61.5 Transponder 1

[bytre]

I hooked up my 61.5 dish last night - an old directv dish with a dual LNB. I'm on the west coast (Southern California), and happened to have an open spot in the eastern horizon. I hung the dish, wired it up, and pointed it in the general direction per a poorly functioning compass. I was floored when I went inside, did a switch check, and found I had 70 - 100 signal strength on 61.5!

Anyway, I ordered the voom channels today, but don't get three of them - all on transponder 1. If I go into the point dish / signal meter in setup, I don't get the option of selecting transponder 1 on 61.5.

What's with my setup, or is Dish having problems with transponder 1? Would I be able to get good strength on other transponders and just fail on 1, or a cabling problem, or...?

Anyone have any guidance?

 

[korsjs]

you could try to tweak it a bit, but i don't think it will matter.

 

[mike_johnson]

There is a known issue with some 811's not getting some Voom channels. Is was noted over at DBSTalk.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=41426

 

[bytre]

This was a 921.

This evening, all the channels were fine, without me messing with it.

 

[James Long]

The point dish application has not been updated with the Voom transponders.
Peak the dish to another transponder .. such as 8 or 25.
Voom is a little bit off center of that pointing, but close enough.

JL

 

[markdl]

I'm having no problems with my 921 receiving the TR1 channels. bytre - can you not set the 921 point dish screen to TR1 on your 921? That may be an addition to the beta that I'm running.

 

[bytre]

I can not select any odd transponder below 25 (for 61.5), or 24.

I get: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,25-32

I am having the problem this morning again where I can't get the three voom channels on transponder 1. My other channels are all good.

 

[bcshields]

try to update your software. see if that helps. Power off the rcvr and wait, in about 2-5 minutes a screen should pop up on the tv saying that it's updating software.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

When I was aligning my 61.5 dish Saturday, I couldn't get anything, wife suddenly switched to transponder 14 and 109 percent signal strength.

 

[Stacy A]

This may be a stupid idea, but if you have any trees anywhere near the LOS, it's possible a single branch is blocking the LOS for that transponder intermittently. This is exactly what happened to me when I got my 6000 and hooked up my second dish to see 61.5. I could peak my signal strength on some transponders and others wouldn't even show up. It ended up I had to completely move the dish to a new location on the other side of the house.

 

[bytre]

I've got the current software on my 921, that isn't the problem.

It could be a tree or branch, certainly. 61.5 is very low on the horizon for me. I would think that I'd lose signal on all transponders if something blocked it though.

 

[James Long]

E* has not updated the signal strength screen to allow you to choose 61.5's low odd transponders. The receiver can still TUNE to those transponders - and HD receivers can get Voom channels - but the diagnostic signal strength is not yet available.

JL

 

[Stacy A]

61.5 is very low on the horizon for me. I would think that I'd lose signal on all transponders if something blocked it though.

That's what I used to think as well, but the right thing can actually just block a transponder rather than the whole signal.

 

[mudder1310]

I've always been told that E* only used the even transponders on 61.5 and leases out the odds. So when I go to point at it I need to make sure my meter is set for 18v.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I've always been told that E* only used the even transponders on 61.5 and leases out the odds. So when I go to point at it I need to make sure my meter is set for 18v.

That's pre-Voom, and AFAIK they didn't own the rights to the odd ones anyway.

 

[James Long]

I've always been told that E* only used the even transponders on 61.5 and leases out the odds. So when I go to point at it I need to make sure my meter is set for 18v.

E* only holds licence to 11 transponders, all even, from 2 to 22. They are using most of those. E* also operates on even and odd transponders from 25-32. Those higher transponders are licensed to SkyAngel, but E* has the rights to use #26-31 for their own programming (with certain restrictions). E* customers have been using odd transponders and E* has been transmitting on them for years.

Pre-Voom (2003) E* also used some of the lower odd transponders temporarily until Rainbow launched their satellite and was able to get their service up.

JL