Y bracket against I bracket Dish 500

RandallA

Supporting Founder
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Dec 13, 2004
10,556
68
San Francisco Bay Area
I've read some posts suggesting to swap the Y bracket with the I bracket in a Dish 500 to increase signal strength. How much increase will I see if I replace the Y bracket?

I have a Dish 500 with a DP Dual at 129 and would like to increase the signal strength but would like to hear from people how have actually done it. And yes I know 129 signal is pretty weak, just trying to see if I can improve it.

These are my readings from an 811 receiver:

TP Signal

3 76
6 90
9 90
10 91
11 78
12 87
20 74
21 72
23 82
24 78
27 71

Thanks.
 
It also looks better too, versus having a bracket meant for 2 lnbs only holding one ;)
 
the issue with the I adapter is you are not at the true focal point so you may actually lose signal strength.

I took a 20" with the I adapter for 148 and my signals were lower than a 18"...The I adapter is a couple inches longer than the Y adapter
 
Iceberg: I have to disagree. The entire purpose of the "I" bracket is to put a single/dual LNB at the best possible focal point of a Dish 500 pan.

I suspect you might've had some other issue to cause what you saw.
 
doesn't goaliebob use one of the I-brackets on a dish 500 for 61.5. Maybe he will chime in with some input. I think I remember him saying that he saw a little improvement. I know Winegard sells a 24" dish with the D-tube arm. I know that when I installed for Dish there were a few times that when a customer is on the fringe of the spotbeam signal for the locals, Dish would sent them a 24" Dish with the D-tube arm to use with a DP single/dual strictly for the sat. that they get there locals off of. You would of course have to use a second dish to get the other sat that the locals don't come off of.
 
I would also have to disagrea, Ive used the "I" numerous times and will regularly get a signal off the 61.5 of %115 - %125 respectfuly.
 
I like the I bracket... On most tp's i get a 125 on 61.5 and I have found through my installation experiances, it gets about 5% better signal because the signal is bouncing from the center of the dish instead of the side of the dish, give or take. I think the lowest tp on 61.5 for me is a 115-117 (but that was acheaved after properly peaking the dish out) It also depends on what area you are in... and how 61.5 looks on the horizon to you. the more east of the rockies you are the better.. the more west.. go with 129 and a d1000. I rember my old house in colorado springs, where I had to use a DTV Para Todo's Dish (tri LNB) shooting through trees and a dp lnbf all gehtoo like hell to get 61.5 at a decent signal on it.
 
At one point I had a dish500 with I bracket pointed at 61.5 in place of the dish300 previously there. I experienced approximately 15-20 percent higher signal strength.
 
Thank you all for the info. My Dish500 is pointing at 129 not at 61.5 but I think I'm gonna try it and see what kind of results I get. I'll be happy with 10% improvement.
 
Sorry Van, I meant 129.

Most likely you haven't because you're probably installing the Dish1000 instead. I will just give it a shot and see what happens.
 
Ya know, I just remembered I've got a couple of these lying around, along with a couple of used D500's. Time to swap out my D300's pointing at 61.5 and 148 just for grins. Maybe I'll remember to post back the results.
 

What to do? Picking out a decent Dish HD receiver.

HD-Lite and MPEG4