Newbie 1000 upgrade questions...

[dnheitz]

Hi folks, I'm looking for some tips or thoughts on upgrading my old 1000 to either a 1000.2 or a 1000 plus. I have two things driving this upgrade:
1) I'm planning on adding a third receiver which I expect will call for a switch like the DPP44
2) My 1000 doesn't seem to have the best signal reception...I live in northern Colorado and have sporadic signal loss from snow...or thunderclouds..(it is possible that some of this is due to positioning of the dish which was installed by DISH, but in a rather rushed manner)

I guess I like the idea of the larger dish that I would get with the 1000 plus...my experiance with electronics suggests that this would be a big win for signal strength...but the 1000.2 is also bigger than the old 1000 right? (but by enough?!)

If it helps any, today I have a DPP twin looking at 110-119-129 So I don't really 'need' the 118.7 that the 1000 plus would add.

Thanks for thoughts-suggestions-tips...Dan

 

[Laddyboy]

You would need the 1000.2. It has three outputs to drive 3 receivers (3 dual tuners with separators if from the VIP Series) and a LNB input for a 4th sat if needed. The 1000+ as ypu noted also provides 118.7 which you don't need and also requires the use of the DPP44 switch. The new 110 last year and the upcoming new 129 satellite should give you better signal strengths. About the only way to mitigate signal loss is to use large dishes for each satellite position.

 

[dnheitz]

Hi Laddyboy, thanks for the response back...do you have any thoughts on signal gain going from a 1000 to a 1000.2?? I believe the 1000.2 is a tad wider (size-wise)...I haven't had time to measure my 1000 so I don't know by how much. Maybe I should have posted asking how folks are doing in the mountain states with 1000.2's

Cheers...

 

[RandallA]

Hi Laddyboy, thanks for the response back...do you have any thoughts on signal gain going from a 1000 to a 1000.2?? I believe the 1000.2 is a tad wider (size-wise)...I haven't had time to measure my 1000 so I don't know by how much. Maybe I should have posted asking how folks are doing in the mountain states with 1000.2's

Cheers...

The signal on a 1000.2 is better than on a 1000 because the dish is bigger. Having said that, Ciel 2 should go live anytime now so the signal on 129 will be a lot better. I'm getting 60s and 70s on 110 and upper 50s and 60s on 119. 129 is another story right now, 30s and 40s with a 1000.2 here in SF.

 

[Laddyboy]

You should get a better signal on the 1000.2 than the 1000 but you will still have issues with fade from snow buildup, ice, and heavy rain but maybe not as bad as with the 1000. Bigger dishes, other things the same, can capture more signal. There are people with 30-inchers and much larger pointed at each position.

 

[dnheitz]

Thanks Randall...I'm leaning towards going with the 1000.2 I'm sort of guessing that the bigger dish size with the 1000 plus is something that would help more to pull in the 4th satellite (118)...and may not directly help me with the 3 that I have/use today (110-119-129). It's too bad I can't come up with a good arguement for getting DISH to swap/upgrade this for me! LOL

 

[dnheitz]

ARGH....so my last post was not correct with the benefits of dish sizing?! Well, I figured I was in for a learning curve! Thanks Laddyboy!!

 

[KE4EST]

to Satelliteguys dnheitz!!!

 

[Laddyboy]

ARGH....so my last post was not correct with the benefits of dish sizing?! Well, I figured I was in for a learning curve! Thanks Laddyboy!!

There is a marginal difference in size between the 1000 and the 1000.2. It isn't going to solve all the fade issues. I would tweak the current setup to see if I could increase my signal strengths a bit. As RandallA noted the new 129 satellite will be providing better signal strengths than the current one. Is that the sat where you have the most dropouts? It carries most of the national HD. Some is on 110 of course. See if tweaking and the new satellite better serves you over the next couple of months. If not, you can always try larger dishes pointed at individual sats connected with a switch. That comes with a cost unfortunately. What kinds of signal strengths are you getting on each satellite now?

 

[dnheitz]

Wow...I may have some tweaking needs..I checked Transponder 8 across 110-119-129 and came up with: 55 - 12 - 36 for signal strength. Sat 119 seems low to me with a reading of 12.... I'm surprised that some channels work.

So I put a call into DISH (their gear) and have a tech scheduled to come visit. We had some strong winds in Northern Colorado last week...I wonder if the dish moved?!

 

[Laddyboy]

Wow...I may have some tweaking needs..I checked Transponder 8 across 110-119-129 and came up with: 55 - 12 - 36 for signal strength. Sat 119 seems low to me with a reading of 12.... I'm surprised that some channels work.

So I put a call into DISH (their gear) and have a tech scheduled to come visit. We had some strong winds in Northern Colorado last week...I wonder if the dish moved?!

That's a possibility. Is it pole mounted or attached to your eave or roof. Pole mounts can move/heave with freeze and thaw sometimes. Those readings appear pretty low.

 

[dcn]

New to the forum....and I hope some one on this thread would help with a problem.

Recently DISH net switched the satellite for the French programing on TV 5 which my wife likes. i.e.Satellite 118.7 trans 03. I bought a 500+ DISH and the Dual Band LNBF on E bay which I was able to point to 119 and then switch the Coax to the 118.7 connection and even though the signal was a week green in the teens it works most of the time....but other times it too weak and blanks out.

The 500 + DISH from EBay was missing the LNBF support arm and I made one from a piece of 2x4 but never had access to a real arm to get the exact measurements. So if someone with easy access to this kind of dish and could send me the exact dimensions of the lnb arm I would appreciate it!

Thanks ,

Dave Nagy

 

[PBX_Guy]

The 1000.2 is an elliptical-shaped dish designed for use with 3 oribital positions each separated by approx 9~10 degrees from one another. To say that it is a "bigger" dish is technically correct, though the capture area for each individual orbital location is only 314 sq. inches (approx).

By comparison, 3 individual 24" round dishes would provide 44% more signal, but that's barely 1.2 db of signal improvement, so keep reading....

Individual 30" dishes (compared to the 1000.2) would yield nearly 3 db signal improvement (3 db = twice as much signal) (db=10Log P2/P1). Now we're getting somewhere... but keep reading.

The FCC OTARD rule allows up to 1 meter dishes (39.37") and I'm here to tell you this thing is "the big gun" in maximum legal size* satellite dishes. Compared to the 1000.2 multi-sat dish, the Winegard DS3101 provides a whopping 40 db of gain (6 db improvement). That works out to nearly 4 times as much signal. If you're looking for a "rain fade killer" the 3101 is about as close as you're going to get and still be able to (legally) hold your HOA at bay. Of course you'll need 3 of them (one for each orbital slot, natch) along with 3 dual LNBs and a miultiswitch. For reasons which by now should be obvious, I do not recommend roof or eve mounting with the DS3101 (22 lbs + mast).

The fun begins with Az/El alignment of the 3101 because it's -3db beamwidth is only 1.8 degrees. Compare to sighting-in your deer rifle on a 200-yd paper target. You're either dead-on the bullseye or else you're not even on the paper. For this reason your mount (2-1/2" pole) must be bedrock rigid. If it wobbles or sways even the slightest bit in the wind you're not going to be a happy camper because your DS3101 will be wavering off-path and you won't be watching TV. This bugger has to be ANCHORED

* maximum legal size per FCC OTARD rules concerning HOA deed restrictions, etc. The FCC will back you up on this one, but not on anything larger.

 

[dnheitz]

Wow...I may have some tweaking needs..I checked Transponder 8 across 110-119-129 and came up with: 55 - 12 - 36 for signal strength. Sat 119 seems low to me with a reading of 12.... I'm surprised that some channels work.

So I put a call into DISH (their gear) and have a tech scheduled to come visit. We had some strong winds in Northern Colorado last week...I wonder if the dish moved?!

I have resolution...I got more then some tweaking....The DISH tech looked at the 1000 and said "That should have been replaced the last time someone was out.."
So I now have a 1000.2 and my signal went from 55 - 12 - 36 to 75 - 68 - 46 (Sat's 110/119/129 respectivly). That was a huge gain for Sat 119 which I was having some noise and channel loss on. The other cool thing is I now have a dish that is ready for an additional receiver! Woo Hoo!

I couldn't be happier. Thanks everyone for the help and responses. My next step will probably be to get a dish cover...something else that I learned about from this forum....You folks are the best!
Cheers, Dan

 

[Skibum]

Yes, up here I've been able to point the old 1000 dish just as well as the 1000.2 in terms of signal strength. I actually wish Dish would have come up with an Integrated LNB that worked with the smaller 1000 dish.