Pointing a Dish1000

[Claude Greiner]

I just installed my First Dish 1000 today.

For those of you who have installed several of these things, is it possible to peak out all 3 satellites?

Heres what I was able to get on Transponder 15....

119...........120%
110...........100%
129............82%


The problem is that I can get 129 all the way to about 95%, but it drops 119 down to around 100% and my 110 shows around 75%

I literally had to take a Tv outside with a receiver to get the alignment correct and this was the best I could peak it, putting a preference to 119 and 110 since all my core programming is there.

Do these numbers seem consistant?

 

[webbydude]

At least here in NE Ohio that's pretty consistent and normal numbers Claude. Depending on the receiver I've been able to get the 119 as high as 125; dual tuners seem to take some of the wind out of the sail.

And like you said, when you try peaking on the 129, it does tend to mess things up for the 110 and 119.

 

[Mike500]

Claude,

We, in Greenville/Spartanburg, SC have been installing the Dish1000 as a standard item for all installs for at least 6 months now.

We get in the mid 60's for 129, which is considered normal.

Basically, it has been sufficient, since I've installed five 211's to date. Customers have not experienced problems. We don't peak for 129 at the expense of 110 and 119. The Dish500 manual specifically does not recommend changing the skew from their specs.

 

[talk000]

Claude

I also live it upstate SC and get upper 60s on 129 with the 1000. I get 80s and 90s on 110 and 100+ on 119. I will lose 129 in a good rain as the signal drops to the mid 40s. Have only had the 1000 a few weeks. When the installers got higher numbers on the 129 signal, 110 would not come in. The only problem I ran into was they said the 1000 was aiming 3 degrees lower (34 vs. 37) than the 500 and I ended up topping two trees to play it safe

Dish installed the upgrade for free so I do not know a lot about the guys who did it. It took them a long time and they had to reinstall some screws in the mount to get everything to work. Mine is on the edge of the roof over the garage. I assume they knew what they were doing.

PS. I do not think they sealed around the new screws. Should I put something on these for waterproofing?

 

[dodge]

Dish 1000

Claude
Here in Northern Illinois same here, 110 and 119 in the high 90's and low 100's and 129 in the 70's. I was better off taking my old dish 300 and aiming witht he birdog for 129 and I got a 91 I was surprised , the elevation on the dish 300 ended up like 24 really low.

 

[Liquidforce88]

Yep same in michigan. If ou try to peak the 119 you lose alot of the 129. Most of the time I get 100+ on 119, 90+ on 110, and 80+ on 129.

 

[disciple4jc]

I just installed a Dish 1000 for the first time yesterday. The customer lived at an apartment and could only have one dish. Normally we have been installing a Dish 500 pointed at 61.5 if the customer did not mind two dishes. I got 129 at 70-85 (depending on the transponder), 119 and 110 at 100. Once this new satellite is up and running we supposedly are going to a Dish 500 market, (Yeah! No more SD's)

 

[Stargazer]

For those that may have weak 129 signals you may want to sacrifice some of your 110/119 signals to bring in 129 stronger. I have had issues in a few places trying to get 129 in because of the low look angle and trees. I did not have that issue with the SuperDish because of its higher look angle. The SuperDish signal was harder to find because it is a lower powered satellite, 129 because of its low look angle. If it aint one thing its another. I get 129 in at around 83% which is about the same as what I can get 105 in. The new satellite at 105 made no difference in signal strength in my area.

 

[KKlare]

Yes, the nominal Dish skew should normally be used, assuming vertical pole and so on.

With report of higher possible signals on 129 and 110 but not at the same time, it sure sounds like the skew could need a tune up.

I would guess you would peak 119 (center) feed and fix the azimuth and elevation there. Then you would need to check both 110 and 129 for the maximum sum of signals adjusting the skew.

Before anything, check that the three feeds form a nice line and are not bent in any direction.

FWIW, -Ken

 

[Mike500]

Since the Dish1000 is pointed at 119, with the same coordinates as the original Dish300 (originally unnamed when introduced), the 119 position is at the center or rotation of the skew adjustment of the geometric unit, At that point the arc of the Dish1000's viewing aperature intersects the arc of the Clarke Belt for the particular position on the earth.

By changing the skew adjustment, no change is made at the 119/Clarke Belt intersection which is the pivotal point of rotation for the skew adjustment. The 119 signal will not change. Raising the 129 position will lower the 110 position and vice versa.

Basically, the 110 signal strength will be scaraficed for a stronger signal at 129.

 

[Stargazer]

That is a very good point Mike500 with the skew adjustment as it would affect 110. Changing the elevation (raising or lowering the dish) would affect 110 AND 119 (129 as well and hopefully to get it a better signal). By adjusting the skew instead you would be leaving 119 untouched and still in escence affect the elevation at which the 129 is without adjusting the elevation. 110 is needed only for some LIL markets and AT180 package and some movie channels. I will have to do some experimentation with this to see how much of a gain on 129 I can get and how much of a loss I get at 110. I am guessing that I will lose more on 110 than what I would gain at 129 and the gain may be minimal. If the mast/pole is plumb then it should not make much difference if the numbers that Dish Network gave us were actually true.

I have been wanting to do a test with the Dish500 to see if I can pickup 119 and 129. I wonder if you can add another lnbf to the Dish500 to pick up 129 in addition to 110 and 119.

 

[Mike500]

Stargazer,

The design of the "W" bracket on the Dish1000 is a compromise.

The satellites on the Clarke Belt is located at the 22,300 miles at 90 degress elevation directly above the equator. Using basic trigonometric principes , it can readily be ascertained that the diameter of the arc made by the Clarke Belt viewed from differing locations will be less (or more severe curvature) at any location closer in linear distance to the 119 satellite and the diameter of the arc would have a larger (or shallower curvature) further north from the Equator.

The curvature design "W" bracket is a compromise or probably a median between the two extremes of curvature.

Since the curvature made by the three lnb poins of the arc is set, raising the elevation setting for a Southern US location will probably strengthen the 110 and 129 signal. Lowering the elevation setting will do the same for the Northern US. In both cases the 119 signal strength would decay. This is the basic disadvantage of a two lnb dish with a fixed bracket.

The Dish500, having only two points of intersects, can always be made to intersect exactly onto two points of the arc as can be seen as the ends of a straight line. That's why the Dish500 can be tweaked for optimum strength on both lnb's.

For the same to be possible on a Dish1000 or a DirecTV three lnb dish, the center lnb elevation must be adjustable up or down in relation to the other two.

In essence, skew needs to be increased for the Northern states and decreased for the Southern states to peak 129. In both cases, 110 signal strength must suffer.

It can be summised quite safely that the closer to the mid latitudes that the Dish1000's design footprint that it is installed; the more likely that both 110 and 129 will have an equality of optimum strength.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Has anyone tried peaking 129 with a D500? It sounds like the best way to go would be to use two D500s, one for 110 & 119, one for 129.

 

[rixhd]

Is there any way to combine two dish 1000's to improve the signal strength for all 3 satellites? Can dish adjust the power output of each TP? Are they already running at peak?

I already have a 1000 and the best I can do here in the Seattle area @129 is between 61 on TP 3,8,11 & 19 and 77 on TP 12. I get 91, 110 and 76 on TP 15 for 110/119 & 129 respectively. I'm peaked on 129 with no obstructions. I get dropouts quite regularly on the weaker TP's. I've wondered if it could be the 921 causing them.

I've decided to wait to see if the 622 helps. If not, I'm going to remount my old Dish 500 for 129 using the new LNB off the Dish 1000 connected back to its original connection point on the Dish 1000. I should then be able to optimize 129 without compromising 110.

 

[RandallA]

Has anyone tried peaking 129 with a D500? It sounds like the best way to go would be to use two D500s, one for 110 & 119, one for 129.

I have a D500 pointing at 129 but with the Y adapter. I ordered an I adapter and will see if the signal strength gets better on 129. Right now on a 211, I'm only getting high 60s and 70s. On the 311s I'm getting about 10-15 points higher.

Mike500 excellent post, thanks for sharing with us.

 

[rixhd]

I have a D500 pointing at 129 but with the Y adapter.

Which position on the "Y" are you using for 129 LNB, the 110 or the 119? Have you tried swapping? Does it make any difference? Are you using the original LNB's that came with the Dish 500?

 

[Dirtydan]

Has anyone tried peaking 129 with a D500? It sounds like the best way to go would be to use two D500s, one for 110 & 119, one for 129.

I have a DP500 and use 119 side for 129 I'm getting signal strengths between 67 and 85. Have not tried 110 side of lnb, afraid I might lose what I have now and not get it back, it was very hard to get any signal at all with a sat finder.

 

[mike123abc]

I have a superdish 121 pointed at 129 right now. I am using the "119" LNB that is close to the center of the dish. The best I can get with it is 75-89 depending on the transponder. It seems like the satellite must be running in lower power mode (where it can do all 32 TPs vs double power where it could only do 16), even though it appears they are only using 14 TPs right now... They probably plan on using more TPs so have it switched out of double power.

I am considering putting a 90cm dish on it like I have on 61.5. Most TPs on 61.5 are pegged at 125, I think the lowest is 117. It is just somewhat of a pain to change out the dish. But, I am worried about rain fade with signal below 110ish. I have individual 24" dishes pointed at 119/110 for excellent signal.

 

[briandishguy]

I just installed my first dish 1000. Had no problems. Although my skew went from 122 here in Kentucky to skew 126. I looked it up and it changed from skew 122 to skew 126. My 119, 110, and 129 was around the same. 95+ on all three.

 

[pinkey2u]

Pointing Dish 1000

I live North of Seattle and had an installation of a 411 receiver (received 1 of 2 that I had ordered) along with the Dish 1000 on Feb 6th. The tech aligned the point setting with the 119 sat and the readings were 119-low 100's...110-high 90's but with the 129 it was in the mid to high 50's. On Feb 12th he installed the other 411 and then tried to tweak the sat dish. He made an adj with the skew and made a small correction to the West and tried a degree or so adj up and then down with the elevation which dropped the 119 sat to the mid to high 90's...110 to the high 80's but raised 129 to the mid to high 60's. Even though 129 was raised to the mid to high 60's, I dropped most of the Voom channels last night in a rain storm. It is my opinion also that maybe I might be able to get a better dish point on 129 if it was on a separate dish. I have a tech scheduled to come out Thursday, Feb 16th to try and see what can be done to receive higher readings for the 129 satellite. I may be leaving the Dish 1000 to handle the 110 & 119 sats and then getting a Dish 500 to handle the 129 sat.