I just re-aimed my dish from 129 to 61.5 yesterday. I am 7 miles west of West Seattle about 1 mile south of Manchester, WA. I am on a hill looking east over Puget Sound. My LOS is between Blake Island and Vashon Island. My elevation is 10 degrees and azimuth is 92 degrees. I have a Dish 1000 aimed at 110 and 119 and a Dish 500 with single adaptor aimed at 61.5. Fortunately, all I had to do was swing my dish around and repeak. Unfortunately, the 622 didn't recognize 61.5 readily. I scanned the area 1 degree of elevation at a time and found 2 or 3 signals in that direction but the 622 kept telling me it was 119 west -- not even close to its position.
I had to do about 4 or 5 switch checks before it finally went from a 3 item check to a 38 item check. One more check after that and it registered OK for all 3 satellites. I also had trouble peaking it with my meter. It was very unstable. It seemed to jump from 0 to max at the slightest touch. So I used cell phones so my wife could read the TV screen to me as I nudged the dish.
I was able to peak it at a high of 92 on TP's 9 and 19. TP's for Channels 9470 to 9486 are all in the 89 to 92 range. TP's 20 and 22 are weak at 66. HGHD, STZHD, NTGHD and NFLHD are on these TP's. However, they are stable and I haven't seen any dropouts so far. The good news is that the cyclic drop in signal strenth that 129 had is gone. It would drop to below 38 from the mid 70's and lose signal. 61.5 doesn't have this problem.
My neighbors have a couple trees that may interfere, but they are trimmed every year anyway to preserve the view. This certainly is a good alternative until the 129 satellite is replaced in a year or so.
So far reception has been perfect. No pixelization and no dropouts. Of course the weather is good (partly cloudy) now too. I will monitor it during the next storm to see how much it drops.
It is well worth the effort if you have the option.
