spot beam reception

[oseely]

I'm a new member to SatelliteGuys, so if this matter has been covered, please direct me to an appropriate link.

I'm on the fringe of the Los Angeles local channel spot beam. During the summer transponder 3 comes in starting around 6pm and transponder 1 never comes in. During the winter, both come in all day and night.

At the site http://www.satelliteone.com/dish/support/Spot_Beam_Short.pdf is the statement "although these fringe customers will be listed as eligible on the customer and retailer websites, they will be offered the local package by CSRs with a warning that additional hardware may be required to receive the spot beam satellite signals."

DISH hasn't volunteered information on what additional hardware is required to bring in the L.A. local channels when I transport our decoder box to our mountain cabin.

What hardware do I need to bring in the spot beam channels?

Thanks,

Oliver Seely

 

[rdinkel]

You have another issue: Dish requires a separate account for your cabin. They do not permit moving receivers from your primary address.

 

[jcrandall]

Beyond that, there isn't much you can do to receive it if you're out of the beam. It's simply the place the sat shoots the signal down from space.

Perhaps better is to look at DNS local service - which is not on beams. I thought LA was one of the DNS markets, but I may be wrong. You can request DNS if you have an RV/Camper or Truck, etc. May be able to request via waivers.

There is a big thing right now that E* may leagally lose the right to give people DNS service, so that may not be a long term solution.

Are you in the LA DMA, or another area DMA?

 

[Jim5506]

Larger diameter dish.

 

[oseely]

To rdinkel, who posted that "They (DISH Network) do not permit moving receivers from your primary address," when I first subscribed to DISH Network I posed that specific issue on several occasions. Unanimously the representatives said that there was no problem moving my decoder box to our mountain cabin, that lots of subscribers do that. That is not to say I wouldn't have done it anyway, but my best information at this time from DISH Network is that they are not actively saying that moving a decoder box is not permitted (unless you can show me a link to the contrary).

To Jim5506 who thinks a larger diameter dish will bring in fringe spot beam reception, I'm certainly looking around for a 1 meter and larger dish to give it a good try, but I have received a consistent response from people who ought to know that "maybe" a larger dish will work. Toward that end I've recently tried a couple of things with no luck. I have a portable dish I use to bring in free channels on the 61.5 W and 110 W satellites when whatever else is on the 119 W satellite is so crappy it doesn't interest me. Last week I set up my second dish on the 119 W satellite and put the signal through a DC through Y connector. The wavelength of a 10 GHz signal is 3 cm so I figured I'd maximize the constructive interference by moving the antenna back and forth to get in phase with the fixed antenna trained on that satellite. Although the first time I tried it I thought that I saw an increase and decrease in signal strength as I moved the dish toward the satellite, I couldn't repeat my first results. The second thing I tried was putting in a 14 dB in-line amplifier. There was no increase in signal strength on any of the transponders so I returned it and got my money back.

The long and the short of it is that I'm still looking for a solution, but I appreciate all of your posts.

Oliver

 

[stone phillips420]

You have another issue: Dish requires a separate account for your cabin. They do not permit moving receivers from your primary address.

if charlie does it, so can his customers

 

[oseely]

To masterdeals I ought to have repled that I as far as I know, I'm in the LA DMA. We live in Lakewood, CA.

Oliver

 

[SmityWhity]

Oliver,
Nothing new, but I'm confused, "What exactly is your problem or problems?"

1. While at your residence in Lakewood, CA, is your Dish setup working perfectly day and night, and during the summer and winter?

If not, I think in Lakewood you have a foilage problem during the summertime.
Lakewood being in a spotbeam fringe area, would be as hard to believe as Long Beach and Los Angeles being in a fringe area of Los Angeles.

2. Where is your mountain cabin, San Bernardino Mountains, Big Bear Lake, etc...?
I could see it possibly being on the fringe area of the Los Angeles Spot Beam. However, the Los Angeles ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and WB networks are on TP 15, and not a spotbeam, so you should be able to pick them up across the U.S. unless there's no view of the sky.

If you can pick up Channels 8000 - 8004 on TP 15, and Channels 8005 - 8023 on TP 1 and 3 via Spotbeam 5, only during the winter, then I would say you have a summertime foilage problem at the cabin.

If so, eliminating foilage or moving the dish would be the best solution; and then if you were on the edge of the spotbeam, maybe in addition, adding a larger dish would help with those channels. However, if you are sure there is no foilage, and the overhang of a cabin is not stopping the signal from reaching an offset dish, then try a larger dish; and if that doesn't work, there probably is no solution.

Even though San Diego gets most locals from a spot beam on 110, it appears that Spot Beam 5 on Satellite 119 broadcasts over an area that covers Los Angeles and San Diego, but I can not validate this.

Here's a link to the DMA - http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19

Here's some extra info that may be helpful, but that I also cannot validate.

Los Angeles: HDTV = 129/27, 129/19; SDTV = 119/15, 119/1s5, 119/3s5
Stations are from: Los Angeles, Corona, Ontario,, Avalon, Huntington Beach, San Bernardino, Oxnard/Ventura, Long Beach, Barstow/San Bernardino, Rancho Palos Verdes, Twentynine Palms/Palm Springs, Ventura

San Diego: HDTV = 110/29s39; SDTV = 110/27s39, 119/16
Stations are from: San Diego

 

[oseely]

Re: Spot beam reception.

To SmityWhity:

Transponder and spot beam reception in L.A. is good, summer, winter, night and day. America's Top 60, to which we subscribe, comes in fine. That's our home and mailing address for Dish Network bills.

At our mountain cabin, north of Fresno toward Yosemite, America's Top 60 come in fine, night and day, summer and winter. We are, however, on the fringe of the L.A. spot beam at the mountain cabin. Transponder 1 and 3 are weak or non-existent summer days. Transponder 3 comes in around 8 pm summer. Transponder 1 hasn't shown any magnitude during the whole month of July at the cabin. Both come in winter, night and day. However, as I write, Transponder 1 suddenly is strong at 12:45 am (47) and Transponder 3 is around 53. At this time, during the last 3 weeks, Transponder 1 has shown no magnitude at all and Transponder 3 usually has begun to fail. I can hardly believe my posts on the subject on SatelliteGuys has nudged Dish Network to adjust the signal.

There's no foliage problem either in Lakewood or at the mountain cabin.

Thanks for the link to the DMA (dbstalk). I'll check it right now.

Oliver

 

[oseely]

To SmityWhity:

Just looked at the spot beams for the U.S. The L.A. spot beam seems to cover Inyo County up the eastern watershed of the Sierra Nevadas. We're on the western watershed, nowhere near the northern extremity as shown on the map. Could that be why the spot beam for Transponder 1 has been adjusted this evening? I can hardly believe it, but I doubt that the footprint can be much more than a fuzzy oval, certainly not the shape required as shown on the map.

At the mountain cabin, Transponder 1 hangs in there at 45 and Transponder 3 at 55. They are both usually dead by now. Very interesting.

Gotta go, my battery is running low.

Thanks, SmityWhity for bringing up some details.

Oliver

 

[oseely]

If I'm reading the TV Market Maps correctly
(from http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19 ), our mountain cabin is south of the northern extremity of the L.A. market in Inyo county, but slightly west of the western extremity. Mono county is above that and is a part of the Reno/Carson City market.

I can hardly believe that we don't receive the L.A. spot beam where we are near Fresno, but the folks at the northern part of Inyo County DO receive it. Spot beam footprints tend to be fuzzy ovals, not the strange shape shown by the L.A. market.

Right now, 1:30 am, spotbeam on transponder 1 is showing 42 and is not locking in. Transponder 3 spotbeam is hanging in there at 53.

Oliver

 

[oseely]

It is 1:45 am. Transponder 1 signal strength is down to 35, just on the verge of showing 0 signal strength (it blinks on and off) and transponder 3 is down to 45 but still locking in.

I don't know what the signal strength units are, but they don't seem to be dB.

I did an experiment a couple of weeks ago with a sheet of plywood covering part of my dish. I calculate that covering up 50% of my dish would cause a signal drop of 3 dB. Here is the dB attenuation (calculated) associated with the signal strength (observed):

dB Signal strength

0 82
-0.1 81
-0.4 80
-0.9 76
-1.8 70
-3.0 55

Gotta get some sleep. Good night everyone.

Oliver

 

[boba]

It is 1:45 am. Transponder 1 signal strength is down to 35, just on the verge of showing 0 signal strength (it blinks on and off) and transponder 3 is down to 45 but still locking in.

I don't know what the signal strength units are, but they don't seem to be dB.

I did an experiment a couple of weeks ago with a sheet of plywood covering part of my dish. I calculate that covering up 50% of my dish would cause a signal drop of 3 dB. Here is the dB attenuation (calculated) associated with the signal strength (observed):

dB Signal strength

0 82
-0.1 81
-0.4 80
-0.9 76
-1.8 70
-3.0 55

Gotta get some sleep. Good night everyone.

Oliver

YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO GET A LIFE!!!!!!!

 

[SmityWhity]

Oliver,

Although I'm sure Dish would like to be able to provide local broadcast stations of a TV Market Area (DMA) to everyone within that DMA (and beyound ), the spotbeams and DMA's do no line up (as stated somewhere), and I don't believe they even try to align things up that way because of only so many satellites and spotbeams.

Lakewood to Fresno is about 235 miles. Your cabin is closer to San Jose, CA. Even San Francisco is only 185 miles from your cabin. I don't know if I'll be able to find an accurate foot print of the spotbeam, but I really suspect you are well outside of what their main goal of providing is.

Reading your posts, it sounds like you have multiple dishes, possibly multiple 18" dishes. Hopefully you have at least a Dish 500, which I believe is 20". But you probably going to have to get a larger dish, maybe the 1000, 1000.2, 500+/1000+, or a SuperDish, or even a FTA type swapping out the LNBF.

You may want to peak the dish using TP 3 and/or 1.

Got to go to lunch.

EDIT: Family is not ready yet, have time for a couple of more comments.

It's been about 40 years since I had an interest in and slightly studied wave propagation, in fact 10GHz (giga-cycles) and above was for experimental use. I don't think we are dealing with wave propagation, however on the edge of a signal, I guess it is possible for signals to fluctuate slightly sideways do to atmospheric conditions as well as desert heat.

However, I think the cause would more likely be similar to when you peak a dish. If you move it 1/16", the LNBF moves a couple of inches, and your position 22,250 miles in space changes a couple thousand miles. On the return trip, the satellite is broadcasting a signal, and as the satellite moves a few inches (or more) in space, the very edge of its signal will also move. You might be on the edge of such (moving) signal. If that is the case, a larger dish will not increase signal strength on a non-existant signal. And I'm sure you already know that.

Hoewver, if there is signal and you just have trouble locking in, the larger dish should work. In this case, on the very edge of a spotbeam, I think I would even try adjusting the skew.

 

[oseely]

Just returned to the L.A. area. Transponders 1 and 3 show signal strength of 125 each. That's the highest I remember either of them being. No wonder I was locking in to both around midnight last night. DISH Network must have done something recently.

Oliver

 

[SmityWhity]

Maybe they made a mistake?

 

[hobojoe]

i think you have a problem with your dish. i have locals for San Diego. i travel a lot (full time RV) i get my San/la spotbeam all over the south west from the Mex boarder all the way to bridgeport ca past La's Vegas and Phoenix AZ. never a problem! distant network changes are completely locked up you cannot get or change any right now!!! you are allowed to take your box for your own personal use on your vacation. you are not allowed to let someone else use your equipment. things have changed people are stealling service and they are loosing money that could go to programing, new Sat's, new receivers, and of coarse law suits. with cable fighting more and more the market is getting very tight. before theft was a minor thing when your growing fast and money is good. don't connect your receiver to the phone while away from home! and you will be OK! be honest with them if they do ask. if your not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about.

 

[SmityWhity]

Hobojoe - You're better familiar with SoCal than I am. Except for a few major networks used as DNS, the majority of the LA locals are on a spotbeam; do you believe this spotbeam has a good signal in the mountains at Fresno, CA?

 

[hobojoe]

i think so i got my San Diego locals in USMC bridge port ca that's right inside the cal border from Reno. i did have to tweak the dish more than normal and did get a little pixilation but not too bad a fta dish like 33" would cure that! which some of the other guys did have. and they get la stations OK. http://wvjw.info/dbs-beam/echo7.gif i think i have seen a better map i will post asap!

 

[hobojoe]

i forgot to say spotbeams are garented service areas you can get service outside the box. and some la stations are not spotbeam like cbs abc nbc even ktla but others i will get a firm list and post those as well