DirecTV fun

My Directv HD DVR arrived Saturday afternoon. This was a replacement for the stand alone HD receiver and SD tivo boxes that I had previously. Took the old HD receiver and moved it to our bedroom and moved the other 2 boxes to the basement to be hooked up later.

I thought it would go easily.... however.

I had to quickly reroute a couple coax lines before the installer showed up (he was coming between 1 and 5). I also had to hook up a 5x8 multiswitch that would allow me to take 4 satellite inputs and 1 antenna input and route the signals to 8 different devices.

Once I got all that done I hooked up the old HD receiver we had to our 26" JVC HD LCD tv in the bedroom. I ended up being ready for the installer by 1:00.

He showed up at 3:30... That's when I screwed up. I told him "this will be simple, just have to hook up the new box and turn it on." Fatal mistake. One of the satellite tuners couldn't get a signal, which meant bad coax somewhere along the line. First, I realized the line I was using to carry the antenna and satellite signal together (you can do this and separate the signals again using a diplexer) was RG-59, not RG-6, which can't carry both signals. Ok, we switched so that the 2nd line did that instead. Oops, no signal on that line. Down to the basement, replace connectors, still nothing. Turned out to be the coax coming from the wall to the box. Replaced, and everything was ok.

So, I thought. Now, I have a very, very week antenna signal (for picking up the local HD channels over the air). I used to have a direct line for that and now I was trying to use the multiswitch and diplexer method. Ok, I tried taking it out of the switch and combine it with one of the outputs using a diplexer in the basement. Better, but still iffy. Not like I had before. Only one solution, run another line. Sunday morning I got up and ran that line and everything is back to normal. Only downside is that now I only have that antenna signal in the living room, which means no HD local channels in the bedroom, just the local channels coming from the dish. Oh well, don't watch that much tv in there anyway and by mid next year all the local channels will be available in HD over the dish so I'll be able to get rid of the antenna then.

Needless to say I didn't get a whole lot else done on the basement. I did manage to put up 4 more panels on the wall. I was messing with the electrical outlets to pull them out a little farther so they would be flush with the beadboard and forgot to do the one thing my brother reminded me to do... turn off the power! Wow, couple zaps from those babies had me jumping up and down. I ended up running out of liquid nails. I still have a short piece on the long wall and one more wall that will take 3 pieces to finish. Probably finish that tomorrow and then I'll start on the ceiling.