Need Advice on KVH Sat TV System?

Should work fine as long as your receiver is an H24 or earlier model, but you will only be able to receive standard definition programming off the 101 and 119 satellites. 119 is mainly Spanish language programming, so 101 is where you will be looking most of the time.

Tom

WE took our Direct TV receiver from home and put it on the boat. We called Direct TV, told them we wanted to connect to a KVH, and they were able to walk me thru and "tweak"the receiver to work. Something about the home system using one satellite dish and the KVH locks onto two satellites.

Thanks everyone. I just picked it up and paid $1400. Will need to figure how to mount it. Most likley I will hire a local marine KVH dealer to install.

Good luck...a friend of mine has paid over $6K to repair his $4K KVH dish over the last 2 years....

I have a KVH 4. No problems, works great. I get both the 101 national sat and the local channels (I think the local channels are on the 119 sat). The KVH 4 can be programed to switch from one sat to the other depending on which channel is selected on the box.

I use a non-HD Direct TV box that is part of my home package. The extra box costs $5/month. I've used this system all the way down to Georgetown Bahamas (but no local New Orleans channels after the Mississippi/Alabama line).

If you take a Direct TV box from your house, you may need to resent the dish type. Hold the "info" button down on startup, when the set-up menu comes up, set the dish type to a 3-LNB 18-20inch. If you want local channels you need to program the KVH system; not too hard but you will need the specific command lines. You will also need a cable and HyperTerminal program. Getting the national 101 satellite is usually straight forward.

One advantage of using the kvh box. is the system will be 12 volts and be able to be run without an inverter

Well I pulled the trigger and bought it. Man its big. Now I need to find a mount system. Funny thing a lot of the mounts are as expensive as the dish I just bought!

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Well I pulled the trigger and bought it. Man its big. Now I need to find a mount system. Funny thing a lot of the mounts are as expensive as the dish I just bought!

Click to expand...

You waited for the deal to buy the dish. Now you need to be patient and look for the deal for the mount. You'll find it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Trawler

Good news is that you can put it on your home account as an add'l tv. Next to no monthly cost.

You can mount directly to you PH roof as long as radar scan is above it. If it has it's own black box to control the dish, you may get away with a "normal" DirecTV receiver/DVR. Email me directly if you'd like my KVH contact who can walk you through installation.

I think you need the blackbox.......

You may not need the black box. Connect your DirecTV receiver and follow the screen prompts - the receiver tells KVH which satellites it needs and the KVH firmware has their details in it.

Initially I had a C3 but I sold that and bought an M5 whilst in the USA as it was easier to configure it to switch from circular LNB to a linear LNB for Australia. I did buy the black box at the time, makes it easier to switch but unless you want to switch a lot then it is not needed.

It was a very good deal on the M7 if the unit is operational....

Thanks everyone. I am told it is operations, so we will see later this spring/summer. Boat show at the end of this month, so I will be looking at for a mounting system.