High gain dish

[LED]

Hi, I need some advice on a problem I've had for years.
I had 2 Dish 300 18" dishes for 110 and 119 with and external switch for my 2 receivers. After years of signal loss especially during snow storms, I had a Dish 500 Dish Pro Plus installed. I was told that that would solve all my signal problems. Well, it is worse. Covers over the dishes help with snow accumulation on the dishes. I bought an Accutrac 22 pro signal strength meter which does make alignment a lot easier.
Would a high gain dish help? I have seen 24" and 30" single satellite dishes that would probably help. Of course I would need two.
Does anyone make a high gain dual satellite dish?
Is it possible to have too much signal strength?
Thanks

 

[Andrewwski]

Yeah right...Dish 500 won't make it any better, actually probably worse.

The larger the dish the better. You could stick E* LNB's on a C-band dish and you'd probably never go out.

However you'd probably need one dish per sat.

 

[Tyralak]

Yeah right...Dish 500 won't make it any better, actually probably worse.

The larger the dish the better. You could stick E* LNB's on a C-band dish and you'd probably never go out.

However you'd probably need one dish per sat.

Talk about eliminating rain fade!

 

[primestar31]

Hi, I need some advice on a problem I've had for years.
I had 2 Dish 300 18" dishes for 110 and 119 with and external switch for my 2 receivers. After years of signal loss especially during snow storms, I had a Dish 500 Dish Pro Plus installed. I was told that that would solve all my signal problems. Well, it is worse. Covers over the dishes help with snow accumulation on the dishes. I bought an Accutrac 22 pro signal strength meter which does make alignment a lot easier.
Would a high gain dish help? I have seen 24" and 30" single satellite dishes that would probably help. Of course I would need two.
Does anyone make a high gain dual satellite dish?
Is it possible to have too much signal strength?
Thanks

Get 2 of the Winegard 30inch "D" tube dishes. See here, but you could also search Google to find it at other sites:

Winegard DS2077 30 Inch Offset DirecTv Dishnet Dish Antenna

You will also need a single DishPro dual output lnb for each dish.

That should pretty much cure your signal loss, except in extreme instances of weather.

 

[aegrotatio]

Hi,

You can get really good gain improvements using your existing DiSH 500 and an I-bracket that converts it to only use one LNBF. This puts the LNBF in the "sweet spot."

They sell them at the Satelliteguys.us store for around $5. I bought two.
Or use Primestar31's advice and get the DS2077.

In either case you should still have the dual-LNBFS from your old DiSH 300 systems and use them on these new dishes.

A DiSH 500 theoretically acts as an 18" dish for each LNBF on a dual-LNBF system, so unfortunately your new system is effectively equivalent to the old one in terms of signal gain.
Go to the metal scrap section of your local dump and pick up another DiSH 500 antenna. I got mine that way.

.

 

[LED]

Thanks for the help.
I checked, and the 30" Winegard dishes are about $70.00 plus $40.00 shipping each. I think I will try and find another Dish 500 dish and convert both. I still have the dual LNBF's and the external SW42 switch. 2 Dish 500 dishes should be a lot better than the 2 Dish 300's I had.
Anyone near Boulder Co have a Dish 500 dish for sale?

 

[Bob Haller]

do note even the big dishes at cheyenne uplink have had rain fade, and the uplink in gilbert arizona was placed there due to little rain.

in the right storm even a big dish can have rainfade

 

[comcast]

it's all about physics.

The larger surface you have, the better. higher elevations are less prone to rain fade. There is nothing wrong with upgrading to the largest dish you can find out there. Imagine the size of the SETH parabola in central America.

 

[SmityWhity]

It sounds like they all agree that a larger dish helps, but will not eliminate rain fade. Which doesn't matter since you don't have rain fade, only some snow fade.

This is my 3rd winter in this area, I started with a SuperDish 121 and only lost signal once for a few minutes last winter. I now have a Dish 1000+ and so for have not lost signals.

Maybe some natives here may want to comment, but I think maybe you may just want to get a Dish 1000 or Dish 1000.2 (or Dish 500+), and then you'll be ready to receive DishHD when you're ready to upgrade.

Of course, there are the 129 problems, but I don't think we have that problem in CO that much; which is the reason Charlie is happy with 129.

EDIT:
Also, if applicable.... Hopefully when your Legacy dish/LNBF setup was upgraded to DishPro/DishPro Plus, they upgraded the RG-59 to RG-6 rated to 2150 Mhz. Or maybe it's not perfectly peaked.

 

[digiblur]

The larger surface you have, the better. higher elevations are less prone to rain fade. There is nothing wrong with upgrading to the largest dish you can find out there. Imagine the size of the SETH parabola in central America.

How is a higher elevation less prone to rain fade?

 

[LED]

I have the same coax they installed many years ago. What type of coax should I have and how can I tell what I have installed now?
Is the coax really that important?

 

[GravelChan]

How is a higher elevation less prone to rain fade?

It's closer to the satellite!

 

[Jim5506]

The Dish 300 is your best choice for any one satellite, because the Dish500 is designed bigger because it is slightly de-focused in the horizontal plane to hit both lnb's.

Dish does not make their dishes larger because they will deliver more signal to a single lnb - they MUST make them larger because they actually deliver LESS signal per square inch with the detuned reflectors.

Yes, 24 or 30 inch parabolic reflectors will get you a stronger signal, but Dish 500 and 1000 series reflectors are NOT parabolic, they actually have at least two different focii.

And your coax should be RG-6 swept to at least 2200mhz.

 

[Pepper]

How is a higher elevation less prone to rain fade?

less atmosphere (less potential cloud thickness or other obstructions that might get in the way) to push the signal thru. Same reason the moon looks bigger and the sun looks redder when they are low to the horizon.

 

[Tyralak]

It's closer to the satellite!

I almost fell out of my chair laughing about that one! Thanks for the much needed humor this morning.

 

[LED]

The Dish 300 is your best choice for any one satellite, because the Dish500 is designed bigger because it is slightly de-focused in the horizontal plane to hit both lnb's.

Dish does not make their dishes larger because they will deliver more signal to a single lnb - they MUST make them larger because they actually deliver LESS signal per square inch with the detuned reflectors.

Yes, 24 or 30 inch parabolic reflectors will get you a stronger signal, but Dish 500 and 1000 series reflectors are NOT parabolic, they actually have at least two different focii.

And your coax should be RG-6 swept to at least 2200mhz.

Ok, let me get this straight. A Dish 500 with one dual LNB would not give me a stronger signal because of the 2 different focus points. That makes sense.
I'm not sure what "sweeping: a coax is. It sounds like I need to replace the coax.

 

[Andrewwski]

Reterminating connections would make more of a difference.

Swept test means that the manufacturer has tested it to certain frequencies, nothing more.

 

[aegrotatio]

less atmosphere (less potential cloud thickness or other obstructions that might get in the way) to push the signal thru. Same reason the moon looks bigger and the sun looks redder when they are low to the horizon.

No no no no no.

After passing through 7 miles of atmosphere that extra 20 feet is going to make ZERO difference.

The big shops use C-band because it is not affected by rain fade.
Ku-band is always susceptible to rain fade.
There is NO such thing as snow fade.
Ka-band is 10 times worse with rain fade. Go, DirecTV HD!

 

[digiblur]

I almost fell out of my chair laughing about that one! Thanks for the much needed humor this morning.

It's really sad that I've heard that over and over again. People don't realize that the satellites are 22,240 miles away. That's 117,427,200 feet. Now is being up on a mountain really going to make a dent in that number?

 

[Tyralak]

Ok, let me get this straight. A Dish 500 with one dual LNB would not give me a stronger signal because of the 2 different focus points. That makes sense.
I'm not sure what "sweeping: a coax is. It sounds like I need to replace the coax.

No. If you use an "I" bracket, the Dish 500 is essentially a larger Dish 300. If you use a dual in the usual "W" bracket, you have the two focal point thing he was talking about.