61W in Southern California

[HDTVFanAtic]

I know people in LA could receive Voom off 61W if you had a view of it very low on the horizon (18 degrees elevation if memory serves correctly).

Can anyone tell me what size dishes Voom used in Southern California or does anyone here have a E* DBS Dish pointed at 61W from Southern California that can tell me what size is needed to get a good lock on the bird?

Thanks.

 

[RandallA]

A D500 should be fine.

 

[Miner]

I had a Dish 500 with I bracket pointed at 61.5, and I'm located in Seattle. Signal is very good up here, when one has a good line of sight and I imagine would be even better down south.

 

[Smith P.]

Any dish will works, used 18" (D300), VOOM, Sony DTV, 20" (D500) - NP, if you have clear sight to the East at 15-18 degree above horizon.

 

[dnsguy]

voom used a 24 inch dish, We are actually using the overstock of 24's for the 129 now. In seattle when there is a los we use a 500

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Thanks guys - I can only receive 148W on the East Coast at about a 51 on a Dish IRD with a Dish 500 when I first tried it 2 years ago and need a 1.2M just to get a low 70s reading - so I knew 61W on the West Coast wasn't that bad - but surprised it is that much stronger.

 

[dlsnyder]

I use a D500 aimed at 61.5W and all transponders are at least 100 on the meter out here in Moreno Valley (Riverside).

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Thanks.....is it a D500 with the dual yoke still in place or the single lnbf attachment?

 

[Smith P.]

I just used D500 with Y and one LNBF.

 

[Anole]

Geez! If the lame 129º bird blasted out like that, life would be so much better for everyone!
I'll have to swing my 148º dish (original Dish 18", refitted with a DP LNB) and see if I can get it from my roof.
(nothing left on 148º of any interest for an L.A. subscriber)

The best way to improve the line of sight, is to move the dish higher.

 

[bytre]

I'm east of LA (Whittier) and use an 18", think it used to be a D* dish. Its pointed pretty low on the horizon, but clears the house across the street so I get a signal.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

ok......a D* AT9/AU9 is going up replacing a 3lnb D*.

Because of the difference in the mounting plate and mast, obviously they will need to do a different mount - so I am just planning to tell them to leave the D* 3lnb there.

As I have never fooled with the OEM D* 3lnb, I have no idea if a multiswitch is built in or not. Obviously, I cannot use the center 110W SATC D* lnb.

Can you just switch out the SATA 101W or SATB 119W lnb, put it in the center SATC position and aim it at 61.5W, run RG-6 right to the E* stb and be good to go?

 

[Anole]

HD -

To answer your question without questioning your motives, see the FTA section of the forum.

For applications where you are not combining the signal with any other birds, the DirecTV Phase II or Phase III dish may work as-is, with no modifications.
Just a re-aiming.
It would be Legacy-compatible.

In a Phase II (three independent LNBs mounted to a big plastic bracket), either outside LNB is a stock legacy.
The center LNB and the little combiner would be discarded.
The big switch mounted to the back of the dish would be unusable with Dish receivers.

With a Phase III (three LNB horns built into one assembly) the switch is part of the unit.
Any of the four connectors defaults to the 101 LNB at power-up.
It is the horn to the western side of the antenna.
Point it to the bird of choice, and you're done.

For any such single-LNB application, ignore skew.
It should be trivial to hunt the sky with a $10 signal meter, and find your bird.

edit:

Can you just switch out the SATA 101W or SATB 119W lnb, put it in the center SATC position and aim it at 61.5W, run RG-6 right to the E* stb and be good to go?

Pretty much.
If Legacy is what you want.
Though, anyone running HD or multiple birds is probably using DishPro...

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

HD -

To answer your question without questioning your motives, see the FTA section of the forum.

For applications where you are not combining the signal with any other birds, the DirecTV Phase II or Phase III dish may work as-is, with no modifications.
Just a re-aiming.
It would be Legacy-compatible.

In a Phase II (three independent LNBs mounted to a big plastic bracket), either outside LNB is a stock legacy.
The center LNB and the little combiner would be discarded.
The big switch mounted to the back of the dish would be unusable with Dish receivers.

With a Phase III (three LNB horns built into one assembly) the switch is part of the unit.
Any of the four connectors defaults to the 101 LNB at power-up.
It is the horn to the western side of the antenna.
Point it to the bird of choice, and you're done.

For any such single-LNB application, ignore skew.
It should be trivial to hunt the sky with a $10 signal meter, and find your bird.

Question all you want - no biggie. My Bar back east gets really lousy OTA reception and all I watch are the 4 OTA Networks

Putting a commercial account for a single market Local HD Service only to pull in the the HD East Coast feeds of a market.

I take it from what you are saying that a Phase II would be much easier than a Phase III as the Phase 3 will not allow me to prime focus on the 61.5W and since it is running through a D* multiswitch it is not going to work correctly as D* does not use the 22khz tone?

.
If Legacy is what you want.
Though, anyone running HD or multiple birds is probably using DishPro...

But the D* lnbs are going to run in legacy anyway - not dp so I don't really see a choice there.

 

[Anole]

I take it from what you are saying that a Phase II would be much easier than a Phase III as the Phase 3 will not allow me to prime focus on the 61.5W and since it is running through a D* multiswitch it is not going to work correctly as D* does not use the 22khz tone?

Well, if the only goal is to get 61º Legacy into a Dish receiver, the Phase III is fine.
My only concern was that you might want to combine the 61 with anything else.
If not, that's great.

Yes, the Phase II is easy and obvious from inspection - you can see immediately how you'd use it.
And it'll work.

The Phase III, even though it has the switch, is less obvious, but just as useful.
I was saying, that in the default switch condition (tone off), your coax connectors on the bottom of the lnb/switch assembly will default to the 101 LNB
That happens to be the LNB on the west side of the three.
It also happens to be the unmolested LNB.
Aim the dish a little cockeyed (not skewed, just rotated a bit) so the 101 LNB gets your 61º signal, and you're done.
For the west LNB to get the 61 signal, aim the arm of the dish roughly 9º more west than predicted for 61.

The fact that you don't have a physically centered LNB is unimportant, based on the comments of this thread.
The signal is pretty hot all across the USA.
So, using one off-center is fine.

Now, the above info is based on some personal tests, and a great deal of research.
However, I believe to the best of my knowledge, it's perfectly correct.

 

[KE4EST]

I just used D500 with Y and one LNBF.

IF you do this put the LNBF on the 119 side and set the skew to 0.

How ever from experimenting, I have found sometimes after you get a lock you can play with the skew and get a higher signal(but just sometimes).

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Thanks for the input.