Dish 1000.2 / Acutrak 22 pro question

[grt]

I recently upgraded my old 501 PVR and Dish 500 dish with a 612 HD DVR and Dish 1000.2 dish. I'd originally done my own installation eight years ago and had no trouble replacing the old 500 dish with the new 1000.2 dish this time around. I used the receiver's signal meter to peak the signal from the 119 satellite and got a signal around 75 for 119 & 110 and around 40-50 for the 129 transponders.

I subsequently decided to get fancy and bought an Acutrak 22 PRO with the intention of really fine-tuning the dish alignment. This is where it gets interesting. If I peak the dish using the Acutrak, it results in a lower signal reading on the 612 than I can get if I just use the 612's meter. Likewise, if I peak using the 612, the Acutrak shows a lower signal level than if I peaked using the Acutrak.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing the right things -- selecting the right LNB (tested by covering the other LNBs with foil and observing no signal strength change), made sure that the receiver wasn't sending switching commands through (22Khz blocked), etc.

Any thoughts?

I'm in southern Indiana, FYI.

 

[Liquidforce88]

What you could be seeing is the difference between different transponders.

 

[RandallA]

I recently upgraded my old 501 PVR and Dish 500 dish with a 612 HD DVR and Dish 1000.2 dish. I'd originally done my own installation eight years ago and had no trouble replacing the old 500 dish with the new 1000.2 dish this time around. I used the receiver's signal meter to peak the signal from the 119 satellite and got a signal around 75 for 119 & 110 and around 40-50 for the 129 transponders.

I subsequently decided to get fancy and bought an Acutrak 22 PRO with the intention of really fine-tuning the dish alignment. This is where it gets interesting. If I peak the dish using the Acutrak, it results in a lower signal reading on the 612 than I can get if I just use the 612's meter. Likewise, if I peak using the 612, the Acutrak shows a lower signal level than if I peaked using the Acutrak.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing the right things -- selecting the right LNB (tested by covering the other LNBs with foil and observing no signal strength change), made sure that the receiver wasn't sending switching commands through (22Khz blocked), etc.

Any thoughts?

I'm in southern Indiana, FYI.

As stated above, you got to use the same transponder to compare the readings.

 

[grt]

I'm not comparing absolute readings. I'm comparing where the peak signal strength occurs. The Acutrak isn't able to discriminate individual transponders but rather just looks at the aggregate signal strength coming from the satellite.

Again, the situation is as to where the peak signal occurs. For example, the Acutrak might peak on 119 at 230 degrees of azimuth whereas the DVR 612 peaks 119 at 234 degrees (irrespective of what transponder the 612 is looking at).

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