Need help planning Dish Commercial MDU setup. One Dish, 25+ receivers

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GMFreak8

GMFreak8

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Aug 25, 2005
268
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Adirondacks
A friend of mine approached me about helping him to setup Dish Network for his campground. He wants to provide a dish network hookup on at least 25 of the camping sites, with the ability to expand the system if needed. What equipment do I need to buy to make a reliable system, and where can I find this? Any other advice would be appreciated. I've never done an install this large before.
 
I would use either a superdish with 8 dp34 switches or similar setup with at least 2 amplifiers. tough part is going to be how to use the receivers at each site. if the receivers are left unplugged for a week or more you will lose the programming on those receivers. I did a 30 unit motel and a 90 unit retirement home that way.
 
papalittle said:
I would use either a superdish with 8 dp34 switches or similar setup with at least 2 amplifiers. tough part is going to be how to use the receivers at each site. if the receivers are left unplugged for a week or more you will lose the programming on those receivers. I did a 30 unit motel and a 90 unit retirement home that way.
Click to expand...


He has a Dish 500 antenna that he'd like to use. Now the DP34 switches can be cascaded 8 deep? I was under the impression that that would cause too much of a signal degradation. The campsite also is fairly spread out. It's .3 miles from the dish to the farthest site. Is there any commercial system that's available that'll mount on a rack or something?
 
GMFreak8 said:
He has a Dish 500 antenna that he'd like to use. Now the DP34 switches can be cascaded 8 deep? I was under the impression that that would cause too much of a signal degradation. The campsite also is fairly spread out. It's .3 miles from the dish to the farthest site. Is there any commercial system that's available that'll mount on a rack or something?
Click to expand...

Per the manual, you can trunk up to 3 DP34 switches together. You could get up to 6 dp34 switches off the same dish 500 using a dp quad (Port 1 & 2 to one set of dp34's and port 3 & 4 to the other set). This however does not help the distance issue. I believe the maximum cable run is 250 ft in a dp system (someonce correct me if I'm wrong). So, you will need to set up some sort of amplification system, QAM maybe, which I know nothing about, or put up dishes at set points along the length of the campsites.
 
diu.steve said:
Per the manual, you can trunk up to 3 DP34 switches together. You could get up to 6 dp34 switches off the same dish 500 using a dp quad (Port 1 & 2 to one set of dp34's and port 3 & 4 to the other set). This however does not help the distance issue. I believe the maximum cable run is 250 ft in a dp system (someonce correct me if I'm wrong). So, you will need to set up some sort of amplification system, QAM maybe, which I know nothing about, or put up dishes at set points along the length of the campsites.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the distance is what worries me. We could setup a CATV system, but that would limit the number of channels to 125, and run into a lot of cash...
 
i would think that a head in system where you have all of the recievers at a central location would be the best, though you will only have the number of channels equal to the number of receivers you have, but i did this at my motel and it works great, don't have to worry about people running off with the receivers......as far as the distance i would either install more dishes at strategic intervals or just use signal amplification equipment at about 250-300 ft along the lines.....it is actually cheaper to go ahead with the head in system rather that try to turn on the 25 receivers each month usually you will pay around 1.15 per site or room, i have 12 rooms and it costs me around 18 a month.....that is for 12 channels....
 
Thanks for the replies. What equipment would be involved with a headend system? Where can I purchase this? The only downfall would be the limitation of channels available for the customers.


I'm thinking I'll set it up with a few Dish 500 dishes placed throughout, connected to receivers in the cabins, and then require a $25 refundable fee for the boxes that are used by RVers. I'll just use the DP34 switch and cascade a few. It'll cut down on costs. Using RG-11 cable instead fo RG-6 should give me some extra length in the cable too.

Are there commercial packages available from dishnet for this stuff?
 
GMFreak8 said:
Would this work with a Dish 500 Legacy system, and RG-11 cable: Pico Macom Rack-Mount 5-Input Satellite Multiswitches TSMS-5/16RK

I was thinking I could connect two of those for up to 32 connections.

If we left the receivers plugged in and stored, until someone needed one, that would prevent the receivers from deactivating.
Click to expand...
The item in the link supports 2 Sat inputs, so I don't think it will work with a Dish 500; or more specifically, I don't think it will work with 2 orbital locations. I may be wrong, but I believe the 2 Sat inputs would be 1 Right and 1 Left Polarity inputs. So a Dish 300 for a single oribital location, such as 119 would be available.

Your later post with another link had an item that I think had 4 Sat Inputs. Likewise, I think this would give you both R and L Polarity for 2 different Sat locations, such as 119 and 110.

I don't know anything about the QAM/Head-end units. However, if the campground owner is just looking to lease receivers to patrons for a fee, then maybe that is the way to go, since I don't think those receivers would be of any use to anyone else (????).

If he is just looking for more reasons to use his campground, then maybe a cable system with a limited number of channels as previously stated would be less headaches.

EDIT: See top of "Page 17 of 20" for a 24 Receiver/Tuner installation.
http://www.solidsignal.tv/dishnetwo...ments/Introduction_to_DISH_Pro_Technology.pdf

Also, I think the item would work with one LEGACY LNBF (Voltage Switching), but not a DishPro LNBF (DiSEcQ Switching).
And, I am not familiar with RG-11.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies. The guy is unsure if he wants to put all the work into it now. We'll see what he decides.

BTW, I'm doing a run of 400 feet for my own personal use. What signal booster should I use, or can I possibly get away without one, and just a weak signal?
 
As a dealer I would not put 25 receivers in a campground for several reasons...

#1 You got the issue with having customers connecting and disconnecting receivers every few days. I do not think the owner wants to be bothered everytime someone sets up their camper or RV and can't figure out how to get the satellite working.

We are all technically savvy here, but generally customers are idiots when it comes to hooking up this stuff, and if they can't get it working in 5 minutes or less they tend to start asking for tech support and they first person they are going to take their frustration out on is the owner or person running the campground and demand someone come out there and show them how to hook it up.

#2 Receivers automatically deactivate after x number of days of not being hooked up to the satellite. Its bad enough your eventually going to start having receivers which will required to be called in for a re-hit, the other issue is going to be updating the software on all these receivers.

#3 Lost, broken remote controls and general wear and tear on the receivers. As a dealer I can tell you one drop of a DISH Network receiver and the plastic clips that hold the face plate to the receiver usually snap. Taking a deposit might work, but its just gonna be an issue when something like this happens and the customers try to claim it was like that when they got it.

#4 When you trunk DP 34's there must be 1 receiver active on each switch to power up the remaining switchs in the trunk. One DP34 down the line with no receivers, will disable all other receivers down the line. You really need to use DP44's at this point and be able to permintly plug in the power inserter on each one of them.

Simplist solution here is to do a 15-20 channel headend, with some of the following key channels...

1 ABC
2 NBC
3 CBS
4 FOX
5 UPN
6 WB
7 PBS
8 ESPN
9 FOX SPORTS
10 DISNEY
11 NICKELODEN
12 CARTOON NETWORK
13 LIFETIME
14 WOMENS ENTERTAINMENT
15 CNN
16 DISCOVERY CHANNEL
17 LEARNING CHANNEL
18 USA
19 OUTDOOR CHANNEL
20 STARZ Movie channel
21 STARZ Movie Channel

So the campers don't have the selection, but are they going camping to enjoy the outdoors or watch TV?

Also with a headend its 1 cable and the customers plug it in the back of their TV and they are good to go.

Other than that, the Dishstore can design this type of system along with the distribution system.
 
i would not recommend going with a QAM. i have had experience with one, and it was an absolute nightmare. the manual to set it up is incorrect. we ended up having to make our own set up, and get it working. granted, this was a few years ago. maybe they got the kinks out by now... or not.
 
Claude Greiner said:
As a dealer I would not put 25 receivers in a campground for several reasons...

#1 You got the issue with having customers connecting and disconnecting receivers every few days. I do not think the owner wants to be bothered everytime someone sets up their camper or RV and can't figure out how to get the satellite working.

We are all technically savvy here, but generally customers are idiots when it comes to hooking up this stuff, and if they can't get it working in 5 minutes or less they tend to start asking for tech support and they first person they are going to take their frustration out on is the owner or person running the campground and demand someone come out there and show them how to hook it up.

#2 Receivers automatically deactivate after x number of days of not being hooked up to the satellite. Its bad enough your eventually going to start having receivers which will required to be called in for a re-hit, the other issue is going to be updating the software on all these receivers.

#3 Lost, broken remote controls and general wear and tear on the receivers. As a dealer I can tell you one drop of a DISH Network receiver and the plastic clips that hold the face plate to the receiver usually snap. Taking a deposit might work, but its just gonna be an issue when something like this happens and the customers try to claim it was like that when they got it.

#4 When you trunk DP 34's there must be 1 receiver active on each switch to power up the remaining switchs in the trunk. One DP34 down the line with no receivers, will disable all other receivers down the line. You really need to use DP44's at this point and be able to permintly plug in the power inserter on each one of them.

Simplist solution here is to do a 15-20 channel headend, with some of the following key channels...

1 ABC
2 NBC
3 CBS
4 FOX
5 UPN
6 WB
7 PBS
8 ESPN
9 FOX SPORTS
10 DISNEY
11 NICKELODEN
12 CARTOON NETWORK
13 LIFETIME
14 WOMENS ENTERTAINMENT
15 CNN
16 DISCOVERY CHANNEL
17 LEARNING CHANNEL
18 USA
19 OUTDOOR CHANNEL
20 STARZ Movie channel
21 STARZ Movie Channel

So the campers don't have the selection, but are they going camping to enjoy the outdoors or watch TV?

Also with a headend its 1 cable and the customers plug it in the back of their TV and they are good to go.

Other than that, the Dishstore can design this type of system along with the distribution system.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I printed your post and I'm gonna show him. I already told him it's gonna be a big headache. Maybe I can convince him to do the headend deal instead.
 
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