Greatly improved 129 signal strength!

Nicu

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Dec 3, 2003
58
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I'm in Buena Park, OC, Southern Cal. I had my 622 installed yesterday with a dedicated Dish500. For the first few hours after the installation the 129 signal strength was pretty weak but then the signal strength greatly improved especially on transponders 3, 6, 8, 11. Here are the numbers for comparison:

transp 3: 50 initially, 75 after a few hours
transp 6: 57/77
transp 8: 51/78
transp 11: 53/72
transp 19: 70/74
transp 23: 71/75
transp 30: 76/77
transp 31: 76/77

I heard that there was a lot of movement on the satellites yesterday since they went live with the new satellite at 110, maybe this would explain the variation in signal strength?

N

N
 
"I heard that there was a lot of movement on the satellites yesterday since they went live with the new satellite at 110, maybe this would explain the variation in signal strength?"

I don't think so. Those moves are being done on Echostar X not 129. 129 signal goes up and down for no reason. Some people in the Pacific Northwest have reported drops of 30 or more pts in signal strength and then it comes back up.
 
RandallA said:
129 signal goes up and down for no reason. Some people in the Pacific Northwest have reported drops of 30 or more pts in signal strength and then it comes back up.

and it's maddening to be watching something off 129 and the signal drops and doesn't come back before the 622 barps and reboots.
 
HokieEngineer said:
The hamster in the cage gets tired every now and then up there at 129! Cut him some slack guys :)

You mean wheel, not cage.

More of E* outsourcing? India wasn't good enough. Now they have to get mutual of omaha's wild kingdom involved.
 
We can only hope once everything is transfered to E10 at 110, they'll be able to move a spare over to 129. Or maybe launch a new sat for 129.
 
chadzx11 said:
You mean wheel, not cage.

More of E* outsourcing? India wasn't good enough. Now they have to get mutual of omaha's wild kingdom involved.

hay now, watch the OMAHA comments!! ;)
 
chadzx11 said:
You mean wheel, not cage.

More of E* outsourcing? India wasn't good enough. Now they have to get mutual of omaha's wild kingdom involved.
Crack the whip on those hamsters, Marlon Perkins!
 
RandallA said:
They really need to addres this problem with 129 and I hope they do it soon.

I dont know if they can considering that it seems to be something regionalized to that area and nowhere else that I know of, it hasnt happened here in southern michigan so far as I know.
 
Van said:
I dont know if they can considering that it seems to be something regionalized to that area and nowhere else that I know of, it hasnt happened here in southern michigan so far as I know.
I get rain fade on the 129 channels with the Dish 1000 in Central Oklahoma, at times when the 110/119 channels stay alive. All the 129 TPs are a good 20 points weaker than the 110/119 TPs. I think that's true in most parts of the USA.
 
mdonnelly said:
I get rain fade on the 129 channels with the Dish 1000 in Central Oklahoma, at times when the 110/119 channels stay alive. All the 129 TPs are a good 20 points weaker than the 110/119 TPs. I think that's true in most parts of the USA.

Agreed. 129 is a weak bird and they should address the problem. In my opinion, they shouldn't even continue to add channels to this satellite. Nothing like watching one of the Voom channels on a rainy night and the signal goes out. That's just bull!
 
Yea it is a somewhat weaker sat right now, hell I just lost my 110 and 119 from rain fade here but I havent made my modded 121 sd yet so I cant say on the 129.

I believe that dish will increase the signal strength on the 129 soon, as Ive said in another thread the 121 was initialy a very weak source but now can easily be tuned in with a sig strength of %90 and Ive peaked a good dozen over %100, Ive also had one d1000 tuned in over %100.
 
Just a thought - As you look at the path the signals from 129 have to follow vs. 110 and 119 to the contiguous 48 (look at RandallA's Avatar!) you can see that with 129 being so oblique the signals need to travel a greater distance to the cont. 48 vs. those from 110, 119 and thus are subject to greater and more variable attenuation from the atmosphere. If the TPs on 129 are the same strength as those on 110, 119 then we would expect a worse performance from 129 in the cont. 48, as is widely reported.

How do signals from 148 compare with 129? If my theory is correct and all other things equal, the signals from 148 should be even worse for those of us in the cont. 48...
 
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When I had 148, I was getting 110 on TP11 and in general the signal for most TPs was in the 100s and 90s. That's here in the SF Bay Area. I just think that 129 is a sick bird and I hope that now with Echostar X being functional they do something about this POS.
 
RandallA said:
When I had 148, I was getting 110 on TP11 and in general the signal for most TPs was in the 100s and 90s. That's here in the SF Bay Area. I just think that 129 is a sick bird and I hope that now with Echostar X being functional they do something about this POS.


Dish is not going to do a damn thing about 129.
Ceil (which owns the 129 slot dish is using) is is launching a new bird in 2007
When the new bird is up Dish has a lease for 16 TPS at 129 when the new bird goes up, with an option to lease more space.

Dish is going to make their HD customers (who they constantly crap on) just deal with low signal on 129 until Ceil's new bird is up.

With the FCC and DTV fracking over Dish on the Spotbeams on E10 Dish does not have a spare bird to move there.
 
So for people on the West Coast and specifically the PNW the options are:

1) Deal with the crappy signals and rain fade from 129 and wait until 2007.
2) Try to hit 61.5 which is a pain in the ass because of the elevation angles and most of us can't get it.
3) Cancel the damn HD package.

I'm really considering #3 since I can't use my A/V receiver with my 211 receiver because of the digital audio sync problem.
 
RandallA said:
So for people on the West Coast and specifically the PNW the options are:

1) Deal with the crappy signals and rain fade from 129 and wait until 2007.
2) Try to hit 61.5 which is a pain in the ass because of the elevation angles and most of us can't get it.
3) Cancel the damn HD package.

I'm really considering #3 since I can't use my A/V receiver with my 211 receiver because of the digital audio sync problem.

Or use a separate dish pointing at 129.
 
rdinkel said:
Or use a separate dish pointing at 129.


While that helped for me, the signal strength here in Oregon is no where what it should be for a bird that's Conus. My neighbor down the street has a 61.5 dish
and gets a higher signal strength from there than I do from my D500 aimed squarely at 129.

If I had a D1000 I'd be hosed.

Sam
 
rdinkel said:
Or use a separate dish pointing at 129.

and that's exactly what I have. Look at "View my Equipment" pictures. I have a D500 with an I adapter and I only get mid 70s with 129. It should be at least in the high 80s to avoid rain fade.
 
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