Will this work if I "move"?

[burtburt69]

At the moment, I live right on the eastern edge of the Great Falls, MT viewing area. I'm fed up with Montana St and the University of Montana preempting real football games on ABC and CBS every Saturday...and also with NBC not being in HD. Actually, I could live with it not being in HD. My problem is that its a very poor quality of SD. So I've considered "moving" a few miles east to where I'll be in Minot, ND's viewing area. All of their locals channels are in HD, plus they dont preempt any of the college football national feeds on Saturdays.

However, in looking at the spot beam maps of the HD feeds, I'm not 100% sure it will work, so I'd like opinions of some of the experts. This first map is from my current locals...Great Falls. As you can see, I'm right on what appears to be the eastern edge of their area (I'm the red dot). The feed I would like to get is the one in the 2nd map. According to this, I'm just outside their area, but according to a friend of mine who use to install for Dish, he thinks I'd be OK. What do you guys think? And if it would actually work, would I have to turn my Dish antenna since the feed would be coming from a different direction?

 

[gpflepsen]

Pull up the point dish screen and look at the signal strength of the TP12 spotbeam. That should tell the story...

 

[gpflepsen]

Oh yea, no turning the dish either.

 

[Mr Tony]

At the moment, I live right on the eastern edge of the Great Falls, MT viewing area. I'm fed up with Montana St and the University of Montana preempting real football games on ABC and CBS every Saturday

with the new agreement that wont happen as much (ROOT sports took over the rights)
CBS no longer has the Griz games
ABC has 3 Cats games and 2 Griz games this year(Cats tonight...Griz Saturday)

 

[burtburt69]

Oh yea, no turning the dish either.

So what are the yellow and green circles for?

 

[Mr Tony]

green means good to go
yellow means lower signal

outside of that...no go

 

[burtburt69]

with the new agreement that wont happen as much (ROOT sports took over the rights)
CBS no longer has the Griz games
ABC has 3 Cats games and 2 Griz games this year(Cats tonight...Griz Saturday)

ABC is what I really worry about, though, since they're more likely to broadcast Longhorns games (at least the ones the crap-tastic Longhorn Network doesn't steal).

 

[burtburt69]

green means good to go
yellow means lower signal

outside of that...no go

So it would be a no-go then. According to the North Dakota map, I'm about 30 miles west of the yellow circle.

 

[Mr Tony]

as noted above
Pull up the point dish screen and look at the signal strength of the TP12 spotbeam. That should tell the story...

menu 6-1-1
change the satellite to 129 and the transponder to 12

wait 5 seconds for signal; to show
report back as to what signal strength shows

 

[gpflepsen]

green means good to go
yellow means lower signal

outside of that...no go

That's why you need to check the TP12 signal strength. That is all that matters. The weaker signal, if there, will be much more susceptible to rain fade issues too.

 

[burtburt69]

as noted above
Pull up the point dish screen and look at the signal strength of the TP12 spotbeam. That should tell the story...

menu 6-1-1
change the satellite to 129 and the transponder to 12

wait 5 seconds for signal; to show
report back as to what signal strength shows

I'm using a Hopper so it took me a little while to find where to check the signal. Anyway, this is what it showed:

 

[TheKrell]

Wrong sat? How can that be? What arc are you on?

 

[Mr Tony]

you're out of the spotbeam then

what does it show on 129 Transponder 13 (where your locals are?)

 

[Mr Tony]

Wrong sat? How can that be? What arc are you on?

he's probably out of the spotbeam then...

 

[burtburt69]

That's why you need to check the TP12 signal strength. That is all that matters. The weaker signal, if there, will be much more susceptible to rain fade issues too.

The signal on the one I'm trying to get (62) is actually higher than the one I'm getting on my locals now (58).

 

[Mr Tony]

but if you're out of the spotbeam it use to show 0.....now I guess it shows another satellites strength (in this case 119)

I assume on 129 TP13 the bar turns green?

 

[burtburt69]

you're out of the spotbeam then

what does it show on 129 Transponder 13 (where your locals are?)

 

[TigerpounceTN]

What about the other Montana markets? Do they all air the local teams instead of the national network games?

 

[burtburt69]

Wrong sat? How can that be? What arc are you on?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention arc.

 

[burtburt69]

What about the other Montana markets? Do they all air the local teams instead of the national network games?

The only other Montana markets are Missoula (which is all U of M all of the time) and Billings. And unless I'm reading wrong, all of the Billings channels are standard def - http://www.satelliteguys.us/thelist/index.php?search=dnall&sub=true&market=Billings, MT