KVH Activation

Great Lakes

Well-Known Member
Oct 11, 2016
1,444
Lake St. Clair - Michigan (MacRay Harbor)
Boat Info
2008 - Formula 400ss
Engines
Volvo Penta D6-350
I purchased my boat last year but never activated my Sat TV. The boss and kids want it turned on this spring. I have the M3 tracvision and a reciever box in the cabin.
Do I call Sat service first or KVH or both or...

Also, I was told the M3 won’t be usable anymore in 2019. Anyone know if this is true?
 
I went through this last Spring. Call KVH and have it turned on through them.
I didn’t know any better and tried to do it through Direct TV. That’s a day and a half of my life I’ll never get back, not to mention the anger and frustration.
I contacted KVH and they were great. As an AT&T mobile subscriber, they were able to get me the promotion that was running at the time.
BTW: I’ve got the M3 also with one 12 volt receiver. It’s not HD, but works well. Hopefully it will keep working.
My boat has 3 TV’s and although the receiver is only attached to the one in the salon I was able to use splitters to hook it up so that I can watch Direct TV on all three TV’s. The only catch is they will all be on the same channel. That’s good enough for me. I can only watch one at a time anyway. The good news is the remote is RF so I can change channels on the receiver from anywhere inside the boat. When we’re watching the TV in the master we can be in bed and change channel just as easily as we can we we are sitting in the salon and watching that TV.
 
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Thanks JVM
I didn’t know that about just the salon tv. I’ll have to take care if that with spitters too. Standard Def is fine with me. I really don’t watch tv while at boat anyways, just for the kids.

So can I turn on the service and in the spring and off again in fall? Or is it 1 year subscriptions. I suspect I’d go with direct tv as well
 
Thanks JVM
I didn’t know that about just the salon tv. I’ll have to take care if that with spitters too. Standard Def is fine with me. I really don’t watch tv while at boat anyways, just for the kids.

So can I turn on the service and in the spring and off again in fall? Or is it 1 year subscriptions. I suspect I’d go with direct tv as well
Pretty sure you can only use Direct TV. Yes, I was told by KVH that I could freeze the service in the off season and although I intended to do so I didn’t do it.
I came out of the water in late November and hope to take the shrinkwrap off in late March to make ready for a mid April launch.
I didn’t want to take the chance of having to deal with the whole thing again. It really was a nightmare to get it all straightened out.
They set it up so the Direct TV is billed with my cellular plan and the basic service with the promotion I got cost me about $25.00 a month. The extra $100.00 bucks to cover the 4 month lay up isn’t a big deal, and I find that I use the account to watch Direct TV on my iPad when I go to the gym and do cardio in the mornings.
I thought about just getting the Direct TV for the house since I need it for the boat, but although they have a lot of channels with their basic package, they are mostly channels I would never watch.
If your receiver is the same as mine you’ll need an RF modulator to make it all come together.
Here is the one I used:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J41Y4YY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If your boat came from the factory with multiple TV’s the splitter you need is already there someplace.
Your current splitter probably has a coax cable coming from the existing OTA antenna to it’s “In” side. Disconnect it.
Then connect red, white, yellow RCA cables from the “out” on the back of receiver box to the modulators red,white,yellow RCA “in”. Then from the modulator coax cable out to the cable splitter “In” side the the signal will be fed to the multiple TV’s via the “Out” side of that splitter.
Sounds confusing, but make a little diagram and it will be easy.
 
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If I remember correctly you’re going to need an access card number, a serial number for the system, and a number for the receiver.
You may also need a satellite number from your area that you somehow get when you turn it all on.
You’re going to have to call them from the boat with everything having the ability to be powered on and they’ll walk you through it.
 
Your splitter will be behind your electrical panel. The whole panel is secured by a few screws and then will swing out leaving a large area and easy access.
 

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