Welcome to another mad scientist project, I am up in central Alaska and have been using a 4 antenna solution to receive the equivalent of a Dish 1000 system.
I use a 6' Anderson antenna to pick up 119 and 118.7 using a Dish Pro dual band LNB. 110 comes off a 1 meter antenna, and 129 is on a 30". The 129 dish was put in by the contracted Dish installer after I upgraded to HD and a 722 receiver.
A couple installers in the area have been modifying these 6' dishes to pick up 110, 119, and 129 by hanging 2 extra LNB's on the feed, so I thought I would give it a try and see how well it works. My system is the only one I know of in these parts receiving all 4 sats.
I took signal level readings from my old 129 dish, then connected a new LNB to my meter and found the "sweet spot" for 129 on the 6 footer. I knew about where to look after seeing many other installs in Fairbanks with 2 or 3 LNB's. I built a bracket and fastened the new LNB. The signal levels on 129 from the 6 footer are almost exactly the same as from the 30" dish, just a hair lower on a couple transponders.
The next step is to try to replace the 110 dish, I do not expect this to equal the 1 meter antenna signals but we will see. I will see how much if any programming is lost, if I lose anything I will go back to the old 110 dish.
I'll have to get a picture or two when it is finished, there are pics on some older posts showing the old setup. Is anyone else picking up 118.7 in Alaska? It was not easy getting Dish to turn on my programming I had to get the DIRT involved since the default answer is "no internatials in Alaska".
I use a 6' Anderson antenna to pick up 119 and 118.7 using a Dish Pro dual band LNB. 110 comes off a 1 meter antenna, and 129 is on a 30". The 129 dish was put in by the contracted Dish installer after I upgraded to HD and a 722 receiver.
A couple installers in the area have been modifying these 6' dishes to pick up 110, 119, and 129 by hanging 2 extra LNB's on the feed, so I thought I would give it a try and see how well it works. My system is the only one I know of in these parts receiving all 4 sats.
I took signal level readings from my old 129 dish, then connected a new LNB to my meter and found the "sweet spot" for 129 on the 6 footer. I knew about where to look after seeing many other installs in Fairbanks with 2 or 3 LNB's. I built a bracket and fastened the new LNB. The signal levels on 129 from the 6 footer are almost exactly the same as from the 30" dish, just a hair lower on a couple transponders.
The next step is to try to replace the 110 dish, I do not expect this to equal the 1 meter antenna signals but we will see. I will see how much if any programming is lost, if I lose anything I will go back to the old 110 dish.
I'll have to get a picture or two when it is finished, there are pics on some older posts showing the old setup. Is anyone else picking up 118.7 in Alaska? It was not easy getting Dish to turn on my programming I had to get the DIRT involved since the default answer is "no internatials in Alaska".