Self install problems with a Vip 211k and a 1000.4 Eastern arc dish

[timgray]

Hey everyone. I just spent the day fighting with a 1000.4 Eastern Arc dish and my Vip 211k receiver. I have tried everything to get this aligned and have failed every attempt. I have set up older SD dishes over the past 10 years without problems, and spent 2 years being a nomad where I had to set up a dish daily when we camped across america.

The Vip211k never shows any signal, when I 'test switch' I see the 1k4 dish and have no signal for any of the satellites. No problem, I haven't aligned it. so I go out to the install, hook up my trusty analog meter, put tinfoil over 61.5 and 77 and try to align... nothing. I have the receiver looking at 72 and transponder 21 which SHOULD be trying to use the center LNB. problem is I cant even get a noise reading from my cheapie analog meter if I cover the 77 LNB. it's as if the dish reciever is telling it to use the first LNB only when I choose the 72 sattelite.

What am I doing wrong? are these dishes 900X harder to point than a old Dish 500? are the gauges stamped in the 1000.4 really far off and should be ignored like some of the junk 300 dishes that had the Elevation gauge wrong?

Any help would be great! I have been fighting with this for 8 hours today.

And yes the receiver works. I took it to a friend that has a eastern arc setup and hooked it up and it works perfect, but noticed that this receiver takes from 1-5 minutes to show ANY signal reception change on the 6-1-1 menu function. I really hope this dish is not this hard to do all the time as I was hoping to use it like the old one for camping.

 

[Frank Jr.]

I am by far a technician but for the receiver to take five minutes to show any reception seems to me not a positive indicator of the receivers health. A 1k.4 dish in my opinion is not that incredibly hard to point or fine tune. I started with DishNetwork years ago with a 500 and then to a 105 SuperDish, and from there to my current 1k.4 Eastern Arc set up. One thing that does come to mind is that the 1k.4 does not point in the same direction as the 500 by way of the compass. For my area the azimuth for the 1k.4 is 172° For the 500 it is 239°. One other thing you may want to try is running a check switch with no connection and then do another check switch connected to the dish. Good Luck!

 

[vash1090]

Point using port 2 on the LNB

 

[timgray]

Satellite finder shows that I need to point at 160.3 with an elevation of 38. and the iphone app I have used for the past year also shows the three birds in the sky where I am pointing, but It just seems to elude me. I get a signal deflection on the analog meter and then go in and the Vip211k shows nothing.

Granted, I am still not sure of the transponders I should be using for pointing the dish, it seems like that info is just not easy to find out there on the net.

 

[SteveTJ]

Hey Tim, this is probably not the answer you were looking for, but at this point you might consider getting a newer meter that is setup to tune the 1000.4 dish. I have been installing these dishes since they came out and they are much more temperamental than the 500 dish when it comes to tuning. I have not tried tuning a 1k4 off a receiver so I am not sure if the receiver software makes it possible to be done that way. Heck, the one time I tuned a 500 dish off a brand new receiver was not exactly a walk in the park. As Frank said, definitely run a check switch before trying because it will at least let the receiver know which lnb you are using and may help get locked onto the sats quicker.

 

[timgray]

I have been looking at the new meters, I just hate the idea of having no TV for about a month while the meter ships. (Xmas season, Nothing ordered today will show before the 2nd week of january.) WE don't watch it much normally, but with family coming over for holidays it keeps the kids busy while the adults chat.

I am going to give it a try again today. Hopefully I'll stumble on a transponder on one of the birds that shows up easily.

 

[Frank Jr.]

You can tune the dish with the receiver. If it is not a bad connection within the cabling or a bad dish/lnb/switch or the receiver itself you should be able to capture a signal once pointed within given parameters. No dbs dish is required to be so precise as to require an exact pin point. If that was the case changes in temperature and or wind would cause problems daily.

 

[ggw2000]

The 1K4 can be easy or tough to setup with a 211k. I set one up at the lake when they first came out and had it done in 15 minutes. In March of this year I bought one for home and could not get it to work after hours of trying. I used dishpointer_com and knew exactly where the sats are located. The elevation and skew info is accurate on the dishes. To make a long story short I came to the conclusion that the LNBF had to be bad. Called and had dishstore ship me another and after replacing it I had a signal in five minutes! By the way when I finally got something on the 211k it was sat 61.5. I immediately stopped tuning and ran check switch and all 3 sats came in. I then fine tuned from there. It really helps if you can have the 211k/tv close to the dish and watch the tv or have spouse/friend watch it..
Good luck, Gerry

 

[Frank Jr.]

Well said ggw2000!

 

[Frank Jr.]

A hand held meter is not necessary unless the dish, receiver and tv is not easily accessible.

 

[harshness]

Satellite finder shows that I need to point at 160.3 with an elevation of 38.

What is this "satellite finder" that you speak of? If you're using dishpointer.com, say "dishpointer.com". If you're using the table from the installation instructions, say so. If you're using any other resource, you're probably looking at numbers for some dish other than the 1000.4 and you're missing the Clarke Belt entirely.

 

[timgray]

I think I have a bad LNBF from the store. any deflection on the analog meter is a lot less than I see with my FTA setup or the old SD dish setup I have used in the past.

How common is it to get a dead LNB out of the box?

Also I am assuming that elevation is measured from the middle of the bolt like the older dishes right?

I just re checked my mount. dead on vertical level in all directions..

I'm using dishpointer.com, dishpointers iphone app, and the installation manual for the dish all at the same time. and those numbers jive with the numbers I am getting for the 1000.4 installation manual for my zipcode of 49441 as well as everything else, triple checked so the numbers I am using to aim are dead on.

 

[harshness]

How common is it to get a dead LNB out of the box?

It isn't a common occurrence.

Also I am assuming that elevation is measured from the middle of the bolt like the older dishes right?

DO NOT ASSUME -- RTFM. You have assumed incorrectly. See step 6 on page four of the instructions.

You should be reading the edge of the bracket through the scale slot, not the bolt center. All recent DISH Network dishes are set up this way. At least one of my dishes even came with red paint on the appropriate edge.

 

[Frank Jr.]

You might want to take some time and read this.

 

[timgray]

That explains a problem, but how ambiguous can they get... "align it with the edge" top edge or the bottom edge? just checked, no red paint, I'll try both..

Top edge it is... I guess they make the instructions intentionally vague to discourage self installers, or the word "top" is too expensive to print

I want to thank everyone a GIANT AMOUNT. Every single one of you rock. I keep telling friends who do satellite stuff that the guys here are the de-facto experts on satellite reception.

Harshness, thanks a ton you clarified a important section of the install manual that is unclear.

Thanks Everyone!

 

[Frank Jr.]

During your set up, do you see this screen? Don't concern yourself with the green ok blocks. Thats mine.

 

[timgray]

Yes I do, all green blocks now. Everything is working perfectly.

Thanks again!

 

[harshness]

That explains a problem, but how ambiguous can they get... "align it with the edge" top edge or the bottom edge? just checked, no red paint,

The instructions used to be a little more detailed, but I think your probably right about trying to discourage self-installs. I usually discourage them myself, but for someone who migrates often, you need to learn the right way to do it and I'm not big on paying the hundreds of dollars required to get an automated solution.

 

[ggw2000]

Glad you got it working! And yes the instructions are NOT clear on what edge to use. But as you found out it's the top edge. You would think that maybe they could have an arrow pointed to the edge to use- NOT dish - it's not their way!
Best wishes, Gerry

 

[3HaloODST]

During your set up, do you see this screen? Don't concern yourself with the green ok blocks. Thats mine.

Question: Why do you have SuperDISH marked?