Just bought a house with Dish Network antennas installed. Need help

[micksh]

3 dishes mounted on the house. These are small, one has "500" label on it, others don't have 500 but all seem to be the same size, probably 18".
I am looking for a way to somehow utilize them. It's San Jose, California.

Do I understand correctly that these dishes will be looking at 110, 119 and 129 which are satellite numbers?

From this post
fta-mpeg2-faqs/34131-what-can-i-get-18-dish-dish-500-a (can't post a link)
I understand that only Ion and NASA TV are somewhat useful, right? If I don't watch religious programs Angel One is not for me?
But NASA TV web site says they are broadcasting in C-band and I understand I would need larger dish for that? Will I be able to watch it? And they say they move to different satellite soon. Would it affect me?

What would be the cheapest receiver that I could buy to watch this? Would something from eBay do? Like this SkyTech-2700A-FTA-Digital-Satellite-TV-Receiver


I have HTPC and would actually prefer USB tuner. I have Vista but plan to upgrade to Windows 7 (probably 32 bit, but not sure). Would I be able to record programs in this case? And receive Hi-Def if any?
Could you recommend me cheap USB tuner that works with Win 7 and Vista?

I am completely new here, never dealt with satellites, thank you for reading this.

 

[gremlin411]

the visionsat IV200 will let you record there is thread in the receiver reveiw section check it out. You not be able to get hd with it but you can read the reveiws on hd tuners and see if like any.

 

[Anole]

making sense of it all:

A decent FTA receiver (ask before buying) might also include a Coolsat 5000 or 6000, or a Mercury II (or later model), or others with proper switching, motor control, blind scan etc.
However, for two channels, I don't see the payback.

Forget those useless dishes, and get yourself a real 36" FTA dish, and join the fun.
Alternately, there are some larger (say, 30") DirecTV or DishNetwork dishes that can be re-tasked for FTA.
May require installing a new LNB, but we can walk you through that.
There are hundreds of pictures of such conversions on the forum.

Now, to another point of consideration.
I looked up San Jose on TVfool.com and without knowing your exact zip, and specifying 15 foot high antenna, I got 21 transmitters you should be able to receive OTA.
Most have multiple subchannels, with perhaps four dozen choices of programming!
You'd just need a modern HD receiver or DTV converter box, and an outdoor antenna! -

 

[AcWxRadar]

I am completely new here, never dealt with satellites, thank you for reading this.

Micksh,

There is one thing that we need to take care of that hasn't been addressed yet......



I wanted to use this little welcome message so bad! Hee hee!

Welcome to SatelliteGuys!

RADAR

 

[micksh]

Thank you, guys

Yes, I have a good outdoor OTA antenna and I can receive a lot of channels. What I am looking for is not for myself - I was hoping to get some educational programs from NASA TV for my son. There is not much like this on OTA AFAIK.
But now I'm not even sure if I can get NASA with these dishes.

A cheap USB PC tuner would be OK if it worked. I don't think I have motors to control - these dishes seem to be mounted statically. And why there would be 3 of them otherwise.

I'm not planning to install a new dish at this time, just wanted to see if I can do something with these.

 

[Anole]

USB tuners are not cheaper than recycled STB FTA receivers.
I'd strongly recommend you starting out with a stand alone receiver 'till you get up to speed in the hobby.

You don't need to control switches, motors, nor do blind scanning for just NASA, but as your interest grows, the usefullness of those features will become apparent.
Kinda like buying a car with no lights nor back seat.
That's okay for today and in the daylight, but later they'll be handy.

Post pictures of your dishes, and we can select which to use for NASA on 119°.
Use a compass, and determine which direction each dish is pointed
If the LNB is centered, that should be easy.
Most likely the Dish 500 will be aimed at 119° and 110° .
The others may be pointed to 129°, 148°, or 101° as an educated guess.

 

[Tron]

But NASA TV web site says they are broadcasting in C-band and I understand I would need larger dish for that? Will I be able to watch it? And they say they move to different satellite soon. Would it affect me?

NASA's original source uplink is C-Band, but Dish Network re-uplinks the public channel from the C-Band mux for their customers (and everyone else, since it is unencrypted) on 119W DBS band. That re-uplink is what you would be receiving with an 18" dish. If at a later time you decide you want to get NASA straight from the source, including four standard definition channels and a part-time high definition channel, you would then have to put up a C-Band dish on 72W (or 87W after January 16, 2010). The satellite move on their C-Band uplink should not in any way affect the 119W Dish Network NASA re-uplink.

 

[Bill_KY]

I would make these suggestions...

If getting into FTA and planning on aligning some dishes later on, it is always easier to aim the dish with a receiver and TV right at the dish. On the roof it would be difficult if there was a steep slope. But on the ground, it should be no problem. Based on that here goes...

Get a small portable TV, the Haier 7" TV are small, has A/V jacks flat and uses rechargeable batteries.

Try to find the Visionsat IV200 receiver, they are sensitive and they are great for locating satellites and positioning satellite dishes because you can use them as a strength/quality meter..and in the "extended" feature the strength/quality meter can be made to go larger and this makes it easier to see to help tweak the dish.

Inclinometer or "Angle Finder" are around $10 and can make pointing a dish easier, especially C-band.

If getting a receiver, get two receivers instead . The reason is that you can use one receiver as your "set up receiver" and the other one as your main inside receiver. I would suggest (if you can afford one) ..get a HD receiver as your main reciever. I don't own one yet, but there is a growing number of FTA channels that are HD.

Dishes...the more the better. A less expensive route is a multi LNB bracket set up with two or more LNB's per dish with a bracket. Or just use one dish and motorize it. The advantage with multi dishes/LNB's is that you don't have to wait for the motor to finish turning to watch your favorite satellite. The advantage with the motor is that you have one dish.

Welcome to the forum and to the community.

 

[WTguy]

For now if you are just interested in the NASA channel (and perhaps ION), I would suggest you go to ebay and buy just about any receiver there (avoid Nfusion which is strictly pirate junk, not really designed for true fta). You should be able to get one for less than a hundred, just make sure the seller agrees that it will not be DOA when you get it.
Hook it up to the satellite dish aimed at 119 (should be the one aimed at a middle satellite, 129 will be west and 110 east of 119).

Since a lot of those recievers were owned by someone in the eyepatch group, the receiver will probably be setup for the transponders receiving NASA and ION. If the reciever has been reprogrammed and still has a lot of the Dishnetwork channels listed, then go into the menu and find an option to delete all channels (not satellites but channels). Then I would simply scan the two transponders with NASA and ION (NASA appears to be on 12379V and ION on 12414H, both with an symbol rate of 20000). Try scanning for "fta" but if that is not an option then after scanning you will need to delete the channels with a "$" since those should be blank on your receiver anyway.

The one thing that could be a potential problem is the lnb, you do not state what type you have (the Dish Legacy or one of the DP, DishPro, varieties). So you may need to play with the lnb settings to find which setting will give you a quality reading on your setup menu.

One disclaimer, fta channels are here today but any one particular channel can be gone tomorrow. That is why I am recommending a cheap way to get a reciever since you expressed a limited interest in the channels you want.

However, (another disclaimer), I would not be surprised if you get the fta "bug" and start getting into this hobby somewhat deeper. Then come back, research, and ask more questions.

Good luck, now I need to go start drinking hot chocolate, we got over 3 inches of snow last night (please, no snickering from Iceberg and the rest of the northern members) and my 3 year old is going to want me to help her to build a snowman when she gets up. (Mommy so graciously volunteered me last night when it started snowing.)

 

[zamar23]

If your son is computer savvy, and would prefer to deal with a PC Card anyway (I got the same issue here ), look at QQ-Box thread at PC DVB Discussion section of this forum. This USB Sat Receiver is dirt cheap, and the latest models are quite good in DVB-S signal reception like NASA or Ion channels.

 

[micksh]

Thank you everyone a lot. This is the most friendly and helpful forum I've ever met.

As Anole suggested I made photos of my dishes. attached. I was wrong, second dish also has 500 on it but it has different "DP" label in front of it (is it what you call LNB? I only figured out it's a Low Noise Block converter and this is what is mounted on a dish). Third dish is completely clean, no DP.

Regarding orientation - I don't have a compass and I don't think I would be able to measure orientation precisely with it. I aligned camera parallel to house wall and made another photo which shows dish orientation.
I also attached screenshot of Google maps with that house wall direction marked as green line. I assume North is top direction on Google maps. I don't know what is the baseline for calculating angles though.

The previous owner had only regular Dish Network service and I would assume the orientation would be standard. Zip code is 95118.

Can I assume that it looks like the lowest placed dish would be what I'm looking for - 119, just between 110 and 129 and since it has DP it is safe to try?

I would like to get USB tuner since I could record programs with it. I am not sure how wires are going through this house, so far I found only one location where I see dish wires so it would be convenient if I recorded programs with Media Center and distributed them through LAN to son's room.

I could not find any QQ Box on sale. Would any other USB PC tuner (except Nfusion) do the job? Of course I need to check Vista/7 compatibility.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi Micksh and the group, looking at your pictures my best guess would be the lower dish is on 110/119, the high left one might be an older legacy LNB and might be on 119 and the high one on the right could be on 129. Just so you know the LNBs on these dishes can be swapped with out requiring re-aiming provided you are careful not to bump the dish when working on it. If all you want is the NASA channel then the most simple setup may well be to try the older legacy dish first. It may already be on 119 and if is you would be good to go. Other options if the old dish is not on 119 would be to re-aim it or because it is up so high you might want to take the LNB off of it and replace the dual LNB on the lower dish - just mount it on 119 side of the plastic yoke. Because the Dual LNB has a built in switch it would be a little bit more involved setting it up in your receiver. Still another option to think about if the old legacy LNB does not work would be to use the DP signal LNB that is on the high right dish. The DP LNB is bandstacked and should work just fine for NASA but it might not be fully supported in some FTA receivers. Speaking of receivers I would advise not going with the HTPC and go with a FTA DVB receiver that offers blind scan instead. That way you would have the foundation for a much more capable setup with minimum cost now. Later if you decided you want to upgrade you could add a larger Ku dish, maybe a motor and a DVB PC card for you HTPC. with a setup like that you would be able to find news and sports feeds in HD and 4:2:2 and watch them on the HTPC. The reason I do not recommend the HTPC to start with is they are much harder to setup and trouble shoot and they tend not to be good at running a motor. Hope this helps, DC

 

[Anole]

Try to find the Visionsat IV200 receiver, . . .

Let me strongly recommend this receiver, too. (I have several)
With an external USB hard drive, it will record programs for you.
Should be able to find a used (or new) one for $50 - 80, I think.

Speaking of receivers I would advise not going with the HTPC and go with a FTA DVB receiver that offers blind scan instead.
That way you would have the foundation for a much more capable setup with minimum cost now.

That's the point I was trying to make in previous posts.

. . . looking at your pictures my best guess would be the lower dish is on 110/119, the high left one might be an older legacy LNB and might be on 119 and the high one on the right could be on 129.

Well, the lower right dish with the dual dishPro LNB is most certainly aimed at 110/119.
The upper dishPro LNB might be on 129 for hi def, but more likely on the now dead 148 satellite.
Really hard to tell from the angle of the pictures.
See below * for some extended help in determining which satellite they're aimed at.

Since we're pretty sure the big LNB is aimed at 110/119, let me suggest you use it as-is.
So, no re-aiming required. -
By default and upon power up, one of its two connectors will be set on 119, and the other on 110 (if I remember from my Dish days).
So, there's really no tricky switch-commands to be concerned with.
Any modern receiver (especially the Visionsat, Mercury II, or Coolsat mentioned above) should be fine with the dishPro (bandstacked) LNBs.

As for your house wiring, I suggest you trace the coax cables.
You should find a silver box about eight inches square and two inches thick.
It'll have about a dozen coax connectors on several sides, and probably be labeled "DP-34".
It's the electronic switch which selects and feeds signals throughout the house for use on DishNetwork.
Tell us what you find, and we can help you bypass the switch to get the proper LNB signal into the room you need.



* how to determine dish direction:

In North America, a compass will not point exactly north; there is an offset that varies across the continent.
For your zip code in San Jose, the error is around 14°.
I mention that in case the numbers below look suspicious.

Here are the directions a compass would read from your location to the likely satellites:
bird @ 101°: 133.7
bird @ 110°: 146.7
bird @ 119°: 161.1
bird @ 129°: 177.5
bird @ 148°: 205.0

Obviously, the dual-lnb dish points half way between 110/119, or about 153.9° by the compass.

Also, for anyone who hasn't thought about it, your local aiming direction to the bird orbiting at 119 will be different in San Jose than say a member in Chicago.
So, the above numbers take into account both the satellite location in the sky, and the user location on the ground.

 

[micksh]

Thank you a lot again.

From what you recommended:
Visionsat receivers are not available now. Not even used on eBay. New Coolsat 5000/6000 cost ~$150-180. Mercury II can be found for $120.

I found this Coolsat micro 7100 PVR for $100 here
Coolsat 7100 PVR FTA Receiver from AllstarWholesales.com. Order Today
Coolsat 7100 miCro PVR (coolsat7100) FTA Receivers Satellite TV Home Video Home Audio & Video - Sonic Electronix

PVR seems to be important for me and I don't need to control motors. It seems to have blind search. Do you think it will be good? Is there anything that I would miss choosing this and not the items you recommended?

Please understand that I am not into this hobby yet. I just got dishes unexpectedly and want to use them just because I got them, but I don't want to spend a lot of money.

NASA TV seems to be very suitable for my son because he likes educational programs about space and science and I want to encourage that.

This forum is unbelievable friendly though. I hope I will be able to contribute to you guys some day. I just have no clue about satellites now. I don't even watch TV often. I am a software developer, I build computers for myself and family as a hobby and I know about HTPC, HD video and that kind of stuff, but not about satellite TV.

Regarding cables in the house - it seems to be a complete mess to unexperienced person like me. I mean, the house is in excellent shape and previous owner was very careful about equipment and everything. He had HDTV and stuff and he even built 5 speakers into walls. Probably to reduce amount of cables. All is very clean and he obviously took a good care of the house.

But there is more than a dozen of coax cables hanging from a dedicated place in living room. And also so many cables are in garage. They should be connected I guess. Just a few of them are labeled (inconsistently) and many cables are cut so there is no connector. Why would he have more than a dozen of cables if there is only 3 dishes? I saw this on the "handing keys" meeting but there were so many other things to ask about so I missed it. Now he left to another state, I asked my real estate agent if it's possible to ask him but I don't rely on this much.

I haven't moved into the house yet, Anole, I can't answer your question about silver box, I don't remember anything like that in garage. I didn't have time to be there today. Can it be the box that is on my second picture, to the right of the most lowest right dish?

This may be a different topic but I would appreciate any hint on where to start learning these cables. Particularly - why so many, why would he cut some of them.

 

[Anole]

we do the impossible:

Thank you a lot again.
...This forum is unbelievable friendly ...

We have a large user base, with vast experiences.
Hundreds of avid enthusiasts, a few engineers, some installers, some folk with 20..30+ years in satellite.
If we can't fix you up... well, no if.... we -can-!

Anole, I can't answer your question about silver box, I don't remember anything like that in garage.
Can it be the box that is on my second picture, to the right of the most lowest right dish?

Will ya look at that!?!
I believe you found it!
When you have a chance, see if it is the DP-34 that I think it is.
I wouldn't take it down, but we might bypass it for now.

Find the two cables coming from that Dish 500 right beside it.
One of those cables need to be jumpered (there's a screw-on double male to do that) to whichever coax goes to your desired room.

This may be a different topic but I would appreciate any hint on where to start learning these cables.
Particularly - why so many, why would he cut some of them.

Trying to diagnose what happened from 500 miles away, is only slightly harder than doing it in person. -
But, we can try.

Usually, there are two coaxes from the Dish500 double LNB to the DP34, and one more from the top dish, that dP pointed at 129°.
That's it for inputs.

Then, there are four outputs from the DP-34, one each goes into each room needing a receiver.
It's really quite simple when you break it all down. -

Could be that some of that stuff you see is left over from an upgrade from a different configuration.
I'm pretty sure we can ignore the dish with no name.
edit: after a second look, I think that's a DirecTV dish aimed at 101°.

 

[micksh]

Yes, there is DP-34 label. 2 cables are connected from dual LNB dish. There are 2 cables going from single LNB 500 but only one of them is connected to the box. I don't see where 3rd clean dish is connected to. Then outputs from that box go to garage. There is 3 to 1 splitter (or opposite to splitter that combines 3 cables) in garage and it is connected. Also there is a dozen of other cables.

This box is placed quite high. I only have 8 foot step-ladder and I can't reach it with this ladder. Do I have to touch that box?

I also have another problem - TV outlets in all rooms are not connected to OTA TV antenna. They are probably connected to dishes but I'm not sure. One cable in garage has a label "Master bedroom". There is only one place in house that has TV antenna - that living room place with dozens of other coax cables. I would like most of the rooms to be connected to normal TV and only one room hooked to dish. Don't know if it's possible. My agent sent questions to seller agent few days ago, so far no response.


Could anyone please tell if Coolsat micro 7100 PVR is good for me? I found that it is similar to Coolsat 7000 but without built-in hard drive. It's OK, I have USB HDD. I'm just not sure why it is cheaper than Coolsat 6000.

Edit:
I found from other posts that Coolsat 7100 will probably be OK. It has blind scan, it may have a problem with channel editor but I don't think I need it.
So, will I have to switch jumpers on DP-34 box?

 

[Tron]

I haven't heard anything bad about the Coolsat 7100, I've never seen one but they're related to the Visionsat IV-200...

 

[avg1joe]

I own a visionsat. My understanding is that the coolsat 7100 is almost exactly the same unit but with slightly more built in memory for time shifting. In other words it should be the visionsat that many people are recommending but slightly better. This is based on what I've read not experience.

 

[micksh]

I got receiver and connected it but I only see signal level between 35 and 55% and quality level is always 0. And scan doesn't find any channels. Please see attached pictures. I actually tried different settings
- single and universal LNB
- different satellites
- all frequencies
- DisEqC SW to 1
- LNB frequency 11250 (it doesn't allow me to select 20000 symbol rate)

Is there anything else I can try?
With that signal level is it possible that this outlet is simply not connected to dish?

 

[putney]

11250 on LNB setting with dish circular LNB
Not sure if you have a DiSEqC switch or anything at all. Are you hard wired to 119ºw?
If your box has TPs listed already, try scanning 'ALL' instead of 'blind' for now.
On search type try 'ALL' instead of 'FTA'

note: you should see quality level before scanning