SuperDish install question

[ray]

Hi, over the weekend I have a superdish installed by an installer. I am in SF, CA. The satellites I am seeing at 110, 119, and 121. The superdish is mounted on the roof.

The problem I am seeing last night is channels on 121 are freezing a lot. Channels on 110 and 119 are fine. Unfortunately my main interests are the international channels on 121.

I suspect the problem might be related to wind. Here in SF in the spring, the wind can be moderate at times. Fortunately the wind is hitting the dishes from the side straight on, not from the front. Unfortunately I see the LNB vibrates slightly when there's wind.

The signals I am getting are

110: 88
119: 95
121: 70

For the first few days, it was fine. But last night the freezing on 121 is so frequent I basically can't watch it. The sky is crystal clear and I did try to fine tune the pointing, but I can't seem to get much improvement over what I have. Is the problem with my signal level? I see people posting signals about 110+. Does the dish have to be dead on to get these kind of levels?

Another possible location is in the back yard on the side of my deck. There are some pretty heavy duty wood frames that the dish can mount to. But doing so would increase the cable run by about 50+ feet. Would that be too much? I'd estimate the current cable run to be about 50 feet or less. The wind load on that location would probably be very small.

I am having a wing dish installed for some of my local channels. How would it be added to the existing system? Currently the switch is full. 1/2/3 satellites are all used. Is another switch going to be added? The location in the yard does not have a clear view to the 148 direction, so the wind dish would probably be still on the roof (or in the front of the house where the living room is, far from the SD). How will the cable run work in that case?

Last question, people seem to suggest a pole as a good mounting point for the SD. But my intuition tells me a pole will vibrate easily. How strong are those poles? I guess the pole would need to be perfectly vertical right?

Thanks!

 

[mudder1310]

You should have higher signal levels on your super dish but those aren't terrible. I'd be willing to bet a repeak would help some but I'd have to see what else is happening to make a solid recommendation.
As far as adding another dish to the mix, hopefully the tech will bring out a DP44 though you can make a 34+21 setup work too.

 

[RandallA]

Ray,

Last night here in South S.F. the wind was pretty bad. Since the SuperDish is bigger, it catches more wind than a regular Dish500. I'd suggest relocating the SuperDish to your backyard using a pole.

Where is your switch located? You probably have a DP34 and if they are going to add a wing dish for 148, most likely they will replace the switch with a DP44. Depending on the location of the switch you can have the SD in the backyard and the wing dish in another location and have them run the cables to a central location where the switch will be and from there to the receivers. Remember that the maximum cable runs from LNB to receiver is 200 ft.

 

[DCXFORDGM]

I agree your signal level is too low on 110, it should be very close to 125 or just a bit lower, 119 will come in over 100 if 110 is aimed first. 121FSS should be over 70 for sure, when you get 110 you then aim 121 by not adjusting skew at all, I made that mistake, it cost me 30mins. My dish is on a pole, maybe installer did not take time to set 110 well because if that is not strong the other two 119 and 121 will be off. I would recommed to do a re-point, what happens when it rains when watching 121?

 

[ray]

Hi all, thanks for the reply! I will discuss with the installer who did the job to see if it's possible to relocate it to the yard.

After surfing the forum, I just realized that the reason I have 2 RG6 feeding into my satellite receiver (and hence 2 holes on the wall) is for the 2nd TV, not because I am receiving signals through 3 LNBS (or will be 4) as I originally thought. I thought 2 cables are needed to carry the signal from 3 LNBs. But now that I think about it, I think the switch combines the signals from 3 LNBs (or maybe only allow one to go through) to the receiver. What if both TV are watching the same satellite, but different transponder? How does the switch handle it? Any link on what a switch does technically? (I installed a direcTV system myself around 97 but haven't been using the service for a while now, so I am not familiar with the latest greatest satellite technologies).

One other thing, can I combine DirecTV and Dish using the DP44 switch that they will install? Are switch generic or they are tied to specific provider? I may remodel my home in the future, I wonder if it's possible to have one cable to each room so that I have regular analog cable and dish (with the 4 LNB setup) on the same cable....

 

[SimpleSimon]

Guys - remember that signal strength is MEANINGLESS unless we also know the transponder in question.

I'm not going into the tutorial on switch theory (again), but NO, you can NOT combine D* and E* LNBFs/switches - they use different technologies.

You CAN put cable (5-900MHz) and satellite (950-2150MHz) on the same cable using diplexers.

 

[RandallA]

Ray,
What SimpleSimon said, no you can't combine them but if you want to look at how the switches work I found this nicely done document that might help.

http://www.9thtee.com/SonoraApp_DirecTV.pdf

Although is mostly about DirecTV switches, pages 6 and 7 talk about the Dish Pro technology that Dish Network uses. Hope that helps.

That "App_18e_2coax_DP34.EPS" setup looks just like mine except that I also have a wing dish 148 and the receivers are 311's.

Update:

This is the Dish Network version:
http://www.sonoradesign.com/tipsAndTricksPages/DiskPro/App_DishPro.pdf

Really nice document.

 

[ray]

Very nice document. Thank you RandallA.

I am going to peak the dish again using the instruction I found in the SuperDish install guide. I tried to peak it last weekend but I might not have done it properly. I am going to verify the proper skew is set, and do the peak on 110 (with transponder 11 and 12) and then fine tune it on 121 (with transponder 15, 16, 20, 21, as indicated on the guide, however most of the international programs I watch are on transponder 17). Making small adjustments and wait 5-10 seconds between each for the receiver to update, which I might not have done last time...

Do I need to disconnect some LNBs as the install guide suggested? I probably won't....

One question, the mounting foot of the superdish, can it be adjusted to be perfectly vertical without drilling new holes? If the installer had installed it slightly off, it will throw the skew off right? I mean I can check/adjust the top of the mask to be perfectly vertical in one direction, but the other direction requires the base to be vertical right? (the dish is on the roof so it's not easy for me to look at).

Also, on Monday night, where the interruption occurred, 2 other SD install I know of also had interruptions. I checked one of my neighbor's. His 121 is 60. So whoever is doing install now probably isn't too careful about peaking the dishes now a days.

I still think the wind might be affecting it, but perhaps there were some programming interruptions on Monday at dish's end.