I'm curious to find out with everyone's experience which dish receives the strongest signals and least rain fade. The dishes I'm curious to compare are the Dish 500, 500/1000 Plus dish, SuperDish with 118.7 repoint kit, 1000.2 and 1000.4.
I've been going through the same process. The goal is to minimize rain-fade. I'm in northern California (zip 95949). Satellites of interest are 110, 119, 129. Currently have a Dish 1000 (non plus). Clear day signals on 129 range from a high of 47 on transponder 31 to several transponders at 28 including #19. Signal strengths on 119 are higher: mid 30s to mid 40s (excluding spot beams). Signal strengths on 110 are much higher: high 50s to low 70s. This is with a ViP622 with the "new" meter calibration.
I just helped a friend peak his 1000.2 with a ViP722 and didn't see much difference in readings.
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A Dish300 pointed at 119 or 110 gets a stronger signal with less rain fade than a Dish500 pointed at 110 and 119.
A Dish500 with a single LNB (ie a bigger version of the Dish300) will be better due to the higher gain of the antenna.
Has this been verified? It seems to me that a dish designed to target multiple satellites would have similar signal strengths regardless of the LNB positions. I theorize that each LNB is using a portion of the dish surface, but a similar amount of surface for the different locations. Wouldn't that make signal strength mostly a function of dish height?
I'd agree that a Dish 500 would produce more signal than a Dish 300 since the 500 is taller.
I'm not sure if the larger dishes designed for 3+ satellites have a single focal point. If they do they would have more gain and this better signal quality.
I would agree with this statement. I'm assuming a dish designed to target a single satellite has a single focal point (parabolic in both H and V dimensions) but a dish designed to target multiple satellites is parabolic in V but more circular in H so there will be multiple focal points for each satellite.
As an experiment, I covered a portion of the dish surface with my hand. On 129, my hand had a significant effect on signal toward one side of the dish but very little on the other. The same was true for 110 but the sides reversed (obviously). On 119, the center was most sensitive with little effect at either edge.
Any time you look at more than one satellite you loose signal. More satellites, more loss (compared to a dedicated, single satellite antenna).
I'm going with the "bigger is better" philosophy with a modification: Ignore the dish's width and consider only the height. This should allow you to compare dishes designed for single and multiple satellite reception.
So a Dish 1000.2 (20.7" tall) should be slightly better than a Dish 1000 (18"tall) and a Dish 1000 Plus (28.3" tall) should be the best of the three.
Does any of this make sense or am I all wet?