Running The Cable

In most cases it will take three sets of wires to hook up your system: the
coaxial cable from the LNB to the receiver, a three conductor wire from the
servo motor of the feedhorn to the servo motor control on the back of the receiver, and a four or five conductor wire from the actuator motor at the
antenna to the control terminals on the back of the receiver or actuator power
supply. We will examine each of these wires in detail in the following sections.
The best way to acquire these wires is to purchase an all-in-one direct burial
satellite cable from your retailer at the time you purchase your system. Bury
the cable in a trench deeper than any frost line and you are ready to go.
Make sure that you purchase more than enough cable to complete the run all
the way from the feedhorn on the antenna, down the pole, in the ground from
the pole to the house, up the wall, through the attic, and down an interior wall,
while leaving enough left over to easily reach to the back of the receiver. It is
possible, but not desirable, to splice an extra few feet onto your cable if you do
come up short or decide to rearrange the furniture in the future.
Before connecting all of these cables, however, self-installers should consider
temporarily using a short piece to connect the receiver and TV to the outdoor
electronics right out at the dish. This method for aligning the dish allows you to
make tracking adjustments to the antenna while viewing TV signals and
watching the receiver’s signal level indicator. If you are going to have a
technician during the final stages of the installation he will have a portable
meter to use at the dish. Two people also can talk back and forth via walkie
talkie or portable phone while one makes adjustments to the dish and the other
keeps an eye on the quality of the reception.
Direct burial satellite cable is available containing either one or two coaxial
lines. The direct burial cable with two coaxial lines is essential if you intend to
use either a hybrid feed or a dual C-band feed. If you intend to have more than
two LNBs at the dish, you will need to run separate coaxial lines for each of
them.