Eastern arc and only one satalite???

[mgb922]

I'm an RVer and have a eastern arc dish. I had to move it recently and now can only get 61.5 into my 612VIP receiver. I checked the angles and there spot on with a signal strength of around 55-60. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?


Tim

 

[Mr Tony]

since you are a RV'er depending on where in the US you are the skew (tilt) may be different

 

[mgb922]

I was going by the D1000.4 EA and WA installation instuctions from Ecostar which lists the angles by zip code. My zip is 20688 and it shows 206XX 45 184 85 for the eastern arc table??? Am I using the wrong lists?

 

[Mr Tony]

I just checked dishpointer.com and the numbers are right
They show
45 elevation
185 azimuth
85 skew

 

[aaronwt6]

I'm an RVer and have a eastern arc dish. I had to move it recently and now can only get 61.5 into my 612VIP receiver. I checked the angles and there spot on with a signal strength of around 55-60. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?


Tim

If you run a check switch on the receiver, which port is the 61.5 showing up on? It sounds like you are receiving the sat on the wrong port and that the dish needs to be rotated about 10 degrees to the west. Possibly raise the elevation a hair. A screen shot of your switch installation summary after running and saving a switch test would be very helpful.

Also, do you have the 2 LNB 1000.2 dish or the 3 LNB 1000.4 dish? I know you said 1000.4 above but just wanted to confirm.

 

[Scott Agrella]

As the last post stated it is entirely possible to pull the 61.5 with the 72.7 eye, the receiver does not discriminate which eye the signal is coming from it just knows it's there. Try rotating 10-11 degrees to the right, if you can see or at least hear the tone from the point dish screen while doing so it would be helpful. An 85 degree skew is so minimal that the 72.7 can catch it pretty easily, here we have a 74 skew and both the 1000.4 and 1000.2 East can lock on when tuning though with a weaker signal. Totally irrelevant to this conversation but it's possible and at some points necessary to use the 119 eye on a DPP WA twin to get the 61.5 and run a single wing to the in port for the 72.7 or vice versa. You just can't use the 110 eye for 61.5 because the 119 ends up catching a Brazilian satellite at 70 degrees azimuth and will confuse the heck out of your check switch.

 

[harshness]

Am I using the wrong lists?

Not so much the wrong list as not the best resource (since DISH doesn't put effective dates on their documents and the magnetic poles are constantly on the move).

As Iceberg implies, www.dishpointer.com is the resource you should be using.

Because your skew is so close to horizontal, you're probably looking in the wrong direction (azimuth).

 

[Stargazer]

To make sure you pick up the correct satellite on the correct lnb, cover all of the lnb's except for the one you are targeting for which in this case would be 61.5 with aluminum foil. Once you receive the signal, take the aluminum foil off and do another check switch to see if the other satellites come in.

 

[harshness]

To make sure you pick up the correct satellite on the correct lnb, cover all of the lnb's except for the one you are targeting for which in this case would be 61.5 with aluminum foil.

If you can't read the LNB legend, the westernmost feed horn is for 61.5 (assuming the dish is pointed in the right general direction.

 

[mgb922]

I'm getting 61.5 on port 1 but 71 doesn't show up. I followed the instruction and it was saying connect the cable to LNB to port 2 and peak out 71.5 than reconnect to port 1. But still it's not finding anything but 61.5.

If you run a check switch on the receiver, which port is the 61.5 showing up on? It sounds like you are receiving the sat on the wrong port and that the dish needs to be rotated about 10 degrees to the west. Possibly raise the elevation a hair. A screen shot of your switch installation summary after running and saving a switch test would be very helpful.

Also, do you have the 2 LNB 1000.2 dish or the 3 LNB 1000.4 dish? I know you said 1000.4 above but just wanted to confirm.

 

[mgb922]

This may sound like a stupid question to most of you guys but I'm new at this. When the satalite finder says skew of -18.1 and the skew in the instruction is 85 degerees what does that mean?

 

[harshness]

It probably means that you need to be using www.dishpointer.com and ignoring your other sources.

Dishpointer (given Solomons as a location) says that you need to set the EA dish to 85.3 degrees on the skew scale. I can't explain what is going on with the "satellite finder" other than you're probably misusing it.

As always, the secret to success comes in three steps:

1. Make sure the mast is plumb. Failure to do so will throw everything off in three dimensions (not impossible, but damned hard).
2. Set the elevation and skew on the dish scales and tighten down the locking nuts.
3. Swing the dish in the general direction until you land on a good signal.

If you've set the elevation and skew carefully, you shouldn't need to tinker with them.


Self-installing is overrated.

 

[mgb922]

Thanks harshness for the info. I joined this forum to learn and I heard this was the best place to do that. Moving my dish is not a business for me but a necessity. So I'm using this need like a hobby trying to have fun doing it. I did all the things you mentioned but we have had a lot of rain and snow so I'll go back through it again especially the plumb.

It probably means that you need to be using www.dishpointer.com and ignoring your other sources.

Dishpointer (given Solomons as a location) says that you need to set the EA dish to 85.3 degrees on the skew scale. I can't explain what is going on with the "satellite finder" other than you're probably misusing it.

As always, the secret to success comes in three steps:

1. Make sure the mast is plumb. Failure to do so will throw everything off in three dimensions (not impossible, but damned hard).
2. Set the elevation and skew on the dish scales and tighten down the locking nuts.
3. Swing the dish in the general direction until you land on a good signal.

If you've set the elevation and skew carefully, you shouldn't need to tinker with them.


Self-installing is overrated.

 

[harshness]

Moving my dish is not a business for me but a necessity.

If you were simply moving the dish on the same property, no adjustments to the elevation or skew should be done as those settings don't change appreciably for movement a few miles in any direction. In that case, you painstakingly set up the mast, drop the dish on and start sweeping out the azimuth. If the mast was plumb before and plumb now, it shouldn't require any other adjustment.

It helps if you are explicit about what you're trying to accomplish as we may be able to avoid mucking with things that don't need to be mucked with.