# Help with Dish 129 HD signal....



## GioGambino (Oct 18, 2008)

Hi, the folks over at AVS Forum directed me over here for my question. I have had Dish TurboHD Silver package for about a couple months now. When the installer put it on the roof of our building he assured me that the HD (129) signal was strong. I'm not too sure.

I live in San Diego, 92110 area code, and my HD satellite direction is 129. I just did a "System Info" test and for my SD direction (119 & 110) and my HD direction (129) and here is what I'm getting:

Orbital: 14 15 16 21
110 - 74 69 72 73
119 - 65 70 65 70
129 - 0 0 45 43

From what I understand with a recent Dish upgrade the values will appear lower than they actually are. My 110 and 119 seem fine (I guess?), but doesn't my 129 (HD) seem low? The box does turn green on all 3 directions (110, 119 & 129) meaning the status is good? It says status "Good" in the system info after the test. 

I honestly am not savvy to this type of stuff so I would really appreciate some info from people in the know. Do I need to have Dish come out and readjust my dish? Thanks!


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

129 is Echostar 5, an old, broken satellite that is barely alive. It has a number of problems, including low signal strength and a failed gyro, which means it doesn't stay pointed where it is supposed to, and must be manually repointed using maneouvering fuel every 3 days. It is almost out of fuel.

The good news is that a new Canadian satellite, Ciel-2, is scheduled for launch in early December to replace E5, and if all goes well, should be on station by early January. Expect signal strengths and overall reliability to improve greatly from the 129 location.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

The 129 is a wobbly satellite.

If you are not properly peaked to 129 you will intermittently lose signal from it.

Looks like they could bring your 129 up some and allow the other two to suffer a little to get more stable reception on 129

Should never get zeros.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

:welcome_s 

Your numbers are fine for 129. There is no signal from transponders 14 and 15. My numbers for 129 read as follows for my 722:

Tuner #0 0 0 38 29
Tuner #1 0 0 44 37

I'm quite a bit further North and use a wing dish aimed only at 129 that I relocated myself after having several techs from the Dish subcontractor come out and try to aim it to give me better signal strength. Once you get to the Pacific Northwest, people are using larger dishes as the satellite is that bad.

If you're interested in more information, tune to Comedy Central, then press Menu, 6, 1, 1. You'll see signal strength for probably something like satellite 119 transponder 13. Use the arrow keys to change the satellite to 129 and wait for it to indicate a signal strength. You can then arrow up and down the transponders to see the strength variation on 129 (you have to give it a few seconds in between). In my location and setup transponder 31 is the strongest somewhere around 50. Transponder 6 is low somewhere around 25. When the new satellite is up, things will be better.

San Diego HD locals are on 110, so 129 won't be a problem for that. For me, TBS HD on 129 tr 6 under the right weather circumstances can be difficult.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

(To the original poster) Are you having any problems? If you aren't having any problems, then I would say things are fine. Those signal levels don't seem out of order for your location and the satellites in question... and you didn't post that you are having any issues, so I'm assuming it was just a general level question and not in response to some reception issues?


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## GioGambino (Oct 18, 2008)

phrelin said:


> :welcome_s
> 
> Your numbers are fine for 129. There is no signal from transponders 14 and 15. My numbers for 129 read as follows for my 722:
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for the response! I only have the TurboHD Silver package so I don't have Comedy Central. Is there another channel that I have that you can suggest to test? Thanks!


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## GioGambino (Oct 18, 2008)

HDMe said:


> (To the original poster) Are you having any problems? If you aren't having any problems, then I would say things are fine. Those signal levels don't seem out of order for your location and the satellites in question... and you didn't post that you are having any issues, so I'm assuming it was just a general level question and not in response to some reception issues?


You are 100% correct. I am not having many problems, it's just that most of the HD channels don't look as good as they can I think. I know it's not going to look amazing, but I think it could be a bit better. Other than that, I am not having any loss of service or major problems. It was definitely just a general level question. It's great news that a new bird is going up to replace this one though!


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

GioGambino said:


> Thank you very much for the response! I only have the TurboHD Silver package so I don't have Comedy Central. Is there another channel that I have that you can suggest to test? Thanks!


Just tune one of your locals so your signal is strong just to compare. Doesn't matter really, I just like to start with something I know is strong.


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## DNSFSS (Apr 4, 2008)

As a tech, the 129 has caused more problems than good. Very frustrating. I know that myself and thousands of others are waiting for the fix. I'm seeing a lot of D* HD dishes going up on houses after I've gone through the trouble of hooking up E* HD. The 24" antenna we've been using doesn't help at all, just gives the customer piece of mind that we're doing "all that we can to increase the signal level." I hate the 129 satellite


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## dishguy77 (Oct 9, 2008)

GioGambino said:


> You are 100% correct. I am not having many problems, *it's just that most of the HD channels don't look as good as they can I think. I know it's not going to look amazing, but I think it could be a bit better. * Other than that, I am not having any loss of service or major problems. It was definitely just a general level question. It's great news that a new bird is going up to replace this one though!


signal strength has nothing to do with picture quality when dealing with digital systems. You either get a picture or you don't.

The picture quality has allot to do with who calibrated your HDTV. Sometime in the near future THX will be releasing a Blu-Ray Version of their optimizer with new components for HDTV calibration. I personally can't wait for it as it will become part of my install pack to get rid of the "torch" TVs that make people think the HD through D* and E* looks nasty.


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## levibluewa (Aug 13, 2005)

took a LITTLE time off the 2x an hour dropouts. Dropouts now are 1-3 minutes 2x an hour...with the 18" dish they were 2-6 or 7 minutes with no picture/signal 2x an hour. The bill is the same!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

GioGambino said:


> You are 100% correct. I am not having many problems, it's just that most of the HD channels don't look as good as they can I think. I know it's not going to look amazing, but I think it could be a bit better. Other than that, I am not having any loss of service or major problems. It was definitely just a general level question. It's great news that a new bird is going up to replace this one though!


If you could tell which channels and what kinds of things you are seeing we might be able to further help to guide you as to whether you need to configure your receiver differently, your TV differently, or perhaps some of the problems you are seeing are related to non-HD on an HD channel (lots of channels unfortunately doing that) or as mentioned already, it could be the semi-wobbling on 129 that every once in a while results in a brief pixelation.

If you are seeing pixelation.breakups, then that is source either from the channel or from the 129 problems.. In either case, you're sort of stuck... but fortunately with the levels you are seeing you probably wouldn't see it that often.

If you are seeing lack of detail, then you might want to make sure your receiver is configured to output 720p or 1080i. By default it is set at 480 to ensure you can configure to any TV... but if you've done that already, then you might be watching a channel (A&E, TNT, TBS, and various others) that is actually showing an SD program stretched and pseudo upconverted in which case those often look nasty and can be worse than SD!

Lastly, it is entirely possible everything on your end is correct... no satellite signal issues... but you are just seeing some limitations due to the compression/bandwidth and perhaps you are more sensitive to it than others with the size of your TV and your distance viewing it.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

IIP said:


> 129 is Echostar 5, an old, broken satellite that is barely alive. It has a number of problems, including low signal strength and a failed gyro, which means it doesn't stay pointed where it is supposed to, and must be manually repointed using maneouvering fuel every 3 days. It is almost out of fuel.


I'm having issues with my locals from 129. I spoke with a TSR who told me that the 129 satellite was the most powerful one Dish had and there are no problems with it. I politely told him I would call back and speak with someone who was better informed. He also told me that a service call was $99 even if I had the DHPP.
Where do these dweebs come from?


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## HuggieBear (Nov 17, 2006)

I have noticed that some days when watching programing on 129 I will "lose"signal but it is not really lost at all. I just have to press GUIDE and it will pop right back in. It can be frustrating at times. When it was at it's worst it would do this like 5 or 6 times during a show. Has not done it it a while though.


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## Spoonser (Feb 16, 2008)

Basic question about Ciel-2: is it safe to assume that after it's up and running that nothing will have to change hardware-wise to get it? I'm specifically thinking about pointing my dish.

[crossing my fingers for a successful launch]


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

Spoonser said:


> Basic question about Ciel-2: is it safe to assume that after it's up and running that nothing will have to change hardware-wise to get it? I'm specifically thinking about pointing my dish.
> 
> [crossing my fingers for a successful launch]


Yes, no changes on our end will be needed to receive Ciel-2.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Spoonser said:


> Basic question about Ciel-2: is it safe to assume that after it's up and running that nothing will have to change hardware-wise to get it? I'm specifically thinking about pointing my dish.
> 
> [crossing my fingers for a successful launch]


Both Dish and DirecTV have replaced satellites many times, with no interruption of service. Less than 60 days ago, Dish's 110 sats (Echo-6 and -8) were replaced with a brand new sat (Echo-11). You probably had no idea that happened, but your signal is a bit better now that it was before on 110. No changes to your equipment at all.

It *did* affect us techs, as many of us use Birdog meters that use a spectrum analsys pattern to ID the satellites, and they needed to be updated once E11 went online.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Now I don't want to be raining on anyone's parade, but let's don't assume Ciel-2 is a given. It's bad luck. Don't forget AMC14 out there in space...somewhere....


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

phrelin said:


> Now I don't want to be raining on anyone's parade, but let's don't assume Ciel-2 is a given. It's bad luck.


Bad Luck??? Is that some of that weird west coast logic?

I think everyone knows how complex a satellite and rocket launch are and we all know that it might fail. However, it is something that we need to dwell on. I know that there are thousands of very talented people involved and everything possible is being done to make sure it is a successful lunch. Think positive dude.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

All 3 launch companies have a failure rate of about 11%. Launching objects into space is always risky, despite the hundreds of thousands of man-hours and hundreds of millions of dollars that goes into it. IIRC, both Dish and DirecTV have lost a bird (AMC-14 wasn't actually Dish's, though; it was to be leased by Dish once in place).

Still, the vast majority of launches are successful.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Bill R said:


> Bad Luck??? Is that some of that weird west coast logic?
> 
> I think everyone knows how complex a satellite and rocket launch are and we all know that it might fail. However, it is something that we need to dwell on. I know that there are thousands of very talented people involved and everything possible is being done to make sure it is a successful lunch. Think positive dude.


Naw, I don't want to burden the West Coast with my personal approach to life. And I'm not putting down anyone's work. I'm just a Murphy's Law guy who thinks if Plan A doesn't work Dish always should have a Plan B to immediately start implementing and which would accomplish nearly the same goals in a time frame fairly close to the Plan A time frame.

I'm sure the Baikonur folks with their Proton's are just as talented and work just as hard as anyone in the rocket biz. They've had plenty of successes. But AMC 14 wasn't one of them and they are launching Ciel-2.

And even if they successfully get by the potential 1-in-10 failure rate, it isn't a given that the satellite itself will work as planned.

This is risky business. Echostar 5 is dying. Any major glitch and HD as we know it here in the Western Arc is in serious trouble. Some thought Plan B was Echostar 8 but I don't see how that would work particularly since it's already moving to 77° from 110°. So I'm looking around for a plausible Plan B.

As a Dish customer for TV service, I really don't care if they deliver the signal by having some guy stand on top of a nearby mountain with aluminum foil on his head serving as a repeater. That's silly for a Plan B. Except that with regard to AMC 14's Plan B, it appeared that aluminum foil guy was as solid as anything they had ready to go.

So I'm wishing for some luck with Ceil-2 for Dish, the retail service company that provides my TV signal. Because I think they need some good luck.:grin:


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## GioGambino (Oct 18, 2008)

It's funny, tonight I lost signal completely on 129. I was watching Monday Night Football on ESPN and we were just about to leave to go walk the dogs. Right when I was about to turn everything off the screen went blank and a info box came up and said lost signal on 129 or something of that nature.

It then went through a 5 step process trying to get the signal back. That process was going slow so I left everything on and we went and walked the dogs. When I came back everything was back on. I hope the new bird is launched with success so this doesn't happen anymore. LOL!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

GioGambino said:


> It's funny, tonight I lost signal completely on 129. I was watching Monday Night Football on ESPN and we were just about to leave to go walk the dogs. Right when I was about to turn everything off the screen went blank and a info box came up and said lost signal on 129 or something of that nature.
> 
> It then went through a 5 step process trying to get the signal back. That process was going slow so I left everything on and we went and walked the dogs. When I came back everything was back on. I hope the new bird is launched with success so this doesn't happen anymore. LOL!


ESPNHD is on 110, not 129... except for Eastern Arc customers in which case it is on 61.5... so if you lost ESPNHD then you lost 110 as well.


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## GioGambino (Oct 18, 2008)

HDMe said:


> ESPNHD is on 110, not 129... except for Eastern Arc customers in which case it is on 61.5... so if you lost ESPNHD then you lost 110 as well.


Oh, I see. Thanks for the info! Any idea why stuff like that happens? I live in San Diego and the weather was clear as can be. No rain or clouds last night.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I didn't lose anything last night, so it wasn't a national thing... If there was no local weather to blame, then you might be seeing the beginnings of a developing problem if perhaps your dish is not optimally peaked. I once had a receiver where the tuners failed in it, and it started weeks before with signal loss at seemingly random times... Could also be LNB issues, switch issues (if you have one), or cabling troubles.

Unfortunately it might be a "wait and see" situation to try and see if there is any pattern to when you are having problems.


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