How does DIRECTV connect to your house?

DIRECTV is among the renowned satellite television services through which you can enjoy hundreds of channels of entertainment, news, and other programs transmitted from satellites circling the Earth to a small dish at your residence. Though contracting for DIRECTV services does not only mean registering and paying for a bill each month. You also have to have a satellite dish and receivers for the system and have the dish and receivers properly set up so you can start tuning in to your favorite programs. Below is a brief of how this company transmits its signal and gets it into your home.

Journey Starts Here in Space All the TV channels that are being broadcasted by DIRECTV are transmitted from various satellites placed in geosynchronous orbit around the earth. This means the satellites move at a distance of approximately 22,300 miles above the equatorial plane, they revolve in the same direction of the earth so that they remain over a particular region. DIRECTV has approximately 16 operative satellites that are expected to transmit several hundreds of digital channels to the customers’ premises. The satellites have their own power supply – solar panels; there are also several bands of transponders – those are the devices that take the signals from the DIRECTV broadcasting centers on the ground, amplify them, and then retransmit them back to Earth.

Covering the Continental USA In order to ensure that all customers within the continental USA can have one of their satellites in view, DIRECTV places them in such a way that there is an overlap in satellite reception. DIRECTV satellite dish installation will be towards the satellite that has the least interferences with the line of sight from the location. The curved portion of the dish is utilized in receiving the signals being transmitted from that specific satellite and concentrates the waves at the LNB arm.

The LNB Arm Explained The LNB arm or low noise block down converter is a cube like structure which is located at the end of the arm projecting out from the center of the dish. This device is very important for translating the signals captured from the satellite into a format that can be used by your television. The LNB is equipped with circuits to boost the signal picked up by the dish as well as down convert it to the frequency band used by cable TV frequency range which is normally in the range of 900 MHZ to 2150 MHZ. It also splits the signals to the frequency bands which are allocated to the several satellites of the DIRECTV.

Bringing Cable to your House With the help of cables from the LNB arm, the DIRECTV signal enters your house and branches off to satellite receivers in other rooms. There are a few components involved in this stage:There are a few components involved in this stage:

1. LNB Output Cables: Two fat coaxial cables run from the LNB situated at the dish arm to the multiswitch or splitter. These cables supply DC power to the LNB and all the satellite signals are returned back through these lines.

2. Exterior Cable Entry Point: The cables are then neatly run through holes drilled to pass through the dish, and these cables often enter the home through a wall into a basement or utility room.

3. Multiswitch/Splitter: This device receives the signal from the two cables from LNB then split or process to feed multiple outputs to the different room. It distributes the satellite frequencies to various outputs.

4. Interior Cables: Additional coaxial cables extend from the multiswitch/splitter to other rooms where you desire to view shows offered by DIRECTV.

   Connecting Receivers and TVs For each room that gets DIRECTV service, you need to have a few components interacting:For each room that gets DIRECTV service, you need to have a few components interacting:

5. Satellite Receiver: This is the actual device that receives and demodulates the satellite signal, and converts it into a television format for display. HD DVR and Genie receivers also let you record shows.

6. HDMI Cable: For the best picture quality, the receiver should be connected to your TV through HDMI port and use HDMI cable. This enables full implementation of digital video and audio transmission.

7. TV Input: You switch the input mode on your TV depending on the HDMI port used to connect the receiver. This enables your television to show the video that is being played by the receiver.

8. Phone Cable: In order to receive on demand channels, to order certain PPV movies and to activate some of the more advanced features of the system, the satellite receivers in use have to be connected with your home phone line through a phone line.

   Setting the Stage for Whole Home Enjoyment With additional receivers and components, you can distribute DIRECTV to multiple TVs in different rooms:With additional receivers and components, you can distribute DIRECTV to multiple TVs in different rooms:

9. Genie DVR: In my configuration, this central HD DVR is the primary receiver and stores shows for the entire house and streams live/recorded programs.

10. Genie Clients: These mini set-tops are connected through coax or ethernet to the Genie DVR to draw content to show on other TVs to give a whole-home experience.

11. Wireless Genie Mini: This wireless client for TVs without coax/ethernet nearby connects to your wi-fi and goes to the Genie.

12. Internet Connection: A high speed home internet connection allows for wired/wireless delivery of the TV content.

    Bringing It All Together Here, it can be seen that in order to have a full blown DIRECTV system, basic equipment such as dishes, receivers, wiring needs to be bought. But once fully connected you have the ability to access and distribute crystal-clear satellite TV throughout your whole house. There are monthly subscription service fees and other charges based on the receivers for the programming services. If you plan where to place your dish correctly and hire professional service to install new wiring to operate the system, you will get all the equipment to work fine and start enjoying the hundreds of entertainment choices transmitted from space to your house. Call the company to inquire about promotions regarding the installation charges or to know about the different options available for equipment enhancement. With the right equipment and channel hookups, TV entertainment can go on forever!