Help with an Army football tailgate

[tollhaus]

I'll be tailgating this weekend (and many other weekends in the next few years) at West Point, NY. I'm a Dish amateur but wanted to try to get some basic TV setup.

Right now I have a Dish 500 in my shed that is set up for the 61.5, but that won't get me ESPN (I think). I don't care about HD, so can I adjust that dish for the 119? My locals are NY City, so they're on 119 in SD. 119 should also get me ESPN (SD) and ESPN2, which is really all I need on a Saturday morning/afternoon.

For the receiver, my plan was to disconnect the 722 in my house and take it with me. Right now it's reading the 72, 77 and 61.5 for my HD tv at home.

My questions are: will the Dish 500 work for just the 119? If so, what angles to I need to set on the pole? (I have a roof mount with scales on it. It's mounted to a sheet of plywood which I will put on the roof of my van when we park and anchor it down before I start aiming.)

Also, what settings do I need to change in my receiver to get it to work? I was planning on calling Dish and having them mail me a second receiver for $5/month, but it won't get here for this week. Any recommendations on buying a cheap second receiver on ebay or something?

Thanks for the help. I live close, so I'm going to go set it up in the same parking lot the day prior in order to avoid any Saturday morning failures.

 

[bross]

From West Point you need to set the elevation on the dish to 24 degrees and point it at an azimuth angle of 252, magnetic. Make sure the skew angle is set to 90 degrees and the mounting pole is plumb. Just run check switch after you align the dish and the receiver will be set. You'll have to run check switch again when you reconnect it at the house. Good luck.

 

[tollhaus]

Is the skew very important? When you say 90 deg, does that mean that the dish would be essentially flat or rotated so that it looks like it's on its side?

As I'm pointing the dish, which angles should I try to adjust first?

 

[bross]

The skew needs to be set so there is no skew or flat. There's a scale on the dish for setting it, and you should set it at 90 on the scale. It should already be set there if you've been using it as a wing dish for 61.5.

To align the dish, make sure the mounting post is plumb, set the elevation on the dish, then slowly rotate the dish on the post in the azimuth direction while watching the point dish screen on the receiver. Make small adjustments and give the receiver time to register changes between moves. Once you have the best signal possible, lock the dish and peak the signal with small adjustments to the elevation.

 

[tollhaus]

what do I need between the LNB and the box? Diplexers, etc? I was planning on just unhooking the whole mess from my wall jack and running that straight to the dish. Will that work?

 

[bross]

You just need a cable from the lnb to the receiver. No switches or diplexers. Remove the Dishpro plus separator at the receiver and run the cable directly into tuner #1 input. You'll only be able to use one tuner with the single cable. If you have a dual lnb on the dish you can run a second cable to the receiver and use both tuners, but I doubt you need that for tailgating.