The 129 Project.........success!

[Greg Mueller]

The project was to get better signal on 129 using a bigger dish than the Dish 1000 and it has worked.

I acquired a 1.2 meter Primestar Dish and mounted the 129 LNB off the Dish 1000 on it. This morning I aimed and adjusted for signal strength and am very happy with the results.

I am Tsp 21 and my high signal is 102 my low signal dipped to 88 once for a second. Mostly it just does it's Yo Yo thing in the 90s. Above all what this has accomplished is to smooth out the Yo Yo effect. Using the Dish 1000 my best signal was 72 and it would crash into the mid 30s frequently!

I have taken pictures and will try to get them on to a web page today!

@party

 

[jkinser]

Congrats! Glad it worked out.

 

[riffjim4069]

Congrats for not settling with the E* engineered solution!

 

[Greg Mueller]

Here's a few pics of the setup and how I did it

http://www.muellersatomics.com/VSA.htm

 

[Dishpointer]

Man that looks huge! Congrats

 

[MikeD-C05]

So if Dish would have used something along the lines of a superdish then most people wouldn't lose their signal on the 129 sat as much either.

 

[Dirtydan]

Nice job, now I will think about doing this. I have a friend with an old Primestar that is hanging off a pole face toward the ground, not sure which model it is, but I now have plans for two different Primestars thanks to you.

 

[Greg Mueller]

I'd like to find one of the Primestar 84s to experiment with, but it seems like they must have just used 1.2s up here in Washington

 

[Dirtydan]

I'd like to find one of the Primestar 84s to experiment with, but it seems like they must have just used 1.2s up here in Washington

Is that the one with the single arm support for the lnb?

 

[Greg Mueller]

Yah
They are 40" x 30" not round, but kind of oval. Some of them have adjustable skew

 

[Dirtydan]

Yah
They are 40" x 30" not round, but kind of oval. Some of them have adjustable skew

I think that is the one my friend has, I won't need the skew, although I have heard that a little skew can get you a better signal on 129.

 

[brg606]

do y'all think they'll ever do anything to increase the output of that satellite at 129, or is every dishnetwork subsrciber who wants good reception for their hd channels gonna have to make their own dish solution like this guy?

 

[Greg Mueller]

Well you could wait and see......
But I figure if you want to make sure something gets done, do it yourself.

 

[KenSoren]

I really don't think Dish will leave the 129 problem the way it is for much longer. Too many customers are signing on for their new state of the art HD receivers and then getting crappy reception on the HD programming. If they allow the problem to remain they will get a lot of bad word of mouth advertising - not to mention the posts on this forum. This will hurt their long term growth plans.

It's too bad they don't share their plans with their customers with at least an outline of what the possible fixes are, and a time frame of when to expect some action.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I expect to see another bird at 129 sometime "soon". Give them a chance to sort things out at 110.

I'm thinking that when I mess with my dshes next time, my 300s will get swapped to 500s with I-beams. That should take care of any issues I might run into.

 

[Dirtydan]

I just read where the new Ceil Sat will be up at 129 in 2008, I think late 2008, this is a Canadian bird

 

[RandallA]

Here's a few pics of the setup and how I did it

http://www.muellersatomics.com/VSA.htm

Greg,

Nice job. Just cover the DP Dual's second port with a plastic cap to protect it from moisture. Other than that, nice job.

 

[Greg Mueller]

I was wondering about a cover for the unused port. Is that something I can get at Home Depot or some where local? Radio Shack maybe?

 

[RandallA]

The switches come with some caps to cover the unused ports. I have a whole bunch, send me a PM and I'll send you a couple.

 

[dfergie]

Nice, I have to find one now...