Usinng DISH on the road.

[njohnson]

In our RV, I am set up to use Dish and everything works well. I use a remote Dish 500 Pro on a homemade base which has been very successful. However, in some locations, I do not have a clear line-of-sight for the 110-119 satellites, and would like to find out if I can use the eastern arc satellites, which I know nothing about. Are the same channels available?? What do I need t change with my receiver?? What satellites are available, and how do I find the angles for them?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Noel

 

[dare2be]

The eastern arc satellites that have the channels you need are 61.5 and 72. You have to have a receiver capable of receiving MPEG4 signals. As far as the Dish 500 is concerned, I'll let more knowledgeable people answer that, but my limited understanding is that the 500 may have difficulty locking on to both 61.5 and 72, due to their orbital distance from each other?

 

[garys]

It can be done, but since the spacing between sat is different by two degrees, you cannot expect to get signal strength as high. Note that Dish has come out with a two sat dish for just 61.5 and 72 and you can find settings at dishpointer when pointing to EA. Otherwise, you do need an mpeg4 receiver

 

[njohnson]

OK. those answers are about what I expected. Next thing, if Dish has a new dish for the two sats, Can I just change the LNB head on my current Dish 500 bowl?? What would the geographic area for coverage from the eastern Sats be?? We travel mostly east of the Mississippi, and from Maine to Florida. What I am thinking about is (with a new receiver) is being able just to change the LNB as necessary.

 

[TechWriter]

OK. those answers are about what I expected. Next thing, if Dish has a new dish for the two sats, Can I just change the LNB head on my current Dish 500 bowl?? What would the geographic area for coverage from the eastern Sats be?? We travel mostly east of the Mississippi, and from Maine to Florida. What I am thinking about is (with a new receiver) is being able just to change the LNB as necessary.

Ditch the 500 and buy a 1000.4. The 1000.4 comes with an Eastern Arc 3 LNB arm which can be unbolted and swapped with a Western Arc arm (available through eBay). I've been using this dish for over a year, and it's a breeze to swap arms.

However, you could also buy a 1000.2 dish which comes with a Western Arc arm & then buy the Eastern Arc arm available for it. On a 1000.2, 4 bolts must be removed to swap LNB arms while only 2 on the 1000.4 -- plus the 1000.4 has better alignment adjustments.

You'll also need a heavy duty tripod like one from Satellite TV for RV - Tripod - Slimline - Dish - DirectTV - RV television - Recreational Vehicles - RVers - DishTV - Satellite Dish - FTA - Tripod and a good signal strength meter because aiming 3 LNBs with skew is more difficult than your Dish 500. I use the Accutrac III+ (ACUTRAC III Plus Ka Hi/Lo Ku Satellite Signal Tracking Meter from Solid Signal) because it displays the signal strengths of all three sats simultaneously.