How to Hook Up a VCR to Your TV When You Have a Dish Satellite

If you have acquired an old video cassette recorder and have satellite dish service connected to your TV, you might wonder how to connect this to your TV set. If you have connected a VCR to cable TV in the past, this is no different. You simply add the VCR as a middleman between the satellite receiver box and TV set. When properly connected and set to the right channel, the VCR will record anything on the satellite broadcast as well as play any tape on the TV.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• VCR
• RF coaxial cables
• RCA composite cables

1. Disconnect the coaxial line that connects the satellite receiver box to the TV set at the TV's end. Connect this end of the cable to the input port on the VCR. This VCR port is usually labeled "ANT IN."

2. Connect the VCR to the TV set with another RF coaxial cable. This connects to the "OUT" port on the VCR. Connect the other end to the port on the TV set where the receiver box was originally connected.

3. Use an RCA composite connection if you want to connect the VCR another way. Connect RCA cables with the yellow, white and red plugs to the VCR's RCA output ports and the TV's input ports. Don't bother with this connection if you have something like a DVD player using the TV's RCA connection.

4. Plug in the VCR and turn it on. Set the VCR's channel tuner to the same TV channel the satellite signal is broadcast on. The VCR's line-in channel (usually called L-1) can work also.

5. Test the VCR on both playing and recording. Insert a recorded tape, push the "Play" button, and see if the tape recording comes on. Replace it with a blank tape, hit "Record," stop recording after a minute or so and see if the TV broadcast was recorded on a playback.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also connect the VCR directly to the TV by just using the RCA composite connection and not changing the satellite to TV connection at all. If you do this, however, you will only be able to watch video tapes on the TV's "Video" channel. You won't be able to record anything on the satellite TV.
• If the VCR is not set to a channel that the satellite broadcast goes through, a blue screen will appear when you play a tape or press the VCR's "Video" button. You can still play tapes, but you can't record anything unless you tune the VCR to the correct channel.