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The important number in your picture is EcbN0 (4.7 dB for G1 in this case). Nothing else matters. For the data rates/redundancy Shaw is using on G1, this needs to be at an absolute minimum, 5.5 dB. Ideally a 1.8m dish will increase that number by 3.5 dB to 8.2 dB, which would be fine. The...

I'll take your word for this as I have no interest whatsoever in sports. However a lot of what Dish Network and DirecTV do, and what Shaw doesn't do, ends up significantly lowering screen resolution. You pick your poison. While I don't have DirecTV for comparison, I have measured some of the...

One of the biggest differences is in HD picture quality. Dish Network and DirecTV are in the minor leagues compared to Shaw, which boasts the highest DBS HD video bit rates for North America, even allowing for a rough 2:1 compression efficiency of H.264 versus MPEG-2 (Shaw still uses MPEG-2...

The CM amp has a very high overload point and will work fine at the dish with the vast, vast majority of LNBs. Lower quality and cost devices are more vulnerable to overload, but placing these at the dish should still be your first step (if it worsens the quality then try it farther away, but...

I'm in Denver where the F2 (HD bird) power contours are lower than in Minnesota. I started with a 90 cm dish that worked fine, except for F2 when we had moderate rain. I had a spare 1.2m and put that up instead. Since then we have had no problems at all.

You need to put the amplifiers at the dish for them to work properly. A couple of quality, dual in-line amps like the Channel Master 5213IFD should improve your results at the end of a 600' cable more than a 75e dish.

This seems to be a general consensus of those who have carefully compared the choices. I would add that Shaw generally has the best HD PQ of any satellite distributor in North America. With Bell and Shaw you get to pick your poison - better PVR or better PQ.

The 505s should work for awhile, but there may be less and less they can receive. Shaw has not revealed their future plans, but any channels they encode in H.264 down the road will require 605/630 receivers. There is speculation the HD channels will be the first to migrate to this format. The...

If you're not in a hurry, I would wait. The DS505 cannot handle H.264 and it's not clear whether it will be able to command the new LNBF arrangement required for the extended range birds.

You've already received some excellent advice from joshuals, so I won't duplicate any of that. If this is a first time install for you I would take it slowly and read the introductory threads in the FTA section of these forums, because a lot of the general info for installing a Ku system is the...

Another possibility is to use one 1.2m offset dish instead of two 90cm. It might cost less unless you already have the two dishes and it will deliver a better signal. This worked perfectly for me. The focal length is long enough that I was easily able to mount two ordinary LNBs next to each...

I also ended up using a 1.2m for both birds, but mostly for better rain fade margin on 111.1 in Colorado. The two LNBFs I used nearly touch when set up for the SD satellites. My 1.2m has a fairly low f/D of 0.5, meaning the focal length is 0.6m. That's the same as a 1.0m with a more normal...

Strike my comment about the 90cm dish. I must have misread the original post. Sorry.

The antenna on Anik F1 is centered on Canada, so the farther south you go, the less power you will receive. But for MN, 90cm should be fine. On dishpointer.com, I get a true azimuth of 196 degrees and an elevation of 35 degrees for Rain Forest, MN.