Western Arc Signal Strengths?

TalonDancer

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
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I’m seeing signal strengths in the 70’s on the sats at 110 and 119. But only 40ish on the sat at 129. Are these reasonable numbers? If not, what should they be?

Thanks in advance.
 
Wow! Before I was converted to EA just last weekend I was dependent on 110, 119, and 129 for years. 110 and 119 were reliable with 110 mostly in the 50s and 119 a bit less. But due to its low elevation (20 deg. for me) I was lucky much of the time to get something in the low to mid teens from 129! Even with that I was still able to lock most of the time, but did have a lot of fade. Now I'm elated to have 50s from 61.5 and 72...

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Sounds fairly normal. Are you having issues with signal going out?
No. I was just checking to see if I needed to re-peak the dish. I knew that 129 was weak when the old wounded bird was drifting/wobbling around. But I had assumed that the signal strength would be more like 110 & 119 after Dish replaced it.
 
Thanks everyone for your info.

It turns out I posted too soon. We had a pretty good rain storm yesterday evening and lost signal on all the sats. As the rain diminished, 110 and 119 came back, then 129 a little later. I guess we rarely notice these outages because we time shift with the DVR and almost never watch live TV. That, and where we live seems to be in perpetual drought interrupted by occasional flash floods.
 
why is espn hd on the weakest transponder on satellite 119? at least at my zip, 77316 I only get signal strength ranging from 32-34 on 119 tp7. the rest of the transponders are around 40-50 and some around 60. you'd thing dish would put such a popular channel on a stronger transponder. I'm not very familiar with how this stuff works, so excuse my ignorant question if I don't know what I'm talking about.
 
ok, should I call dish? what signal strength should I be getting on sat 119 tp7?

edit: I get 61 signal strength on sat 119 tp 12. why the big difference?
 
Just curious why are your signal strength so high but loose reception easily on the mainland. I live in hawaii and we have tons of rain where I live at, my signal strength are between 14-40 for all 3 sats. We have no signal loss issue, at least there is thunder and lightening.
 
I didn't see the 31. 31 is low. 61 is good though.
ok thanks. is it normal to have a difference of 30 on different transponders on the same satellite? I wouldn't care if espn hd (119x7) wasn't my lowest signal strength on all 3 satellites.
 
No. I was just checking to see if I needed to re-peak the dish. I knew that 129 was weak when the old wounded bird was drifting/wobbling around. But I had assumed that the signal strength would be more like 110 & 119 after Dish replaced it.
I must have missed somthing regarding Ciel 2's health at 129 leased to Dish for most of its HD services. Ciel 2 was launched in late 2008 and quickly began service in 2009. That is a relatively young satellite, and I have not heard any news of it having any major anomalies.

Perhaps you are referring to the satellite Ciel 2 replaced: Echostar V? That sat was, indeed, very ill, and its reposition to 129 was a temporary solution to getting HD up in good numbers until Ceil 2 could be launched and put into service. I believe Echo V as so ill that Echostar actually, after some time, deactivated it in an emergency de-orbit. But that sick sate was replaced about 5 years ago.

Your numbers are fine. Keep in mind the Dish made a complete change to all the various STB transponder power level readings so they would be consistent across all STB's. The result, however, meant that signals with points as "low" as 40's or 50's is now consider to be strong. Yes, the spotbeams will often be twice the points, but that is because the beam is so focused. I think getting down to the 20's is considered low enough for concern.
 
....Perhaps you are referring to the satellite Ciel 2 replaced: Echostar V? That sat was, indeed, very ill, and its reposition to 129 was a temporary solution to getting HD up in good numbers until Ceil 2 could be launched and put into service. ....
Yes I was referring to Echostar V that wandered around due to a damaged gyro? or something like that.

Thanks for the info on the signal strengths.
 
Just curious why are your signal strength so high but loose reception easily on the mainland. I live in hawaii and we have tons of rain where I live at, my signal strength are between 14-40 for all 3 sats. We have no signal loss issue, at least there is thunder and lightening.


It can depend on the type of storm and if there are any trees around. My Dish works fine but this year I noticed the signal can go out when it gets real windy because I have a tree that is slowly growing in the way. As for storms, the signal with generally go out right before it rains because of the wall cloud. Very heavy rain can knock the signal out as well but a basic rain storm should not affect it that much.
 

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