Need some help with an interesting issue w/SuperDishes

[tbragg]

Good evening, all. This is my first post here, and I've been experiencing an interesting issue with a Super Dish installation that I'm betting some of you veterans can help out with, if you'd be so kind.

I've installed a few dishes for both Direcway (HughesNet) and Echostar. but haven't seen this particular anomaly before.

My father (David) doesn't want a commitment with Dish for equipment, so he had me to buy him a used 301 receiver and a used 105 SuperDish and point it at 110 and 119. He doesn't care about 105. Receiver has been activated with Dish and appears to function normally.

His zipcode is 37341. His locals are on 110. There are no line of sight issues - nearest tree is over 200' away.

The issue I'm having with the installation is getting 119 to show much of any signal strength at all. 110 gets signals in 70's on many transponders, and all local channels show fine. However, 119 shows 8 or 9 at best, and fails to lock, of course.

Elevation seems best at about 44 degrees, Azimuth at 220 or so, and skew about 115. These don't exactly agree with what DishPointer.com told me to expect, but they're pretty close.

Pole is perfectly plumb, and RG6 cabling is sound.

That in and of itself is not unusual to be sure, but there's more. When I had no luck getting a signal at 119 even though 110 was great, I decided I just had the thing pointed incorrectly and went to my father-in-law 's (Ed) house nearby.

I had installed Ed's setup (the same used 105 SuperDish with a used 301 receiver pointed at 110 and 119) a year or so ago, and it functions perfectly. Checked his pointing, and it was identical to what I was doing at David's house a couple miles away.

So I decided I had bad hardware. Changed out 119 LNB with a known good one. No 119 signal. Changed out DP34 switch with a known good one. No 119 signal. Changed out his 301 receiver with a known good one. No 119 signal. Swapped RG6 cables between the 2 LNB's. Still no signal on 119, always a great signal on 110. Hmmmm....

So then I measured the 2 SuperDishes that were at Ed's house and David's house. To my surprise, they were not identical. The SuperDish that works fine at Ed's house is metal, David's is fiberglass. Ed's metal one is slightly taller (24") than David's (22") and Ed's is slightly narrower (34") than David's (36").

Also, both of the 110 LNB's are different between the two Dishes - one comes to a pretty sharp point, and the other has a flat lens on it about 2 inches around. Bear in mind that 110 works on BOTH dishes. And also, the 119 LNB's are identical on both dishes, and are on the same side of the dish arm and in the same position best I can tell.

So, my question is: do I not have two 105 Superdishes, or did I inadvertantly buy a SuperDish that cannot tune 119? Are the differences betweeen my two dishes causing my 119 tuning problem, even though the 119 LNB's on both dishes are identical?

I have swapped out every other piece of hardware, so it's either down to a pointing problem, (which is unlikely since the same setting work just a couple miles down the road) or a Super Dish hardware issue.

Anyone have any ideas? Thank you very much for your time spent reading this long question!

 

[MikeD-C05]

I don't have a clue. You can buy a dish 500 from the dishstore.net for not to much and install it your self. Heck if you look on the side of the road in my trailer park you can pick one up easy. I found a 1000.2 sat dish the other day intact all but the lnb , in the trash. The super dish is not supported any longer since no one is using it for main programming.

 

[boba]

From what you have done my guess would be the superdish is warped. I assume in your part of the country they were very common so they are close to "free". Other thab that I know of no reason to use one.

 

[harshness]

It sounds suspiciously like you're pointing the dish at 101W and picking up the 110W birds on the 119W feed horn. Are you sure you have the pointing numbers for the appropriate SuperDish?

44 degrees elevation is much too high (should be 41.3) for the SuperDish 105 at David's zip code. Your skew is also off as it should be 120.9 degrees. Elevation and skew are not ballpark numbers if your mast is plumb and your dish isn't warped.

 

[navychop]

I suspected skew and warping. Elevation- good catch. 500s are cheap. Heck, if you were near me I'd give you one LNB included.

 

[tbragg]

Thanks for all the replies. boba is correct about the SuperDish's being nearly free around here - just haven't run across a cheap (free) 500 dish since I've been messing with this latest escapade.

To those of you that are suggesting warp may be an issue - I hadn't thought of that one. It seems that the metal SuperDish would be more prone to warp than the fiberglass one - yet the metal one that I installed for Ed works fine, and it even has a dent in it. lol. David's is fiberglass and appears perfect, but in honesty I have little way to prove that.

harshness - the numbers I ended up with are off from what dishpointer.com says. It says I should be at 41.4 elevation, 223.1 magnetic azimuth, and 120.9 skew. I can tell you without reservation, though, that I got nothing on 119 at those settings, and very weak (teens) signal strength on 110 at those settings.

Your suggestion about perhaps my aiming at 101 and getting 119 on the 110 feed horns is interesting. How do I know what the 'appropriate Superdish' is? It appears from all that I can tell to be a 36" wide fiberglass 105 SuperDish.

That does bring up something I neglected to point out - often, when running a signal test on 119, it would show a signal in the 50's or so from 110, but would fail to lock. This would only happen when I had the dish pointed so incorrectly that 110 had little or no signal strength itself.

Are there variations in this model of dish (other than what I've noted already) that I am unaware of? Other than dishpointer.com, is there some place else you can suggest to get the correct coordinates for this particular Superdish?

It has been my experience that the markings on the dishes are not always exactly where you end up with a peak signal, although it does seem that my elevation should be closer to the 41.4 than it is.

I tried the skew everywhere since 110 wasn't too sensitive to it, but nothing made much difference at all.

Perhaps an abandoned 500 would do me quite well, but don't know of any easily available on the cheap.

 

[Mr Tony]

Your suggestion about perhaps my aiming at 101 and getting 119 on the 110 feed horns is interesting. How do I know what the 'appropriate Superdish' is? It appears from all that I can tell to be a 36" wide fiberglass 105 SuperDish.

There were two superdishes. 105 & 121

If you stand in front and face the dish the 105 SD has a "box" type in the middle with 105 & 110 in that "box....119 LNB is to the right of it
121 SD has the "box" with the 121 & 119 LNB in it. 110 LNB is to the left of the "box"

 

[bweiteka]

You are sure there is nothing in the way of 119? 119 comes in at an angle off to the right if you looking from behind the dish, it's a pretty good angle too. If it was warpage of the dish, i think it would be obvious, as it's such a big dish. a warped reflector use to affect the 105, but i dont remember it ever disrupting 119 or 110 so much they didn't come in. there were two types of superdishes, one was metal and one was plastic, the dimensions sound exactly as described so i think you are dealing with the type 2 fiberglass dish, but it works the same way as the metal one and should be fine, in fact i don't think it even could be warped, being fiberglass. how do you have the lnb's hooked up to the 34 switch? 119 in port 1, 110 in port 2, then switch test and check your signals? i gather you are not using a meter, just the signal strength screen? and you are sure the 119 lnb that you put on the dish as a replacement says DP on it? (as opposed to an unmarked legacy dual)

 

[dishcomm]

I'l bet the OP has one 121 SD and one 105 SD..
The LNB's on these two were different.
The OP should go ahead and order a D-500 and DP quad LNB from dishtore and be done with the nonsense.

 

[dishrich]

The OP should go ahead and order a D-500 and DP quad LNB from dishtore and be done with the nonsense.

Why does he need a DP quad for ONE receiver - ANY twin LNB would more than suffice...

But agree otherwise about all the nonsense - those SD's were a GIANT PITA when we were FORCED to use them here f/locals. Thank heavens they got rid of them for good, particularly those 105 SD's...

 

[tbragg]

Iceberg - your description of the two diffferent Superdishes, the 105 and the 121, match my understanding of them as well. I definitely have both types (metal and fiberglass) of the 105. The reason for my post was my wondering if there were significant setup differences between the two types of 105 dishes. From what bweiteka is saying, it appears that the setup between the two dishes is the same.

Bweiteka - I have tried both LNB connections in all three of the input jacks of the DP-34, doing a check switch each time. Further, I've tried 2 different known good DP-34's as well. The 301 sees the different LNB's as I move them around on the DP-34 inputs, but 119 never comes in strongly enough for a lock.

All three of the 119 LNB's I've tried have been the DishPro type. You're right about just using the 301 signal strength test. I have a Direcway meter from my old installation days, but haven't needed an Echostar one or a Birddog yet (tll now. lol)

You may have something with the LOS for the 119. I don't recall any trees begin anywhere near this dish, but I can't remember if I specifically checked down low and to the right of the dish for obstructions. Good point, and I'll investigate that.

Dishcomm probably has the best solution - get a 500 and be done with it. I just found the particular issue to be new to me and of possible interest to the pros here.

The reason I got the 105 Superdish was it was cheap (free except for shipping) and available. As was the other one at Ed's house that works perfectly. Now if I could just find a free 500 with a couple of working LNB's....

 

[dishcomm]

Why does he need a DP quad for ONE receiver - ANY twin LNB would more than suffice...

But agree otherwise about all the nonsense - those SD's were a GIANT PITA when we were FORCED to use them here f/locals. Thank heavens they got rid of them for good, particularly those 105 SD's...

THe quad is for future expansion. There is a small price diff between the twin and quad.

 

[TimberWolf]

Iceberg is right. You have a 121 dish. You are using the 119 LNB to point at 110

 

[dishrich]

THe quad is for future expansion. There is a small price diff between the twin and quad.

But he might be able to "acquire" a free twin somewhere, so he should NOT rule it out as well. Also, you DO know there's other places to buy these things, uh like e-bay, etc...

 

[harshness]

harshness - the numbers I ended up with are off from what dishpointer.com says. It says I should be at 41.4 elevation, 223.1 magnetic azimuth, and 120.9 skew. I can tell you without reservation, though, that I got nothing on 119 at those settings, and very weak (teens) signal strength on 110 at those settings.

And I can say, without reservation, that if you're pointing at 101W, you're not going to see 119W.

One quick way to confirm whether you're looking at the correct pair of satellites (110W, 119W) is to cover the 119W feed horn (the one that sits alone on the East side of the LNB assembly) with a piece of metal foil and see if you still get your 110W signal. If you can't get the 110W signal, you'll know that what I described was what was happening.

 

[dishcomm]

But he might be able to "acquire" a free twin somewhere, so he should NOT rule it out as well. Also, you DO know there's other places to buy these things, uh like e-bay, etc...

I'd rather see members use the Gold Sponsors.
Ebay has it's problems. WHy deal with that?

 

[tbragg]

Some pictures for your perusal...

Gentlemen,

Many thanks for your suggestions and input so far. I would like to submit some pictures of the two dishes that might clarify some things.

First, here's a picture of David's SuperDish - the one that doesn't get 119.



Per Harshness, Dishcomm's and Icebergs suggestions, I wanted to verify to all of you that I am indeed connected to the correct LNB and aiming the LNB at the correct satellite. So, instead of messing with foil, I simply hooked the 301 receiver directly to the 110 LNB on the 105 Superdish, ran a check switch and looked at the results.



You can see that the receiver sees the 110 LNB, and in this configuration receives the local channels perfectly with signal strength in the 70's.

Now here's the view of the sky from Davids dish.



Camera was held under the feedhorn arm of the dish at close (best I could do) to the same angle as the dish itself. A few trees to the right, but a nice clear view overall. I'm getting great signals in other locations with far more tree blockage, as you'll see later...

Now here is the metal 105 Dish at Ed's that works perfectly.



Here's Ed's dish's view, taken (as best I could) in the same way as was David's.



Note the much heavier tree blockage - yet this dish gets 110 in the 70's and 119 in the upper 60's! Go figure.

Now check out this side image of Ed's dish:



Some have suggested warpage as the issue with David's dish, yet Ed's is the one with the dent in the edge, trees half blocking the view, and it works great.

At least these pictures will hopefully convince Timberwolf, Dishcomm, and Iceberg that I am indeed working with 105 Super Dishes, and that I am pointing David's dish at 110.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again for all you guys' help and suggestions!

Tim

 

[TimberWolf]

Ok, yes they are both 105 dishes.

That srceenshot should say 110 dual not feed, could cause issues later, but not the main problem

The trees to the lower right are probably killing 119. The 105 dish points way farther to the left than where the actual signal is coming from. So if the dish looks like it is pointing thru the small clearing, 119 is most likely in the tree.

 

[Barry Erick]

From where you took the picture, those trees are in 119's way. To check, check the angles needed for a 500 dish and I'll bet you are in the trees.

 

[digiblur]

Also without 119 in the switch matrix you will never find 119 if you are watching the signal screen on the dish receiver set to 119. This drove me nuts when I was pointing my Dish1000 and could never find 129 when I was right on it the whole time.