2 Dish Set-up Question

[cpgny9]

Last fall i set up my 3 lnb oval dish on my roof with a pole mount and was able to receive all three signals (101 & 110 were in the 90s and the 119 was in the low 70s, but i received all channels fine). Over the last few months, my 119 signal has slowly dissapeared and is now down to zero - I assume this is due to the leaves on the tree growing in.

I went to my roof last week to try and re aim, but nothing for the 119. I moved the set up to all corners of my roof (I have a flat roof, so its pretty easy to get around on it) and no luck. I remounted the dish to its original spot without the mast and was able to get the 101 & 110 with signals in the 90s. So right now i am without the 119 sat.

When I was moving the dish around on my roof, i was able to pick up the 119 signal (in the 90s), but nothing on the 101 &110. It was at a wierd angle, but I had my receiver up there with a little portable TV and i was getting a strong signal from the 119. Its my understanding (And I could be completly wrong) that the 119 sat is lower in the sky than then other two satellites. Is it possible that I was locked onto a wrong satellite and it was registering on the 119 signal meter? Maybe it was from where i positioned the dish, but it looked like it was pointing at a much higher angle than where the original dish was poitning that received the 101 & 110 sats.

Also, I previously bought a Zinwell Multi-Switch (SAM-4803). I have read many post about setting up 2 dishes, but everything I found explains how to set it up using an oval dish to pick up the 110 & 119 sats and a round dish to pick up the 101 sat. Is it possible to use the oval dish to pick up the 101 & 110 and use a separate round dish (with a dual lnb or single lnb?)to pick up the 119?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[danpeters]

I have the exactly same setup you are describing. I can only get 101 and 110 with my oval dish. 119 is blocked by a tree with my oval dish so I have it coming in on a seperate dish. I have the SAM-6802 switch with FlexPorts so I use a seperate 18 inch dish (either single or dual LNB will work) for 119 and run a single wire to the FlexPort. It works great for me. I also have my 72.5 satellite for local channels on the other FlexPort. You can pick up a new SAM-6802 on eBay for pretty cheap if you want to go that route.

To answer your other question, 119 is lower in the sky than 101 and 110. That is why multi-satellite dishes have the skew. It is possible that you have the dish pointing too far to the west and are picking up 119 on the 101 LNB, for example. If you cover up the 110 and 119 LNBs with aluminum foil (that would be the center one and the one on the far right if you are looking at the dish from the front), then you can be sure that you are getting 101 on the correct LNB. If you have the skew set correctly, 110 and 119 should fall into place. If your 119 still doesn't come in, you most likely have the same problem I have and you could either relocate your oval dish or use a seperate dish for 119 as I explained above.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

-Dan

 

[danpeters]

Quick note,

I never ran into this problem until yesterday with 119 being on a FlexPort but if you have a 2 tuner receiver, it will not be able to tune to an even and odd transponder channel at the same time. It makes complete sense and I can't believe I never considered it. For example, if you had 2 recordings set at the same time, one for a program on say, HBO Latino on transponder 30 and one for something on like.. CCTV9 on transponder 27, which ever one tunes first is going to get the signal. All of the high-def channels on 119 are on even transponders though so if that's all you used 119 for, you would be good using a FlexPort. Or if you were using just a standard HD receiver with a single tuner there wouldn't be a problem either.

Just thought I would add that.

-Dan