Repoint a Dish 500 to 61.5/72.7?

[Tony S]

I have the feeling that this will not work because I have not seen this solution posted here, but I just HAD to ask!

I am in the 61.5/110/119 group so I can't get the new channels. I have the usual setup with a dish 500 for 110/119 and a separate wing dish for 61.5. In thinking about my dish set up, I couldn't help wondering if there was any way to use the current setup for eastern arc.

For example, is it possible to use the dish 500 to point at 61.5/72.7 and then use the wing dish for 77? Or, is it possible to use the dish 500 to point at 72.7/77 and then leave the wing dish at 61.5.

I know that the Dish 500 is meant for 110/119 which are 9 degrees apart, but by setting a different skew, will it work for 61.5/72.7 (11.2 degrees apart), or 72.7/77 (only 4.3 degrees apart)?

Is an eastern arc dish the only solution for me in eastern connecticut?

 

[Mr Tony]

The LNB's are spaced differently so it wont work

 

[CowboyDren]

Actually, it sorta' works. I'm in Kansas City, so the LNB spacing works more to my advantage than it would back East. I have a D500 splitting 61.5 and 72.7, with nothing on 77 at all. There's a lot of stuff on 77, like HBO and Showtime last I checked, but as a Dish America customer, I'm not eligible for those services anyway.

My signals are very low, less than 50 on most days, but unless it's very humid outside or storming cats and dogs, I have acceptable signal on my lone 722.

 

[Tony S]

Interesting...How did you figure out what skew to use for your setup? Trial and error?

 

[digiblur]

The LNB's are spaced differently so it wont work

It works... I've seen it.

And yes it all trial and error. It's not the best solution though as the spacing is a different on the satellites. The real trick though is the single dish pointed at 77, with 72 and 81(if you are up north) beating on it next door, a small dish doesn't work too well.

 

[digiblur]

Actually, it sorta' works. I'm in Kansas City, so the LNB spacing works more to my advantage than it would back East. I have a D500 splitting 61.5 and 72.7, with nothing on 77 at all. There's a lot of stuff on 77, like HBO and Showtime last I checked, but as a Dish America customer, I'm not eligible for those services anyway.

My signals are very low, less than 50 on most days, but unless it's very humid outside or storming cats and dogs, I have acceptable signal on my lone 722.

No HBO or Showtime on 77. Mostly PPVs, Audio channels, HD locals, with a few other minor channels. As far as I heard all of those except HD locals will move to 72 next month.

 

[CowboyDren]

It works... I've seen it.

And yes it all trial and error. It's not the best solution though as the spacing is a different on the satellites.

Actually, I took my skew setting straight out of the 1000.4 manual. I covered the left LNB (standing behind the dish, and dialed the right LNB in to 61.5, then uncovered the other LNB and wiggled the elevation and compass bearing to split the signal difference between the two, but that didn't take long. Probably should have dialed the right LNB port in on 72.7 and just let 61.5 fall where it may, since 61.5 is stronger than 72.7 anyway.

No HBO or Showtime on 77. Mostly PPVs, Audio channels, HD locals, with a few other minor channels. As far as I heard all of those except HD locals will move to 72 next month.

My mistake. In my market, with my bare-bones package, it just doesn't matter. You can still use a wing dish to point to 77 by itself and go to the IN port on the DPP Twin LNB.

 

[digiblur]

72.7 is stronger as it is a newer bird now.

Nice to see someone that has it working.

 

[winman97]

Well guys, there's been several posts in this forum about this subject, so let's settle a few things: a dish 500 pointed at 61.5 and 72 works very well, or at least here in north Georgia. The lnb spacing is not that much of an issue, if any at all. The skew setting is on the other side of 90 degrees. Old skew setting for 110/119 was at 126. Eastern arc skew is now set at 74. It is not hit and miss, it is using the skew calculators referred to on other posts within this forum. By using those skew and compass/azm settings I was on both birds within a minute of the mount. Now, let's talk signal strength. 61.5 is tweaked to where all TPs are 45 or better, many in the 60s and spotbeams in the 80s. 72 tweaked to where everything shows from 40s to 60s. Compared to what I've seen on some friends receivers connected to a 1000.4, this is better strength reception than theirs. I guess it is easier to tweak 2 birds to a 20" Dish 500 than to tweak 3 birds to a 1000.4. My locals are on 61.5 and am receiving good strong signals in the 80s. Last time I checked programming on sat 77, there was no programming I needed or am interested. For those of you with locals on 77 you will need to install a 1000.4 or use a Dish500 for 61.5 and 72 and add a wing dish for 77. As a former installer this was a pretty easy set up to go with in order to receive hi def on a new LG plasma TV. I now have 2 D500s installed. One looking at western arc, one looking at eastern. I am running a single cable to my vip222 from the newly installed Dish500 looking at 61.5 and 72. I left my other SD TVs on the old Dish 500 pointed at 110/119. The Hi Def picture is perfect and the SD TVs have a great picture too.
Your location may have different results when pointing D500 to the eastern birds, but in the southeast US it's a great way to go, especially if you have extra Dishes and DPPs lying around. Search this forum for that skew calculator, set your new settings and lock it down

 

[Tony S]

Thanks a lot guys! Good to know that this has a chance of working! I think that I might give this a try.

Most of the skew calculators that I have seen are set up for specific types of dishes. None of the skew calculators that I have seen let you choose 61.5/72.7. Are you guys saying that I should use the skew setting for the 1000.4 dish (61.5/72.7/77) on my dish 500? (I don't understand why this would work because the 1000.4 has 3 LNBs vs 2 LNBs for the Dish 500, and the LNBs are spaced differently).

 

[winman97]

Tony, use this website, enter your zip and choose dual sats/choose any 61.5 and 72.x sats.
click calculate
This will give you skew and pointing angles

Satellite look-angle calculator

 

[Tony S]

Thank you winman97! Now all I need is a nice day to try this out (really cold here)!

 

[Pepper]

Simple math. Add the individual skew settings for the two satellites, divide by two. A.K.A. "average" - actually this is valid for all three numbers, azimuth, elevation and skew, you want to aim for the point in the middle between the two.

 

[drdroo]

The LNB's are spaced differently so it wont work

It does work. You do the skew of the 1000.4 dish roughly on the Dish500. I had a signal strength of about 50 here in Maine with 61.5 and 72.7 without problems.

I just don't have a DPP44 to tie it all together. I may end up getting one if this will be the 'new norm' so I don't lose my locals on 110.

 

[Tony S]

Has anyone out there been able to repoint a dish 500 to 72.7/77 (or are these satellites too close together)?

If that worked it would be easier to do since my wing dish is aleady pointed at 61.5.

 

[delta_charlie]

Has anyone out there been able to repoint a dish 500 to 72.7/77 (or are these satellites too close together)?

If that worked it would be easier to do since my wing dish is aleady pointed at 61.5.

Hi Tony and the group, I was curious if I could leave the Dish 500 that was on 61.5 alone and hookup my portable Dish 500 using the dual LNB that would normally be used on 110/119 to get 72.5 using the 110 side of the LNB so I tried it this morning and found it works great! The 119 side of the LNB is pointing at air and is not receiving anything but doing it this way I don't have to split the signals between 61.5 and 72.5. Both dishes can be peaked fully, one on 61.5 and the other on 72.5 Will try to post a picture if I can get my camera to talk to my computer. Later, DC

 

[drdroo]

Has anyone out there been able to repoint a dish 500 to 72.7/77 (or are these satellites too close together)?

If that worked it would be easier to do since my wing dish is aleady pointed at 61.5.

Too close together..

The only way I could see it even remotely working is with two single LNBs and some sort of custom mount or using a 1000.4 and hooking two of the 3 feeds (61.5/72.7) into a DPP44.

 

[drdroo]

Hi Tony and the group, I was curious if I could leave the Dish 500 that was on 61.5 alone and hookup my portable Dish 500 using the dual LNB that would normally be used on 110/119 to get 72.5 using the 110 side of the LNB so I tried it this morning and found it works great! The 119 side of the LNB is pointing at air and is not receiving anything but doing it this way I don't have to split the signals between 61.5 and 72.5. Both dishes can be peaked fully, one on 61.5 and the other on 72.5 Will try to post a picture if I can get my camera to talk to my computer. Later, DC

Out of curiosity what does your signal strength look like? I was getting a 50 on both 61.5 and 72.7 without much effort with my Acutrac III+ using the single dish. I don't think I get much more than that up here using 61.5 and having the other LNB pointing at air usually.

Just curious if having a 3rd dish for 72.7 is really going to be necessary up here.

 

[CowboyDren]

Has anyone out there been able to repoint a dish 500 to 72.7/77 (or are these satellites too close together)?

If that worked it would be easier to do since my wing dish is aleady pointed at 61.5.

Nah. Point your wing at 77 and use the D500 to split 61/72 like I do. More work up front, but a much more elegant and reliable solution.

I just don't have a DPP44 to tie it all together. I may end up getting one if this will be the 'new norm' so I don't lose my locals on 110.

Why not just point a wing at 110w and pretend it's 77w? The receivers don't care which satellites they're looking at, as long as your EPG works.

 

[drdroo]

Why not just point a wing at 110w and pretend it's 77w? The receivers don't care which satellites they're looking at, as long as your EPG works.

I intend to have 110/119/72.7/61.5 because 110/119 pretty much never go out during storms and the MPEG4 sats generally do. We're talking the difference between a 40-50 (and the error correction diff to go with it) vs a 70-80 on the 110/119 sats.

I also have a spare Dish 311 that I own. Should my VIP go down, at least I could get back watching some TV while waiting for replacement.