My DreamTV Satellite TV Setup

October 2, 2006 · Filed Under Technology 

This week, I had the chance to install and test DreamTV Satellite TV. My location in the Philippines allowed me to receive strong satellite signals from Agila2 satellite.

Here are the things you need to checkout before you can receive DreamTV:

1. Your location must be in the footprint of Agila2 satellite.

2. KU-band satellite dish (at least 60cm) and KU-band LNB (low-noise block).

3. Digital Satellite Receiver.

4. Valid subscription to DreamTV.

5. Compass.


Dish Setup

Assembling the satellite dish is both enjoyable and frustrating at the same time. The satellite dish package I got contains very little information on correct parts placement. Remember that the dish is totally knocked-down and you have to got a strong sense of hardware assembly skills and extreme patience to get things right. It took me 2-hours to assemble the dish.

If you want an easier way, you can always pay for professional satellite tv installation services.

Dish Alignment

The next challenging thing to do is to correctly align the satellite dish to Agila2 and get a good signal. In my case, this happened 4-hours after the dish was completed. I brought my old 21-inch TV out of the house so it would be easier to check for correct dish alignment.

At first, the dish was on a ground level and is being supported by an old rubber wheel, lol (hey, I was that excited to get it working, can’t blame me). After countless trials of adjusting, no signal was found. Bummer! (this was the point that I thought I got a defective piece of hardware).

After this, I mounted the dish on a temporary wooden post which was about 7-feet high and adjusted the dish to face 117-degrees east, with the satellite dish pointing upward at about 55degrees. This is when I got a signal and the TV picture from DreamTV instantly appeared on my TV! Yesss!!

After scanning thru the viewable TV channels, it is time to further adjust the dish get the optimum signal.

LNB Skewing

After which, I have adjusted the LNB skewing to further boost the “quality” signal. Rotating the LNB to a “8-o’clock” position gave me the highest quality signal level. Having a high signal level will ensure that service disruption will be minimal due to rain or other atmospheric disturbances.

After making sure that I have got the optimum dish azimuth, angle and skewing,  I have tightened all bolts and screws to finally secure the dish.

The final dish settings are as follows:

Azimuth = 117degrees

azimuth 

Angle= 60 degrees

dish angle 

Skewing = 8-o’clock

skewing 

 

Digital Satellite Receiver Tuning

Although the receiver I got was pre-tuned, I want to make sure that all available TV and Radio channels are properly detected and stored by the receiver. The receiver I got has this scan feature wherein all available services of DreamTV are scanned.

As of this writing, I got 74 TV Channels and 35 radio channels.
 

Watch out for my next article wherein I will tell you about my audio-visual experience with DreamTV, plus, more pictures of my setup.

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Comments

3 Responses to “My DreamTV Satellite TV Setup”

  1. Rainier on October 5th, 2006 7:13 am

    nice device, I wish I also have that kind of dish!

    Reply - Quote
  2. Dirk on November 18th, 2006 3:18 am

    Great artical, do you know where I can download the smartcard codes from please? http://www.mydreamtv.com seems tobe down.

    Thanks
    Dirk

    Reply - http://www.mydreamtv.com seems tobe down.\r\n\r\nThanks\r\nDirk’); return false;”>Quote
  3. Arthur on November 18th, 2006 11:03 am

    Mydreamtv seems to be closed down for legal reasons. now, we don’t want that to happen to byteburn.com, right :)

    Reply - Quote

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