the pole needs to be level and plumb.
After mounting the dish, you'll need to point it at the satellite. For this, you'll need the pointing coordinates for your exact location.
You'll have two directions, the azimuth (left and right adjustment) and the elevation (up and down adjustment).
To find your azimuth and elevation, go to the self-installation page at the DirecTV Web site at www.directv.com/DTVAPP/DishPointerServlet.
You set the elevation before you mount the dish by adjusting the bolts that hold the dish in position on the mount. There is a small scale etched into the mount to correspond with the elevation angles. Loosen the bolts and set the mark to the correct angle.
Next, the azimuth
Then mount the dish and get out a compass to find your azimuth.
The azimuth for my neighborhood is 181.4. Due south on a compass is 180, so I pointed due south and then a touch farther southwest.
During the aiming, you'll need the receiver and TV connected to test your signal strength. Most receivers have a signal strength test in the menus.
Fine adjustments should be done by moving the dish back and forth -- not up and down -- until the signal is its strongest.
Once the dish is mounted and aimed, you'll need to run coax cables to your TV locations and attach a grounding block to the dish so that any lightning strikes won't damage your electronics.
These directions are for simple, round dishes that point at one satellite.
Oval dishes point at more than one satellite and have a tilt to set, as well as the elevation and azimuth. I recommend letting an installer do oval dish installations.