Question about expected signal strength on 1000.4 EA dish.

[n1wbd]

Maybe someone can help me out here. Last Thurs. Dish came out and swapped my Dish 500 and the Wing dish aimed at 61.5 and installed a new 1000.4 EA dish now keep in mind this was done in a snow storm.

Now that being said what are the expected signals strengths in NH for 61.5 72.7 and 77 sats??

Currently I cannot get any signal stronger than 38 or 40 on 77. On the 72.7 the signal runs between 50-58 and on 61.5 its about 70-80 across the various transponders including spotbeams. I can tell you when I had my Dish 300 aimed at 61.5 signal strengths my signals ran about 90-100.

After some discussion with Advanced Tech support they are sending a tech tommorrow to check alignment as the TSR said he thought 77 sat was low on signal.

So folks what should I expect for approx signals strengths on the EA dish??

Maybe I should have kept my old 110/119/61.5 setup as I never had any real signal issues here in the last 10yrs. Reason why I post this is that we received about 2 inches of snow here and I lost all signals for over 1 hour.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Bob

 

[MattG@DISH]

For the area, the signal seems about right. Just looking at the Boston DMA, the average signal strength ranges from 35-38 on varying transponders for satellite 77. 72 ranges from 55-58, and 61.5 is between 40-60. The signal is known to be lower on EA because of the QPSK, 8PSK difference. These are just averages for the general area, the minimum threshold that techs need to meet is even lower.

 

[dwarren2]

When I had my 1000.4 installed last fall, the installer told me that the signal strengths would show up lower The question really is, are you getting a good consistent signal? If your picture is not breaking up then your OK.

 

[n1wbd]

Well I was getting some pixelization on a few channels every now and then after the EA upgrade. My problem seems like that it's not consistent signal. I just don't want it to go out when a snow flake or a rain drop appears. What was weird is that I lost signal on all 3 birds for over a hour today. My old setup never did that in over 10 yrs. My receivers I've had here for 3 yrs they are a VIP 222 and 211.

I have a very good friend who is a Dish retailer ( I would have given him the job for the upgrade but he said Dish don't pay them for the upgrade ordered by dish.) Was telling i should'nt be losing all the channels like I did today.

We'll see what happens tommorrow hopefully it'll be a simple fix.

When I had my 1000.4 installed last fall, the installer told me that the signal strengths would show up lower The question really is, are you getting a good consistent signal? If your picture is not breaking up then your OK.

 

[n1wbd]

Matt I have the Burlington VT locals here and they are on 61.5 I believe Spotbeams 9 and 13. I think I would be better off going back to my old setup but we'll give the tech a chance to see if it's signal issue or possibly a bad lnb assy? We shall see.

For the area, the signal seems about right. Just looking at the Boston DMA, the average signal strength ranges from 35-38 on varying transponders for satellite 77. 72 ranges from 55-58, and 61.5 is between 40-60. The signal is known to be lower on EA because of the QPSK, 8PSK difference. These are just averages for the general area, the minimum threshold that techs need to meet is even lower.

 

[MattG@DISH]

Matt I have the Burlington VT locals here and they are on 61.5 I believe Spotbeams 9 and 13. I think I would be better off going back to my old setup but we'll give the tech a chance to see if it's signal issue or possibly a bad lnb assy? We shall see.

I'd let the tech come out, double check the system. Just looked at Burlington's minimum strength threshold for 77.... it's 20 . So the signal averages up there are pretty low on EA

 

[whatchel1]

Don't you now havea a different receiver since the change out? The complete drop out sounds like it may be a switch problem.

 

[n1wbd]

Nope same receivers I've had for 3 yrs now a 211 and 222. They just changed out my dishes to a EA dish. I am noticing a every so slight delay in channels coming on. Like its a marginal signal and it's take's a little extra for it to come up. I am just not happy at the moment. I personally think it's alignment issue especially when the tech did it in a snowstorm which I'm sure it cut down on the signal strength at the time so maybe he could'nt get it just right at the time.

Don't you now havea a different receiver since the change out? The complete drop out sounds like it may be a switch problem.

 

[n1wbd]

Yup Matt they'll be here tommorrow afternoon I'll post my results afterwards. Tech support gave me a real hard time about coming back out here finally sent me to advanced tech support and as soon as I told him some of my signal strengths here he agreed that a tech had to come back.

I'd let the tech come out, double check the system. Just looked at Burlington's minimum strength threshold for 77.... it's 20 . So the signal averages up there are pretty low on EA

 

[n1wbd]

Well just to update Dish Tech just left here he realigned dish and got about 4 or 5 more points out of the EA dish across all the birds. He did find a older grounding block that he changed that could handle 2150Mhz not that it made any difference IMO. But will give it a try.

BTW EA dish elevation here is 40deg and I think this dish is going to be a true snow catcher. Can anyone verify what the tech told me, he said 61.5 is nearing end of life and signals are down abit??? Plans are to replace it within the next year or so??

Thanks again and wish me luck with this new dish.
Bob

 

[dwarren2]

I'm in the Rochester NY area and had 1000.4 installed last summer. I only lost signal once this past winter. That was early on when we had a heavy wet snow. Regular snow didn't bother it and we had over 50 inches of snow in December. It also seemed to be less prone to rain fade than my old Dish 500 system.

 

[DishTechPA]

I have Pittsburgh locals, when our locals went to ea I installed one at my house. I have far less rain fade than with the .2. Next year before snowfall you can try rain-x on your dish, but I've only had to brush the snow off of mine once this year.

 

[JimVT]

Sorry but I warned you in a previous post. You're between twenty to seventy miles from my location and I posted:

The tech that installed the 1K4 at my house said it shouldn't be mounted out of reach since snow is more likely to build up on it. The sats are at a higher elevation in the sky at our latitude than ones at 110, 119 & 129. It was installed on 1/22/2011 and I've needed to clean it off several times.

 

[dwarren2]

Sorry but I warned you in a previous post. You're between twenty to seventy miles from my location and I posted:

The tech that installed the 1K4 at my house said it shouldn't be mounted out of reach since snow is more likely to build up on it. The sats are at a higher elevation in the sky at our latitude than ones at 110, 119 & 129. It was installed on 1/22/2011 and I've needed to clean it off several times.

If you were responding to my post, I'm well over 300 miles west of you. It's Rochester NY not Vt. I'm about 6 miles south of Lake Ontario so we get a fair amount of Lake Effect which tends to be dry snow. We missed all the big Atlantic storms. We also live on tap of a drumlin so the wind tends to blow all but the heavy wet snow off the dish. The installer put the 1k4 at the edge of the eastern side of my roof so it can be reached on a ladder. As I said, we only lost the signal once, early in the winter when we did have a heavy wet snow.

 

[itlnpwr513]

vt 61.5 72.7

Well I was getting some pixelization on a few channels every now and then after the EA upgrade. My problem seems like that it's not consistent signal. I just don't want it to go out when a snow flake or a rain drop appears. What was weird is that I lost signal on all 3 birds for over a hour today. My old setup never did that in over 10 yrs. My receivers I've had here for 3 yrs they are a VIP 222 and 211.

I have a very good friend who is a Dish retailer ( I would have given him the job for the upgrade but he said Dish don't pay them for the upgrade ordered by dish.) Was telling i should'nt be losing all the channels like I did today.

We'll see what happens tommorrow hopefully it'll be a simple fix.

vt market does not use sat 77 we use 61.5 and 72 for all our programming ... all you had to do with the old 2 dish system was , leave 61.5 where it was,set the set the 110/119 dish with the dpp at 90 and elev around 40 and hit the sat 72.. poof you where updated and would get all programming , test switch blah blah blah good to go

 

[stardust3]

vt market does not use sat 77 we use 61.5 and 72 for all our programming ... all you had to do with the old 2 dish system was , leave 61.5 where it was,set the set the 110/119 dish with the dpp at 90 and elev around 40 and hit the sat 72.. poof you where updated and would get all programming , test switch blah blah blah good to go

I'm certain you don't know or you would have not responded, but sadly the person you're quoting had passed away at the beginning of this year. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to do a little research before digging up an old thread even with the best intentions.