FS: VIP Dish 211k

[Mr Tony]

Both Dish and Directv use sats at 110 & 119

Dish has all (1-32) except 28, 30 & 32 on 110
Dish has 1-21 on 119

But then there are spotbeams on all 3 sats. This is how they can distribute locals. The spotbeam covers say 200 miles. So dish can have Minneapolis locals on say 110 TP12 and Miami locals and Hartford locals and Denver locals all on that same transponder. I can only see Minneapolis locals.

These are spotbeam transponders so you might see sky high numbers, low numbers (on the edge) or nothing

110 TP 4,12,18,20,23,25,26,27,29,31
119 TP 1,2,3,4,5 (thats why 2 is real low...you're on the edge)
129 TP 1-16 are spotbeams (thats why most are 0)

 

[Mr Tony]

to elaborate on spotbeams....checking 119 these are the spotbeams you are picking up
1. Shreveport
2. Biloxi, MS (hence the low signal)...that big badass dish is why you show a signal. 99% of the folks in your area show 0
3. San Angelo, TX
4. Austin & Houston
5. Austin

 

[Dee_Ann]

Both Dish and Directv use sats at 110 & 119

Dish has all (1-32) except 28, 30 & 32 on 110
Dish has 1-21 on 119

But then there are spotbeams on all 3 sats. This is how they can distribute locals. The spotbeam covers say 200 miles. So dish can have Minneapolis locals on say 110 TP12 and Miami locals and Hartford locals and Denver locals all on that same transponder. I can only see Minneapolis locals.

These are spotbeam transponders so you might see sky high numbers, low numbers (on the edge) or nothing

110 TP 4,12,18,20,23,25,26,27,29,31
119 TP 1,2,3,4,5 (thats why 2 is real low...you're on the edge)
129 TP 1-16 are spotbeams (thats why most are 0)

to elaborate on spotbeams....checking 119 these are the spotbeams you are picking up
1. Shreveport
2. Biloxi, MS (hence the low signal)...that big badass dish is why you show a signal. 99% of the folks in your area show 0
3. San Angelo, TX
4. Austin & Houston
5. Austin

Oh cool! Ok, so spot beams are like laser beams, they can aim them at and cover small targets rather than flood the whole country or continent. Pretty cool..

So my big bad a** dishes are worth the effort after all.
I can't wait to tweak them! But it's going to be a good while before I can, my yard is once again a big lake. 100% of the yard is flooded and in area where the dishes are, it's a good 6 inches deep, some places are even deeper.
Even without tweaking them I think I could probably have it activated and be able to watch TV in most weather conditions outside of torrential downpours such as today. When it pours this hard though, it usually doesn't sustain it for any long time. If I lose some HD channels I can just go watch some SD channels, I don't think there's much that can knock those out on me.

OMG I can't wait for next week! I wanna watch TV!!

 

[Mr Tony]

Oh cool! Ok, so spot beams are like laser beams, they can aim them at and cover small targets rather than flood the whole country or continent.

correct.
Think of a wall in your house as a CONUS transponder
now take a flashlight...stand about 4 feet away and shine it at the wall. Part of the wall lights up while the rest is dark. Thats a spotbeam.

Like as example if I use 119 TP1 (the one with Shreveport locals) the transponder gets reused for other markets. These locals are also on 119 TP1
El Paso
Sioux Falls, SD
Elmira and Syracuse, NY
Anchorage, Alaska
South Bend, IN
Chicago
Eugene, OR
LA (Cali, not Louisiana)
Atlanta

It allows satellite companies to not waste bandwidth by putting a market on a CONUS sat....since the only ones who can subscribe to a specific market of locals are the ones who live in the area

 

[Dee_Ann]

correct.
Think of a wall in your house as a CONUS transponder
now take a flashlight...stand about 4 feet away and shine it at the wall. Part of the wall lights up while the rest is dark. Thats a spotbeam.

Like as example if I use 119 TP1 (the one with Shreveport locals) the transponder gets reused for other markets. These locals are also on 119 TP1
El Paso
Sioux Falls, SD
Elmira and Syracuse, NY
Anchorage, Alaska
South Bend, IN
Chicago
Eugene, OR
LA (Cali, not Louisiana)
Atlanta

It allows satellite companies to not waste bandwidth by putting a market on a CONUS sat....since the only ones who can subscribe to a specific market of locals are the ones who live in the area

CONUS = Continental United States. I have seen that a billion times and never bothered to look it up before.. DOH..

So a CONUS transponder is like a flood light and a spot beam is like a laser beam. Got it..

What a shame we can't see TV from other parts of the country, I would be interested in seeing their local news and what-nots.
Po folks that can't afford to travel and or refuse to fly : could learn more about our country if we could see it outside of the filtered pipelines of the big networks. Sigh.......

We're left to be taught about the rest of the country through heavily staged and scripted "reality" shows and Larry the Cable Guy.. Great...

 

[Mr Tony]

What a shame we can't see TV from other parts of the country, I would be interested in seeing their local news and what-nots.

the FCC and NAB is why......plain and simple
The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) want you to only watch the local affiliate. They pay "big bucks" to have the right to show CBS in your area and frown if you view it via other means (like a neighboring local if you have a OTA antenna big enough)

 

[Dee_Ann]

the FCC and NAB is why......plain and simple
The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) want you to only watch the local affiliate. They pay "big bucks" to have the right to show CBS in your area and frown if you view it via other means (like a neighboring local if you have a OTA antenna big enough)

Grrrrrrrrrr.......

Yeah, I noticed that even though I can easily pick up KVHP in Lake Charles, (their antenna is very near the state line), Dish doesn't offer it in ~my~ locals..
They also do not offer any of the local sub channels. All Dish offers in the way of locals is ABC, NBC, CBS, etc..
Major, major bummer.. But that's ok, with this tuner that shouldn't matter at all since it can tune in ATSC also.

What I need to really do is put up another antenna on my roof so there are two feeding into one wire because the OTA transmitter towers are scattered all over the place.
Point the antenna at one and lose the others.. I had to compromise and aim up the middle between them, I found an average direction between all the various towers and aimed that way.
Some stuff comes in great, some stuff is touch and go. Two antennas should fix that. That is if you can even do that..

Back in the day of old analog TV, my folks could watch several Houston channels from over 100+ miles away because they have a BIG antenna waaaaay up high with a motor to turn it.
Mom's big thing was Masterpiece Theater on Houston PBS. When they killed analog TV she was really bummed out. At least before she passed away I was able to bring that back for her when I set them up with FTA.

I guess this FCC & NAB thing is all about the greedsters raking more money into their piles. That and control. Control the media and you control the people..

 

[Mr Tony]

Grrrrrrrrrr.......

Yeah, I noticed that even though I can easily pick up KVHP in Lake Charles, (their antenna is very near the state line), Dish doesn't offer it in ~my~ locals..

correct. Nielsen sets up what stations are in which market.

They also do not offer any of the local sub channels. All Dish offers in the way of locals is ABC, NBC, CBS, etc..

both providers really only carry subchannels when its a "network" (like in your case NBC...its a subchannel) or
when renewal time comes the station holds the "main" network hostage unless they carry the "subchannel" (like CW, My etc)

Major, major bummer.. But that's ok, with this tuner that shouldn't matter at all since it can tune in ATSC also.

yup

 

[Dee_Ann]

Well today is clear skies so I went through and checked all the transponders again, just for comparison sake.
I can see that I do need to tweak 129.

One thing that confuses me about 129 though is that some transponders show ~weaker~ now that the sky is clear and a lot of them that are low power aren't showing up as spotbeams as I would expect, going by what I saw on the other satellites.
Low signal usually = spotbeam. On 129, not always the case. I'm not really sure what's up with that.
But none the less, it needs tweaking. And I am going to tweak the others too. I want 100% on everything, if I can get it.

during heavy rain			Clear skies


xpndr	110	119	129	-	110	119	129


1	77	68	0	-	77	70*	0
2	75	24	0	-	89	26*	0
3	76	73	0	-	80	77*	0
4	50	62	0	-	56*	63*	0
5	69	53	0	-	78	59*	0
6	71	87	0	-	83	95	52*
7	62	64	0	-	73	80	0
8	70	78	37	-	88	89	50*
9	64	72	8	-	78	88	17*
10	62	74	0	-	75	89	0
11	67	59	10	-	95	84	22*
12	51	80	0	-	57*	95	0
13	55	55	0	-	87	84	0
14	70	63	0	-	87	85	0
15	63	56	0	-	89	84	0
16	69	75	0	-	89	95	0
17	54	53	28	-	71	82	39
18	23	67	51	-	41*	86	64
19	75	55	29	-	80	86	36
20	0	68	50	-	14*	92	62
21	70	55	39	-	86	87	43
22	77		48	-	90	?	60
23	24		30	-	35*	?	33
24	85		48	-	95	?	59
25	27		27	-	33*	?	36
26	0		49	-	0	?	60
27	36		18	-	48*	?	14
28	?		51	-	?	?	60
29	0		20	-	20*	?	17
30	?		50	-	?	?	57
31	?		21	-	9*	?	23
32	?		52	-	?	?	56


* = spotbeam per the point dish info screen

One other thing. The remote for this thing, when I press the volume buttons it just kicks over to TV mode. Can this thing not raise and lower it's own volume? Or MUTE?????
Or just it just put out a "dumb" preset, hard coded volume level and let it up to what ever it's connected to to control it or mute it?
This really blows because I have it connected to a PC screen on my desk via HDMI. The PC screen has no remote control, you have to use the little tiny buttons that are impossible to see without putting on my glasses and turning on the lights! 98% of my TV watching will be from my desk on that screen and if I can't control the volume with a remote then I'm going to be one very frustrated chick.
Please tell me there is some setting in the VIP211k menu that will let it's own remote control and mute it's volume internally.

Thanks..

 

[Mr Tony]

One thing that confuses me about 129 though is that some transponders show ~weaker~ now that the sky is clear and a lot of them that are low power aren't showing up as spotbeams as I would expect, going by what I saw on the other satellites.
Low signal usually = spotbeam. On 129, not always the case. I'm not really sure what's up with that.
But none the less, it needs tweaking. And I am going to tweak the others too. I want 100% on everything, if I can get it.

on 129 1-16 are spotbeams...17-32 is CONUS so yeah it needs tweaking
also on the meter this isnt like FTA or Directv where 100 is max....you may not see any higher than what you currently have. BUt 129 does need to be bumped up.

One other thing. The remote for this thing, when I press the volume buttons it just kicks over to TV mode. Can this thing not raise and lower it's own volume? Or MUTE?????

the remote is universal but since I had it the TV is set to work off a Panasonic so you need to change the code

to change the code (using the search option)
press and hold down the "TV" button (up on top next to SAT button) until all 4 lights blink
let go
press "TV power button" then press channel up
keep pressing channel up until the TV powers off
press # key...TV light at top of remote will blink twice

then it should work

 

[Mr Tony]

The other way is direct entry. See the screens below (taken from the dish manual which is like 60GB)
Here is the link ot the pdf
http://www.mydish.com/support/filestream.ashx?ID=653

press and hold down the "TV" button (up on top next to SAT button) until all 4 lights blink
let go
type in the 3 digit code
press # (tv light blinks twice)

try remote. If doesnt work repeat above

 

[Dee_Ann]

Well, that will work for the TV in my bedroom, that's all good and well but the screen on my desk isn't a TV at all, it's strictly a PC display and it has no remote control ability at all built into it.
It's meant for you to control it's volume by the PC volume controls. It's just a passive display with no features other than show you what the PC sends to it.
It has an HDMI input of course and the PC passes the sound to the screen which has dinky little speakers about the size of 50 cent pieces, at best.
I plugged a pair of regular PC speakers into it with the green connectors. It shut off the speakers in the screen and now it comes out of the larger PC desktop speakers but they too are just dumb, passive things, the only controls on them are knobs you have to turn by hand and I have them waaaay up on a shelf out of my reach. There's no getting to them without climbing up on my desk and risking life and limb.
Previously the My Theater app controlled the volume going into the screen using the remote for the Hauppage tuner and or the PC mouse.

I have a three way HDMI switch between the screen now so I can select to watch either the PC tuner, my S10 tuner or now the Dish tuner. It has it's own little dinky IR remote to let me switch between 3 sources.
But it's just a dumb HDMI pass through with no feature or options other than A/B/C..

I'm guessing if I can't actually raise/lower/mute the audio output of the 211k tuner itself then I'll have to buy an expensive sound system that is remote control capable to plug into the screen on my desk to I can have control over the sound at my desk. the rest of the house will be a whole different story. I was looking on Newegg and it looks like a sound system that I can plug into the speaker jack of the screen and can be operated by remote control is going to run me about $250..

This does however cramp my plans. I really like these LED/LCD PC screens I bought and I wanted to put one in my kitchen too. I guess now I'll have to instead buy an actual TV for the kitchen.
In each room of the house I'll have different sizes and brands of TV's so I'll have to custom program a remote for each room and leave that remote in that room.
I bought three extra remotes so I can have a TV in my office/craft/junk room, bedroom, kitchen and living room.



I also have, in addition to the A/B/C source switch, a "One in Four Out" HDMI splitter so I can run video to all four rooms. I'm already using it now to run it to two rooms and it works great!

 

[Mr Tony]

Well, that will work for the TV in my bedroom, that's all good and well but the screen on my desk isn't a TV at all, it's strictly a PC display and it has no remote control ability at all built into it.
It's meant for you to control it's volume by the PC volume controls. It's just a passive display with no features other than show you what the PC sends to it.

if there is no remote option on the monitor I can't help ya there
But for TV's I gave the instructions above

The audio output on the receiver is fixed output (last I checked)

 

[Dee_Ann]

if there is no remote option on the monitor I can't help ya there
But for TV's I gave the instructions above

The audio output on the receiver is fixed output (last I checked)

That is what I feared. Not really good news for me.
This confirms that I have no choice other than to purchase a sound system for the PC screen.
I found this at Walmart, it's gonna set me back nearly $100 w/tax but that's the cheapest I could find something like this that is IR remote controllable.
It will plug into the screen then rather than use it's dinky little remote, I can "train" the dish remote to control it.

Sony Soundbar, SA-32SE1 - Walmart.com

Well, at least there is a solution to this and I'm not totally out of luck..