Right dish and peak signal?

[kpauley]

Moved to a house, Dish was already installed and we brought our VIP 722 receiver with us. Plugged it in and it worked, so didn't really do much of anything else.

Over time I noticed we'd get some signal drops, usually would come in bad weather, but we had that in our old house and it didn't seem to drop as easily as it seems to do now.

I looked at the dish, it says on the LNB DishPlus, there are three.

In the Point Dish screen, all checks out well, it says the Dish Type is Dish Super, not sure if that is the same as DishPlus or not or if it even matters, just want to be sure I have the right dish/receiver combo....

I went through the signal strengths. Initially the transponder came up at 11, on two of the satellites I would get signal but it was a little low I though, on the third I would get nothing. So I randomly ended up on Transponder 21 which seemed to get me the best signal on all three. What I have is:
110 = 62
119 = 72
129 = 56

Should I be looking for better signal on this? Easy to adjust (assuming some instructions somewhere)? If I did adjust, would I just need to adjust one axis to make it better, or would I need to mess with all of the adjustments?

 

[3HaloODST]

Your signal strengths are a tad low, but not really enough to cause significant rain fade issues.

 

[gokartergo]

Did you do a check switch when you installed it?? You could have had 1.4 at your old house and 1.2 at the new or vica versa or on a diffrent port.. Thou it will work. It will not work at peak. I see you are in calif.. Those signals are not bad for certain parts of calif.. What city in calif???

 

[kpauley]

Georgetown California, sierra foothills.

I ran a check switch and it all checked out OK, I forget if it was a 1.4 or a 1.2, I'll check it again after it finishes recording a show it is recording now. I have no idea though if it was a 1.4 or 1.2 at the old house...if that matters.

If the signal strengths I have are reasonable then I'll just leave it alone as it would probably just make it worse...

 

[gokartergo]

We measure the signal levels om transponder 14,15,16 and 21. For that area they are just a tad low.. But not worth messing with. For Santa Cruz area those levels would be good.. With a 1.2 dish.. They could be a lot higher with a 1.4 dish.

 

[kpauley]

OK, checked things again.
Switch says DPP 1k.2 w/ separator
I measured the following signal strengths (in order, transponders 14, 15, 16 & 21)

110 = 58, 64, 57, 64
119 = 53, 69, 66, 72
129 = 0, 43, 41, 58

 

[gokartergo]

Closest DMA I could get for you would be Sacramento, Stockton Modesto area. 119 should be 54,65,65 and 69 all the rest fall in line.. Your 129 are above average. That is for the 1.2. You are good. Just make sure the mast is good and tight and not moving around...

 

[3HaloODST]

For 129 it's 19 20 29 & 30 what are the signal strengths on those?

 

[kpauley]

For 129 it's 19 20 29 & 30 what are the signal strengths on those?

Thanks for the clarification

129 on 19, 20, 29 & 30 =

45, 44, 45, 45

So if all is within range, if I continue to get some dropped signal, is there anything I can do? Today it dropped out, was just cloudy, not even really raining. Just the nature of my locations?

 

[gokartergo]

42 across the board on those. your all good. I would double check all the connections.. also make sure if there are any barrels in the line. Make sure they are high freq barrels.

 

[3HaloODST]

From those results, I come to the same conclusion as in my first post:

Your signal strengths are a tad low, but not really enough to cause significant rain fade issues.

You can mess with it, but make sure you know what you're doing. Otherwise, it's fine if left alone.

 

[kpauley]

Awesome, thanks everyone for the amazingly quick responses, great board. I'll check all the cabling. I pulled some splitters and other crap out a while ago but did not finish tracing out the entire line. We have one TV and one receiver, they had wires going all over the house so I want to be sure it's as clean and short of a run as possible.

Ken

 

[kpauley]

Finally getting back to this, we're doing some work on the house and I was put in a position to have to re-route the cable to the dish box. Unfortunately I did not re-check signal strength prior to re-routing.... I did check after though (it's certainly possible other things have happened since my last post in May). In any case, I was able to remove about 40' of cable out of the run, so it's much shorter. There is one place in the run where it has a connector, there is a ground wire running with the cable from the dish and it's at this point where the ground wire connects to the copper pipe (this existed previously). I think that is the only "break" in the cable run.

Signal now reads as follows (all down from previous it looks)
110 = 55,61,53,59
119 = 45,62,58,66
129 = 41,39,41,40

Not sure there is much more I can do with regards to cabling without replacing it at this point, which I'm hoping I don't need to. Only thing I can think of is to take the dish box outside and plug in with a nice clean short piece of cable and check the signal at that point, to see if I get the same readings (or close). That would tell me I suppose if I have a wiring issue or it's a pointing issue. Does that sound like the appropriate next step?

 

[gokartergo]

The DMA I think you are listed in is Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto - CA So your lowest signal levels should be. If you are under the Reno DMA.. Then they are even lower.. It does look like the dish should be peaked a little.. The averages for that area are a lot higher...
110 58.59.57.59
119 54.65,65,69
129 42.42.42.42

 

[kpauley]

DMA? My zip code is 95634 if that helps narrow it down. When you say the dish should be peaked a little, you mean it might be worthy of me tweaking the pointing? Sorry, new to this lingo

 

[gokartergo]

DMA is dish market area.. I think you are under the Sacramento area. Yes, peaking it tweaking or pointing it.. I think you can get those signal higher and that would help..

 

[kpauley]

Appreciate the education and advise. Since I'm a little new at this and I don't mind spending a couple bucks, is it worth getting a handheld device to assist in pointing the dish correctly? TV is not that close...I could probably rip the dish box out though and plug it into a computer monitor or something to get it closer. But if a handheld is reasonable (somewhere around $50 I guess I'd be OK paying) and makes the job a lot easier, I'd consider....would just need to know what ones to look at.

 

[gokartergo]

Yes it would be worth it.. Just move the dish in small increments. 1/4 at at a time..

 

[gokartergo]

I just looked it up and it does look like you are under the Sacramento DMA..

http://www.dishuser.org/TVMarkets/City Maps/Sacramento.gif

 

[kpauley]

Cool, any pointers on a meter I could buy that would work well with my setup? The dish says Dish Super on it.