Dish 500 conversion

[bpalone]

I just did a conversion of a Dish 500 dish to FTA. When totally finished will post some pictures. But, I have question for those that know more than I do.

I started with 103W hoping to possibly get the West NBC and possibly Cozi, but no joy. Do get the scrambled signals with a Q of 70. Am I hoping for to much or do I need to do more tweaking? The best I got on the beach channels was about 60 Q.

Did a quick move to 97W, without peaking, did a blind scan and picked up about 110 channels.

The elevation seems to be off by 3 degrees, if elevation is 38 then need to set 41.

Could it be that I am off with LNB, not high enough or ??

Any thoughts welcomed.

 

[KE4EST]

I did the same with the a DISH 500 a few years ago. Too small for most stuff but pickup up the "HOT" transponders fine.
I used it for the history channel before it went off.
Once I had the LNBF dialed in the elevation was dead on. So I would work on the LNBF aim a little more.

 

[. Raine]

How big is a Dish 500 dish? One thing that will help a lot if the dish is on the small size is to use a PLL LNB. Definitely has to be some pictures when you're done!

 

[waylew]

How big is a Dish 500 dish? One thing that will help a lot if the dish is on the small size is to use a PLL LNB. Definitely has to be some pictures when you're done!

They're only like about 20x22 inch,so,small.

 

[Titanium]

Did you remove the yoke that held the two circular LNBFs and mount a single linear LNBF above the arm? Is the center of the linear LNBF at the same height as the previous LNBFs? Same distance and angle to the reflector? Rotating the dish or the LNBF for the skew?

These are all factors for the elevation scale being accurate. Remember, the dish was designed to have two LNBFs offset from the center by 4.5 degrees. At the top of the arc, a centered LNBF would be at approximately the same height as the 4.5 degree offset LNBFs. Depending on the skew angle of the dish mount and where the satellites are in the arc, the two satellites separated by 9 degrees could vary in elevation by as much as 7 degrees.

3 degrees difference on the bracket scale is reasonable, but it could also indicate the geometry is a bit off on the new LNBF placement.

 

[FaT Air]

Your 97W results seem to be very similar to what I got when I experimented with that dish. Weather 'knocked' it out easily so I retired it as soon as I got another DTN dish.

 

[fred555]

I started with 103W hoping to possibly get the West NBC and possibly Cozi, but no joy.

There will be quite a bit you may not be able to get or get reliably. And weather knocks it right out. I've converted both Dish and DirecTV dishes. It is fun project to do. I view it like the sport of fishing. The fun is in the building and the searching. Its also a cheap way to search for different signals, and see whats out there.

On 97W, you should be able to get Retro and Revn.
Also 30W is a good one to try for good movies and not so cute Girlies! It comes in fairly strong, I have a converted DirecTV Slimline there.
95W CCTV documentary and News channels come in strong too, that's where my converted DISH is now.

 

[bpalone]

The purpose of my project was to create a portable system that could be dropped and set up in just a few minutes. To be used to demonstrate SOME of what is available via FTA. The operative being SOME.

Did some measuring and calculating. Found out I had the LNBF to close to the dish. Did some modification and tried again. Had similar results on 103W, but tried 97W again with some, but minimal, tweaking. Had considerably better luck this time. Ended up with 154 TV channels and 53 Radio stations.

Did get Russia Today, did have some tiling, but was watchable, at least until some cumulus clouds came drifting through. I did not check all the channels, but it appears that everything was DVB-S. Also got a very good signal on Retro TV and REVN, so it will do to show SOME of what is available.

Did snap some photos of the screen, will post a couple later, after I resize them.

Thanks for the feed back everyone. Will post a full set photos under another title here in a few days or so.

 

[bobsav2001]

There will be quite a bit you may not be able to get or get reliably. And weather knocks it right out. I've converted both Dish and DirecTV dishes. It is fun project to do. I view it like the sport of fishing. The fun is in the building and the searching. Its also a cheap way to search for different signals, and see whats out there.

On 97W, you should be able to get Retro and Revn.
Also 30W is a good one to try for good movies and not so cute Girlies! It comes in fairly strong, I have a converted DirecTV Slimline there.
95W CCTV documentary and News channels come in strong too, that's where my converted DISH is now.

Back in 1998 i had a subscribtion with Bell Expresvue and at the time they were on Anik 107.3 using a linear lnb,
and after a year or so they went circular.
I dont know if Dish Network had linear lnb's but here are photos of what we had.
I have 2 lnb holders like on the pictures and they fit on the dish 500 without remooving the yoke.
I like to play with that 18 inches dish and scan a few sats to see what i can get and dont have to skew the dish just skew the lnb.

 

[fred555]

Nice! No big conversion project needed with that setup.

 

[bpalone]

As promised here are images of signal strength from CNC World, Retro TV and Russia Today. All from the modified Dish 500.

 

[danristheman]

Good job bpalone it takes some time to work I worked with the turbo hd dish upside down thats fun.

 

[fred555]

The purpose of my project was to create a portable system that could be dropped and set up in just a few minutes. To be used to demonstrate SOME of what is available via FTA. The operative being SOME.

Nice work!

Here are some ideas for the base of a portable system (patio umbrella stands):
https://www.google.com/search?q=pat...ChMI_v68gd3oxgIVln-SCh2dbgtA&biw=1252&bih=574

I use something similar to this:

Then just get a pole. it can all be assembled/disassembled quickly. Its pretty heavy.
There are some you fill with water, so they are not heavy for transport.
I recommend buying from a store, bring a section of pole, and make sure it all fits together.
The hole sizes on these can vary widely.