Questions about peaking a Dish 500

[Tony S]

I want to try peaking the signal on my already installed Dish 500 and I have a few questions.

Which transponders should I use for peaking the signal on the 119 and the 110 satellites?

Do you peak on one satellite, then the other; or, do you look at both 119 and 110 when adjusting the azimuth and elevation?

 

[Mr Tony]

11 & 12 are the two to use

If the skew is right, aim at 119

 

[Liquidforce88]

Fisrt off where are you located, and what are your signal strenghts now?

 

[Tony S]

Sorry for not responding sooner, but I was away on business.

I am in Connecticut.
119: transponder 11 is 101, and transponder 12 is 80.
110: transponder 11 is 80, and transpodner 12 is 80.

For 119, the spotbeams are 115-120, there is a group of transponders that are about 100, and another group of transponders hovering around 80. For the 110 satellite, most of them are about 80.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Sounds a bit low to me. I'll assume you're DishPro.

The 110 bird needs to be peaked, and see if there's any even/odd correlation for the other low numbers - I'm smelling some cabling/connector issues.

Remember - even transponders run on the high (1650-2150MHz) band, and are much more sensitive to cable/connector faults.

 

[Tony S]

Thanks for the advice. I should have mentioned that I have a 501 receiver.

A few days ago I replaced a bad legacy LNB with a DishPro Plus Twin. The signal strengths did not change from what I had before, but I thought that they seemed a bit low.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Interesting that the even TPs were low on a Legacy LNBF.

Anyway, my prior advice still applies.

 

[Tony S]

SimpleSimon, you may be on to something...I took a closer look at the signal strengths and it does look like the even transponders are generally lower than the odds. It also looks like the signal from 119 is better than 110. When I get a chance, I am going to try re-peaking the dish. I wonder if the cable is getting old? I installed my original dish 7 or 8 years ago (Dish 300).

110 119

11 78 97
12 66 78
13 NA 95
14 63 75
15 73 93
16 66 79
17 NA 91
18 65 78
19 76 91
20 73 78
21 80 91

 

[SimpleSimon]

Yup. I stand by my original disgnosis - especially now knowing it's 8 year old cable - not likely that it's rated to 2150MHz. Unless you can prove different to yourself, replace it.

 

[Tony S]

Last weekend I finally had the chance to re-point my dish and my signal strengths went up considerably. When I originally installed the dish, I was on the roof and my Daughter was in the family room yelling signal strength numbers out the window. This time, I set up my old receiver (4000) and an old TV in my backyard so that I could see the signal strengths while I was pointing the dish. This made a big difference.

Compare these numbers to what I posted above:

110 119

11 101 125
12 100 115
13 NA 123
14 97 115
15 93 122
16 100 119
17 NA 122
18 100 121
19 100 122
20 103 119
21 105 122

The 110 signals are lower than 119s but I did not want to play with the skew because I thought that the strengths were good enough.

Yup. I stand by my original disgnosis - especially now knowing it's 8 year old cable - not likely that it's rated to 2150MHz. Unless you can prove different to yourself, replace it.

You were right about the cable, the writing on the cable says 1800MHz. However in this case the cable is not making any difference. (I temporarily tried another cable that was rated at 2150 MHz and the signal strengths did not change at all).

Since re-pointing, I do not see the big difference between the odd and even numbered transponders like I did before, so the cable was not the cause of that. Even though the cable is 7-8 years old and is only 1800MHz cable, it appears to be working correctly. That's good 'cause I wasn't looking forward to fishing more wires thru the walls.