Can I get locals with a 311 receiver and 500 Dish?

[floridastatenolefan]

My plan includes locals and I have a turbo HD dish with no worries. I have a dual HD DVR receiver and a couple of single non-hd 311 receivers. I'm working on my friends vacant house about 50 miles away. I spend some weekends over there when working due to the high gas prices. He has an old Super Dish with no service mounted at the house. I hooked up one of my 311s and it worked at first, including locals. However, now the locals don't work. It picks up 110 and 119, but I'm getting X's and no connection on port 3 where 129 and the locals should be. I found a break in one of the cables between the switch and the super dish. I cut out the bad spot and spliced, but no change. I have an old 500 dish in my garage - will it pickup locals and work with the 311 receiver or is there a way to fix the Super Dish to pickup locals? Thanks

 

[Juan]

Not If the locals are on the eastern arc ..should work on the western arc

 

[garys]

The 311 is an sd receiver so the superdish should work for you as all sd locals are on 110 or 119 (either superdish should have both, just like a dish500. You may have hit something and the receiver may have found the setup different than at you home. Try running a check switch and see if that fixes it. Note: you will need to run another check switch when you return your receiver to your home.

 

[TheKrell]

The 311 is an sd receiver so the superdish should work for you as all sd locals are on 110 or 119...

Actually a number of local SD markets are on 129, though I see none in Florida. (The DMA farthest east appears to be Charlottesville, VA.) Agree with garys that a check switch is the most likely way to fix this issue.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

I tried running the check switch with no improvement. I still have x's on port 3 with NC, no connection and can't get the locals. The Super Dish has three cables running to a DP34 switch. The funny thing is that the guide shows up to date for the locals, but when you put it on a local channel it sits there searching for a satellite then a message comes up that we are aware of the outage, no need to report, etc. I'm also getting my locals on 129 at home. A neighbor near the vacant house is getting his locals on 129 also. I wonder if the bad cable shorted something in either the dish or the switch? As far as east and west I'm west of Atlanta, but obviously further south.

 

[aaronwt6]

Which locals are you subscribed to? Sounds like you are outside of the spotbeam.

 

[TheKrell]

I don't see any SD locals on 129 for any Florida DMA, but I must admit I may have missed one or two. Are you sure the 311's were getting locals off 129? Anyhow, without looking up your DMA, it's difficult to diagnose this situation. But after doing a check switch and saving the result, you should not see any red X's.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

The locals are on 129W, spotbeam 51. I might agree with the spotbeam, but they were working, but then just stopped. Now I can't get any connection to 129. It seems like a hardware issue. Otherwise wouldn't I get so signal, but have connection?

 

[aaronwt6]

The locals are on 129W, spotbeam 51. I might agree with the spotbeam, but they were working, but then just stopped. Now I can't get any connection to 129. It seems like a hardware issue. Otherwise wouldn't I get so signal, but have connection?

Which city's locals are you trying to receive? It sounds like you are looking at the HD locals on the 129 which the 311 cannot get. Check the 110 or 119 for the SD locals. Regardless, I believe you are out of any of the Florida spotbeams in the Atlanta area.

 

[aaronwt6]

I'm guessing from your nick is must be Tallahassee

 

[floridastatenolefan]

Where is WCTV Tallahassee broadcast in SD? Is the SD and HD signal coming from different satellites?

 

[aaronwt6]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/thelist/index.php?search=dnall&market=Tallahassee, FL&sub=true&sort=&order=&beamMap=E10_SB3.jpg

SD is on the 110. Spotbeam 03

Check your signal strength on transponder 25 on the 110. I'm guessing its weak or non existent. You may need to peak the dish, especially if you location is near the edge of the spotbeam.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

Guess I'm back to square one since the check switch doesn't work and I have a connection to 110 and 119. Maybe I am out of the spotbeam. Just odd that the locals were working and now they aren't. I guess I must have been seeing 129 for the HD local channels at home. I'm at a loss.

 

[KE4EST]

A superdish does not pick-up 129. You could take your unused 500 and aim it at 129 and hook it up to the 3rd input on the dp34 switch. That is assuming it is not a real old legacy.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

Thanks. I'll try to tweak (again). I tried the skew, elevation and east/west to no avail over the weekend. I could only get it to work on the original settings (I marked the positions before I started). I'm not sure if I tried 25 on 110, but the ones I did try were low 50s or lower.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

I may have a line on an hd turbo dish that I can stick over there - maybe that will solve the problem.

 

[aaronwt6]

I may have a line on an hd turbo dish that I can stick over there - maybe that will solve the problem.

Make sure its a western arc dish is you are going to continue using the 311 receiver. The 311 will not work on the eastern arc sats (61.5/72.7)

 

[floridastatenolefan]

Thanks. It's one that someone was using for the same locals here. Are you saying that it won't work with a 311 receiver to pickup locals? They were using it with a dual HD receiver I think. Not sure if they had any 311s.

 

[aaronwt6]

Thanks. It's one that someone was using for the same locals here. Are you saying that it won't work with a 311 receiver to pickup locals? They were using it with a dual HD receiver I think. Not sure if they had any 311s.

A picture would be good to determine which dish it is. However for the 311 the western arc HD dish will really have no benefit over the superdish you were trying to use. Of course there's always the possibility that something was wrong with that old dish and/or the switch.

 

[floridastatenolefan]

Thank you for you help. One more question : ) . . . When I put the receiver on one of the locals, the channel identification comes up with the correct program information at the top of the screen, but then it immediately starts searching for satellite signal. Then a blue screen comes up with a canned Dish message saying something like "We apologize for the outage, we are working on it, no need to report, press up or down to watch another channel." Is that the message that would come up if it's a signal strength or spotbeam issue? Thanks again.