Can I point a Dish 500 at 72.7 and get it?

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SILVERSTREAK50

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Original poster
May 17, 2010
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NORFOLK, VA.
I am in Va. at 76 degrees long. I have a dish 500 that used to get 110 and 119 and has a 311 receiver. The 119 has gone dead, 110 is fine. I read these may go away in time anyway and all I want to see appears to be on 72.7 alone (I have the 250 package) and is SD and I don't need locals. Would the dish if turned almost straight up be able to get 72.7, the SD channels part that is? Or would I need a different LNA? If so who might have that? Is getting rid of 119/110 a good idea anyway, if so I know I want to do that. Is 72.7 as strong as the 110/119 satellites?

Question 2: By the way, can one just reverse the coax on the 2 LNA's in a 500 and then get 119 instead of 110 or is it not that simple? There is no switch or relays involved by the way.
 
SILVERSTREAK50 said:
I am in Va. at 76 degrees long. I have a dish 500 that used to get 110 and 119 and has a 311 receiver. The 119 has gone dead, 110 is fine. I read these may go away in time anyway and all I want to see appears to be on 72.7 alone (I have the 250 package) and is SD and I don't need locals. Would the dish if turned almost straight up be able to get 72.7, the SD channels part that is? Or would I need a different LNA? If so who might have that? Is getting rid of 119/110 a good idea anyway, if so I know I want to do that. Is 72.7 as strong as the 110/119 satellites?

Question 2: By the way, can one just reverse the coax on the 2 LNA's in a 500 and then get 119 instead of 110 or is it not that simple? There is no switch or relays involved by the way.
Click to expand...
As Pepper stated, your 311 will not work with the EA sats. 110 and 119 are not going anywhere. E14 (a new sat) has just arrived at 119. It sounds like your dish needs to be repeaked or your LNB replaced. And. :welcome to SatGuys.
 
Thank you, looking at the sat chart it looked like most channels were the same mod and so on, but I wasn't sure if the LNB would be looking at the right range on a different sat or what. OK, glad to hear 119 is being replaced, not retired then. So, looks like lets troubleshoot my problem then and leave it pointed at 110/119.
I can't get anything from 119 but it worked fine right up to failing, no storm or surge or anything is involved. So could I open the feedhorn on the 500 and reverse the coax to the two (they DO plug in. right?) and then I would get 119 and not 110? That would prove the LNB failed seems like, or is there a better idea? Is power going to both all the time, I guess I could check for DC and so on too at the 119 LNB.

Is any of the newer larger dishes compatable by the way, like that I could take the feedhorn from my 500 and put it on a larger dish and it would work with less rain fade, stronger signal? That was also why I liked the 72.7 idea as that is overhead and I bet little rain fade too. But it isn't that bad if I can't.
 
Foil over the 110 LNB and see if you can raise a signal with the 119 LNB. If not, the LNB is likely dead. However, before doing that make sure your cable is OK.

If needed, you can find a new DPP Twin on eBay for $20.

A used legacy Twin is $9.

Also look around. People are tossing out older dishes and LNBs all the time.

E* used to replace bad LNBs at no cost. Now I think you have to pay for the truck roll. If you don't have the service plan, sign up for it and then drop it afterwards. That way the visit will only cost $46. ($15 for the call plus $6 monthly fee plus $25 plan termination fee).
 
if 110 is workin and 119 is out then yes u need a repeak or u have a los issue

and to answer ya org question, yes you can point a d500 on EA, you'll pick up 61.5/72...
 
Thank you all. I have ordered the new LNB Laddy pointed me to, and will fix the original issue first, then will see and maybe experiment knowing i can go back to 110/119. Is the new eastern arc sats as strong as the older 110/119 ones? I hear stories some of the sats are a lot weaker. I wish i did have the larger diameter dish they use now but the smaller one does pretty well unless it rains a lot.
 
all very good questions. IMHO 110/119 are much stronger sats. they are not going anywhere.
instead of swapping the coax, just swap the lnb's. all you need is a phillips scredriver.
if 119 comes in and 110 goes dead its the lnb. if nothing changes its the cable to 119 or the alignment of the dish. at this point swap the cables to test further.
are you SURE there is no switch? sounds like you should have a sw21 in your setup. its small, looks like a silver splitter.
 
You keep trying to go to 72.7 but all SD and HD transponders on there are MPEG-4, the 311 is MPEG-2, IIRC and as Pepper said. So that won't work. Also true for many of the TPs on 61.5. That is why the others are talking of the Western Arc or 110 + 119 with many MPEG-2 TPs, yet. Later add 129 for HD also MPEG-4, when you get that and a new receiver.
-Ken
 
Yes I understand that part at last, I can forget 72.7 unless I change receivers which I assume is never allowed by Dish. They only rent them now, right? If I did buy one on Ebay they would not swap my account to it would they? Or if they would, demand new packages be purchased first?

My attempt to fix 119 has failed, it just is no longer available, got a new LNB head and it is the same, get 110 fine, no 119 at all. Tried unmounting the dish and moved it up the roof, moved it all around, nothing on 119 ever. I also learned the 311 receiver cannot be trusted, when in point mode it often did not see even 110 till I changed transponder numbers back and forth in the menu, then the bar appeared!! So I could just miss 119 even if it appeared looks like too. So now looks like I need to buy one of those signal meters, I see cheap ones for 50 dollars or so, would those work well and tell me if I really see 119? With the 2 in just one coax, how would I know, cover the 110 with foil maybe??
I am assuming now my receiver must be bad and not switching to 119 when selected. How does the 311 change between 110 and 119, is there a voltage I could measure or does it use that 22k tone I read about? There is no switch, external anyway, so how does it change from 110 to 119, or are both feedhorns on at same time?

I opened the old feedhorn and see it is all made together, so there seems no way to swap the 110 and 119 like I had hoped to do, and no way to hold the LNB in place if I tried turning it around so it would face the other way either. I had thought there were 2 separate devices in that feedhorn.

The signal meter does sound like a nice thing to have, anyone use the Digisat 2 meter?
 
You can do a DIY install with a cheap sat meter from ebay. You can go for a more expensive model if you wish but I wouldn't unless you plan to tweak/install several dishes. Another option that you have is to add the DHPP to your account and have E* replace the 311 and repoint your dish.

You can buy a receiver to put on your account. Just check the R00# with E* before buying.
 
Thanks Voyager, got that meter for just ten dollars, can't go wrong having one at that price, got the F95B one. Can anyone tell me how the switching works in a 311 receiver to select 110 and 119, or are both just on together all the time and the receiver just tunes to two discrete different frequencies, or what?

So if I did want to try 72.7 later, I'd buy a new receiver on Ebay that gets mpeg4 and they would activate it? As long as I am not trying to get anything but the SD 250 channel package I am paying for yearly, that would work as a plan if I can't fix 119? I already see all the channels I want to view are in fact on 72.7, even NASA is there, per the channel chart. I am missing a shuttle mission right now in fact. What model receiver would be cheap and easy to get these MPEG4 channels, the SD ones then?
Does Dish have to know I am going to 72.7 for the card to work to allow reception, or am I already allowed to go to any sat and not just 110/119? Would the white card from my 311 just go into the new receiver then or does Dish have to send me a new one?
 
the switching between 110/119 is done by the lnb, i believe.
careful buying off of ebay, if the box you buy has an unpaid balance, you'll have to pay that balance. you cannot put a different card in it.
 
You would be better of to look at Dish Store than off ebay. They are sponsor here and they will help you. In fact you might want to talk to Claude here about what is going on.
 
Thanks, I'll do that and ask them, once I get my signal meter and see what it says about that 119 sat. Changing receivers gets to be an issue since I have a series 1 Tivo on it working fine now and am not sure any newer receiver would be controlled by the Tivo's IR since they don't update the codes. Of course if the newer receivers use the same codes and remotes as the 311 then no problem.
What model receiver would get MPEG4 like on 72.7 that is cheap and only needs to output SD? Or are all those newer receivers HD? I assume it would work on 110/119 too, right?
I would need one with a composite out, the yellow/red/white cables, do the newer receivers still have those?
 

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