Upgrading to get 129

[341]

Hi all,

Quick thanks for all of the great information on this forum!

I am upgrading my legacy Dish 500 system to prepare for getting HD. I have always owned my own equipment and enjoy learning about and installing my own system. I live in the PNW (98360) and know that the Dish 1000.2 is not sufficient to pull in the weak signals from 129 up here, so I will be upgrading to the Dish Pro (or Dish Pro Plus) and adding a second dish to pull in the 129 satellite.

I have lurked around these forums and sought out other information but just cannot nail down the information I need. I have only two receivers (Vip 211 and a 311 for the other room) and the question I have is will a Dish Pro Plus LNB (two outputs and an one input for a 3rd orbital location) recognize satellite 129 when I plug the second dish to the "LNB Port In" or do I need to go with the Dish Pro Twin LNB and use a DP34 switch?

I already have a Wingard DS4061 dish (24") with a Dish Pro Dual LNB as the second dish. Would that dish be sufficient to pull in 129 or should I go with the 30"? My readings on the lower signal 110 satellite sure shot up by at least 30 points when I was fooling around with the 24" dish.

Also, I can not seem to find information for the elevation needed for 129 when using a single LNB on the second dish. Any help there?

Thanks!

 

[kstuart]

I am also in the PNW and have the exact same dishes and it's fine.

The DS4061 is a very well designed and built dish for DBS.

You can get a New DPPlusTwin on Ebay for $20 or so - in fact, I bought two so I would have a spare.

Of course, 30" would be even better, but first try the 24" since you already have it.

You can get the 129 angles from:

http://sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Satellite-Heading-Calculator.htm

which is the site of a sponsor of this Forum. (The LNBF tilt/skew is only needed for FTA satellites, and is not needed for DBS satellites like 129)

Note that it may be easier to connect the 24" dish directly to the input of a receiver when first finding the satellite - I find that the 3-sat switch tends to ignore the signals on the 3rd input unless you are locked on and have then done a switch check. So, try first getting a lock and good signal using a cable directly to a receiver, and then connect to the 3rd sat port, and doing a switch check. Alternately, you can use a $10 satellite signal meter to find the sat, but many people find that the dish receiver's meter is better anyway.

 

[alk753]

If your receivers are DP capable the DPP + Second Dish should work fine. I am not familiar with the receiver models so I will let someone else confirm that part.

If you aready have a 24" dish, I'd definitely give that a try before going larger for 129. I think you'll be more than fine.

Here is a good sat pointer:

hxxp://www.satlex.de/en/azel_calc.html

 

[garys]

The Dish Pro Dual lnb will connect directly to the Dish Pro Plus Twin, the switch is built into the twin. You will not need another switch (just make sure you do not use legacy lnb.

 

[341]

Thanks for the responses!

You confirmed what I suspected, but just needed to make sure before I go out and buy the wrong equipment. Doing my searches, I got conflicting information so I thought I should the folks who really know. I didn't want to e-mail or call Dish Network and get the canned "We will send out a Tech to do the install" response.

I was wondering if pointing the 24" to 129 first by directly inputting to the receiever would be better as I have read here earlier that it seems the 119/110 have priority in a switch. Makes sense to me.

Thanks again.