Having trouble with signal on 129 please advise....

dwatcool

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Original poster
Jan 20, 2007
6
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A week ago i had dish network upgrade all my equipment to HD. I have a dish 1000 and a vip 622. For some reason i have a very weak signal coming from satellite 129. 110,119 are great! I can get a better siginal if change the transponder number, but when i close the screen the transponder number goes back to the weakest possible signal(39). All my HD channels are pixeling and i constantly get the searching for satellite signal error on the 129. Any suggestions?
 
39 is way too low! You need to call Dish back out to align your dish properly.


I have dish comming out monday. Anyone know why i cannot change my transponder numbers? Then DISH would prob not have to come out. What kink of signal strength should i accecpt for quality HD picture and sound? Thanks!
 
I have dish comming out monday. Anyone know why i cannot change my transponder numbers? Then DISH would prob not have to come out. What kink of signal strength should i accecpt for quality HD picture and sound? Thanks!

dwatcool Where is your location? I live in the Pacific N.W. and had the same problem. Had dish install two dishes a dish 500 and a 24" dish for the 129 sattelite. This corrected the problem.
Floyd
 
I have dish comming out monday. Anyone know why i cannot change my transponder numbers?

Transponder numbers aren't something you change. It's not like picking a channel on a walkie talkie or wireless networking where you pick the channel where you get the strongest signal and least interference. The TV channels on Dish are sent from a given satellite, on a given transponder and you have no control over it. It's reverting to the transponder with the weakest signal because of the station that you've got tuned. That's the transponder that the channel is sent from. Tune to a channel that is sent from 110 or 119 and you'll see that it no longer reverts to that weak signal on 129 that you can't seem to lock.
 
Transponder numbers aren't something you change. It's not like picking a channel on a walkie talkie or wireless networking where you pick the channel where you get the strongest signal and least interference. The TV channels on Dish are sent from a given satellite, on a given transponder and you have no control over it. It's reverting to the transponder with the weakest signal because of the station that you've got tuned. That's the transponder that the channel is sent from. Tune to a channel that is sent from 110 or 119 and you'll see that it no longer reverts to that weak signal on 129 that you can't seem to lock.

Ok, Thanks. Im still a little new to this.:hatsoff:

dwatcool Where is your location? I live in the Pacific N.W. and had the same problem. Had dish install two dishes a dish 500 and a 24" dish for the 129 sattelite. This corrected the problem.
Floyd


California.... 20 miles east of San Francisco.

I have been reading alot on this forum, and i see the dish 1000.2, i wonder if this would help?
 
California.... 20 miles east of San Francisco.
I have been reading alot on this forum, and i see the dish 1000.2, i wonder if this would help?

I'm in Santa Clara, close enough to your location that there shouldn't be a significant difference in signal strength. My signal strengths on 129 are low, but strong enough to lock and not drop out (varies from 49 to 78 depending on transponder number). As long as your signal is not obstructed, all you need is a re-aim. Which transponder is giving you the 39 (or what channel are you trying to watch)?
 
Yeah whoever did the install should have gotten a better signal than that on the 129. So I would give the installer a call back to come back and make adjustments.
 
I'm in Santa Clara, close enough to your location that there shouldn't be a significant difference in signal strength. My signal strengths on 129 are low, but strong enough to lock and not drop out (varies from 49 to 78 depending on transponder number). As long as your signal is not obstructed, all you need is a re-aim. Which transponder is giving you the 39 (or what channel are you trying to watch)?

Here are my different transponder numbers on the 129 with signal strengths. Should these number change? they do about every 15 minutes or so. they will go up or down 10 or so. No wind and dish is mounted to a pole concreted into the ground.
1 32
2 32
4 51
5 52
6 32
7 48
8 49
9 56
10 55
11 48
12 49
13 56
16 46
17 53
18 31
19 61
21 49
22 32
23 49
27 47
30 56
31 63
32 0
 
Here are my different transponder numbers on the 129 with signal strengths. Should these number change? they do about every 15 minutes or so. they will go up or down 10 or so. No wind and dish is mounted to a pole concreted into the ground....
Search this forum for things like "troubles with 129" etc. You will find out a lot of info on why people have trouble with Dish HD when using a single Dish 1000. For example, the gyroscopes on 129 are kaput. So thrusters are used to reposition 129 every so often (roughly every 20 min). Hence the wavering signal strength.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=71210&highlight=trouble+129

The bottom line is that ALL of your signal strengths are marginal to unacceptable. Anything less than 50 is a no go for hanging on to HD from 129.

FWIW I had the same problem. I had the installer come back out and align the antenna specifically for 129 and double checked that 110 and 119 were not too badly degraded. That was 6 months ago. W e have not had a single case of HD pixillation or loss of signal on 129 since :)

Talon Dancer
 
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Bad Surprise from the 129 Bird: New Dish1000/VIP622/VIP211 Install

After my install of Dish1000/VIP622/VIP211 on Sat. Jan. 13th, I thought I was in "DBS Heaven" until Thurs. Jan. 18th when we experienced an extremely small snow shower which accumulated less than an inch of fine powder over a 12 hour period. This could never have bothered my old installation, but I experienced lots of breakup on my local SD channels and total destruction of reception on all those "bad" 129 transponders: 6, 11, 16, 22, 23, and 27. These transponders all have clear air signal levels of between 50 and 63. Since I live in a remote, heavily forested area my only Dish location is at lakeside on my boathouse, which then gives me a 140 foot run of RG6 to my receivers. My typical signal levels for the 119 bird average about 93-94, which appears to be about 10-15 points lower than a short run.
I have the Dish installer returning tomorrow and I'm wondering whether I should push for a 2-dish install update using a spare Dish500 aimed exactly at the 129 bird??
Would just re-aiming the Dish1000 towards the 129 bird help those 50-63 levels without degrading 110 & 119????
I'd appreciate any thoughts on this subject.

chasby
 
If you reaim it will probably reduce your 110/119 signals some, but as long as they don't go down below 80-85 you should be fine.
 
...I have the Dish installer returning tomorrow and I'm wondering whether I should push for a 2-dish install update using a spare Dish500 aimed exactly at the 129 bird??
Would just re-aiming the Dish1000 towards the 129 bird help those 50-63 levels without degrading 110 & 119????...
It all depends on how optimal your current aim is for 110 & 119. In my case, re-aming to optimise 129 actually improved the signal on 110 & 119 to 100 or better :)

If I were you, I'd ask the installer to re-aim for 129 and then check 110 & 119. If the signal on 110 or 119 drops below 80-85, you can always ask for a second dish then.

Talon Dancer
 
I put up a 30" Wineguard dish just to pick up 129 and my signals are in the 80s and 90s for 129. I did most of the work myself after Dish installed the Dish 1000 and the 129 signal was weak. I did a lot of reseach, buying a satellite finder meter helped a lot in finding 129.
 
The right way to do it is to peak to the 119 assuming your pole is plumb and your skew is set properly. I originally tried to peak to 129 on advice from this and other fourms. Wrong! The instructions that came with my Dish 1000 say to peak to 119. By following the instructions I was able to get the best all around signal on all da birds. The problem with trying to peak to 129 is that damn bird doesn't stay put!

I can't remember which 119 transponder I peaked to, but it was one of the "home" transponders. I used the "home" tramsponder # that was suggested by doing a search on this fourm.

I get 45-55 on 129 transponder #1 which is fine because it is not a transponder that carries any channels I receive, but is high enough to keep from getting error messages. You should get around 80+ on 129 t.p. # 10,19, 30, 31. Most others are around 60 which is about as good as it gets with a Dish 1000.

I never have a problem except when it snows and sticks to the dish which just takes a quick sweep to fix. I assume snow is not an issue where you are.

P.S. I also used th DP Dual in the center 119 position by itself to peak the dish. Once that is done I put the LNBs back where they belong and voila! Of course a switch check is required at each stage.
 
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Well dish came out to re aim the dish on monday. Sorry i have not posted sooner. The tech said what everyone is saying here that the 129 is JUNK. The 129 does not stay in one spot and "wonders" Im happy with the results so far. Also my 110 and 119 are both in the mid 90's so also improved. So here are my new transponder numbers with the new aim. I will copy and paste the old numbers and post the new numbers with this post.

OLD NUMBERS (before re-aim)
1 32
2 32
4 51
5 52
6 32
7 48
8 49
9 56
10 55
11 48
12 49
13 56
16 46
17 53
18 31
19 61
21 49
22 32
23 49
27 47
30 56
31 63
32 0

NEW NUMBERS ( RE-aim)
1 51
2 56
4 64
5 60
6 53
7 52
8 61
9 61
10 77
11 53
12 61
13 62
16 62
17 60
18 52
19 77
21 60
22 55
23 53
27 52
30 80
31 79
32 61
 

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