# sat 129 signal



## chuckflarhu (Oct 27, 2005)

Had 211 and dish 1000 installed yesterday. Seemed to go ok. Saw ech using point dish function and had good signal strength.

Later in the day I notice that I get either a scrambled or no signal at all on most HD channels above 9424.

Looked at signal strength as told by Dish csr and it was at 47. They have a tech coming back out tomorrow and I get to waste my whole afternoon waiting for them.

Is there anything I can do to help this myself, short of going on the roof. The CSR had me changing transponders but I am really too much of a noob to know what that does.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

129's signal was 47? yikes. I read in the LA locals thread something about 129 not being as strong as the others. That would be really bad for me as I am having all kinds of problems lately with rain fade and I have signals in the 120's


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

It's true, Rogueone. I'm in L.A. and 129 has much lower signal strength than my other three birds, about 67%.

But at my last location, 148 was only coming in at about 55% and amazingly, I had very little problems with rain fade.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

that really scares me, as my setup is getting 110 to 120 with 110/119 and I'm getting constant rain fade lately. Something just doesn't seem right. Before I upgraded to DP stuff (at least I think I wasn't using DP stuff) I had a 501/301 from about 1999/2000, with just 110/119 and even during a Noreaster storm, and a blizzard, no fade. I might have had interruptions of 5 or 10 secs, but now, just this weekend, I lost signal for 10 minutes while it gently rained outside. Just a basic overcast day with drizzle. 

What doesn't make sense is, prior to upgrading to HD with a 921, and adding 61.5, I never had rain fade. After getting the 921 and the installer changed LNB's, I do recall that, I've had all sorts of rainfade issues. Dish keeps saying it's normal, had an installer come back out, everything was setup right as far as he was concerned, but yet I still get rain fade on signals that are close to 120 in strength. So what chance would I have keeping 129 locked in  doh

I was starting to think the problem was the tree my D500 has to look thru had grown back into the area the dish needs to look. But there are no leaves now, and saturday, there was no wind at all, just a light rain/drizzle. Just doesn't make sense it would be sooo good for 3 years , then get suddenly worse within weeks of that lnb change when I upgraded to HD.


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## Jeff McClellan (Apr 22, 2002)

129 is a tough bird to hit. When my installer did mine, he got 129 to about 50, and said he had to sacrifice some of the signal off of 110 and 119 just to get it to 50. When a bird flew over I would loose 129. Jason had stated something about altering 129 by about 3 degrees. I climbed up this weekend and did just that and readjusting 119 and 110. Bottom line is, 119 and 110 are near 100 and 129 is about 64. So it wont be as strong as the others but you can tweak it higher by allowing for the 3 degree difference.


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## sat tech (Jan 16, 2006)

47 way bad!!!!!! could get as high as 97 on 129 your tech may need to be retrained. got that signal in IA so it should not be to hard to get in illinois. hopfully your new tech does a better job


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## chuckflarhu (Oct 27, 2005)

they're here right now. I've got my fingers crossed. They definitly seem more "with it" than the last guy.


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## sat tech (Jan 16, 2006)

if you can before they leave go to 129 transponder 9. my first attempt was 87 which is real good without taking away from 119 or 110.


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## sat tech (Jan 16, 2006)

don't check when there peaking in the dish. it might screw them up


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

The local installer up here in Anchorage told me that the footprint for 129 does not cover us. Does anybody have a link showing what the footprint is? I looked around but did not find one.
Thanks.


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## chuckflarhu (Oct 27, 2005)

didnt see your post till they left.

Right now getting 75-80 on 129
80 or so on 119
106 on 110

Everything seems to be going well.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

chuckflarhu said:


> Had 211 and dish 1000 installed yesterday. Seemed to go ok. Saw ech using point dish function and had good signal strength.
> 
> Later in the day I notice that I get either a scrambled or no signal at all on most HD channels above 9424.
> 
> ...


I put a 1000 in at my sister in law's home in Oswego, almost right next door to you. You should be able to get at least 70 where you are at, that is unless your trying to aim through the Cat plant.


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## cebbigh (Feb 27, 2005)

Have been experiencing a drop in signal strength and occasional breakups on the 129 for the past few weeks. Initially thought it was weather related but the past two days have been sunny and not seeing improvement. It's been about a 10 point drop in signal strength for me (average 65 down to 55). Tried to tweak my dish 1000 yesterday and got a small improvement for 129 but it cost me on 110 and 119 enough that I put it back the way it was.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Are you using the 3 DP Duals configuration or the DPP Twin/DP Dual configuration?


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

http://ekb.dbstalk.com/297 is the coverage map for 129. looks to me like Alaska is covered, it's not shaded


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Neither is Hawaii. I belive someone at E* forgot to finish the map.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

Jason Nipp said:


> Are you using the 3 DP Duals configuration or the DPP Twin/DP Dual configuration?


I'm using the DPP Twin/DP Dual config. Does it make a difference? Is one better than the other?

I live very close to Chuck and have had the same results and signals as him.

Jeff, you mention the 3 degree shift, 3 degrees in what direction?

Thanks


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Rob Glasser said:


> I'm using the DPP Twin/DP Dual config. Does it make a difference? Is one better than the other?
> 
> I live very close to Chuck and have had the same results and signals as him.
> 
> ...


Rob, from what I have seen myself and from what I heard from users (all opinions), the all duals config seems almost spot on when aiming against the table. However, all opinions lead me to believe the Twin config may need to be tweaked in Az. and El. I would suggest taking the time to really peak the dish instead of living by the tables, personal opinion mind you.


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## dale2345 (Mar 19, 2005)

cebbigh said:


> Have been experiencing a drop in signal strength and occasional breakups on the 129 for the past few weeks. Initially thought it was weather related but the past two days have been sunny and not seeing improvement. It's been about a 10 point drop in signal strength for me (average 65 down to 55). Tried to tweak my dish 1000 yesterday and got a small improvement for 129 but it cost me on 110 and 119 enough that I put it back the way it was.


I am experiencing similar trouble. I live 12 -15 miles north of Seattle and I have a Dish 942 with Dish 1000 (installed in November 2005). Immediately after the Dish 1000 installation I had problems with 129 (Voom channels especially 9470 Rave). My signal strength for the 129 transponders was ranging from 47 to 61. The Dish installer said that is what you could expect in the Seattle area! Channel 9470 would frequently pixillate and lose picture. After a weekend of this I called Dish technical and they sent a second Dish installer. He spent around 1 hour tweaking the Dish 1000 aiming and left with the signals for 129 increased by 5-6 points (maybe). I still encountered the same picture loss problems on 129.

After calling Dish again and getting no satisfaction, I gave up and hired a local satellite installer to reinstall my unused Dish 1000 for 129 ( I have a DPP44 switch at the Dish 1000 support pole). This gave me signals on a sunny day from 65-66 on Transponder 13 to 80-82 on Transponders 10 & 12. The reading on Transponder 30 (for 9470 Rave) was 69-72. HOWEVER, I still lose picture like today durring the current sunny weather. When I experienced pixillation and loss of picture I checked the signal strength for Transponder 30. It was 45-47! But the strength on 10& 12 was 77 & 78 respectively.

I can not see how on a sunny day (or any day for that matter) one transponder (30) can lose approximately 20 in signal strength while two other transponders (10 & 12) are only losing 4-5 (at the exact same time).

A Dish technical person blamed it on possibly a degrading LNBF that was going bad. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

Dale


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

Jason Nipp said:


> Rob, from what I have seen myself and from what I heard from users (all opinions), the all duals config seems almost spot on when aiming against the table. However, all opinions lead me to believe the Twin config may need to be tweaked in Az. and El. I would suggest taking the time to really peak the dish instead of living by the tables, personal opinion mind you.


Ok, I've pretty much already done that. Maybe I'll go up again and play with it. But based on what I'm seeing for others in this area I'm starting to pretty mch assume that Dish1000 + Seattle, WA = unreliable 129 signal.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Rob Glasser said:


> I'm using the DPP Twin/DP Dual config. Does it make a difference? Is one better than the other?
> 
> I live very close to Chuck and have had the same results and signals as him.
> 
> ...


All the LNBs (DPP Twin or DP Twin or DP Dual) do a great job and signal strengths are about the same or same as seen by my comparisons. I have not noticed any difference in signal strength when either are used on the same dish.

I've reported in another post that I have compared the Dish 1000 signal to the Dish 300. They are about the same. I've used a Dual LNB on a Dish 300, 500, 1000, and, Super Dish to check the signal strengths for satellite 129. The Super dish gets the best gain. The Dish 500 is a signal gain of 10 over the Dish 1000. The Super Dish gains close to 20 over the Dish 1000.

I'm glad (for my sanity) that I'm not the only one who sees very poor signal strength from 129 on the Dish 1000. The VOOM & HD transponders give the highest signals; T10/72, T11/58, T19/61, T23/62, and T30/59.

I have tweaked my Dish 1000's position to get the very best reception on all three satellites (110/119/129) and none of the signal strengths compare to the Dish 500 or Super Dish! Regardless of rain fade, they all lose reception around the same time regardless of the strongest signal.

For some of us on the West Coast, it may be better to use the dish 500 for 110/119 and a dish 500 with an, "I" adapter and a Dual LNB for 129.


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## kent6723 (Oct 12, 2004)

cebbigh said:


> Have been experiencing a drop in signal strength and occasional breakups on the 129 for the past few weeks. Initially thought it was weather related but the past two days have been sunny and not seeing improvement. It's been about a 10 point drop in signal strength for me (average 65 down to 55). Tried to tweak my dish 1000 yesterday and got a small improvement for 129 but it cost me on 110 and 119 enough that I put it back the way it was.


I am seeing the same problem!


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## chuckflarhu (Oct 27, 2005)

Jason,

thats funny, i'm about 1/4 mile from the cat plant. There's no obstruction anywhere though. 

Those numbers you put up are what I'm getting now though.

Noob question here:

When i'm on the point dish page and looking at the signal strengths, is it ok for me to change transponders to check signals? I think it is but just want to be sure.

Anyone go a basic explanation for that stuff? I know computers but not this stuff.


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## chuckflarhu (Oct 27, 2005)

I'll have to check what configuration is on the dish.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Rob Glasser said:


> OK, I've pretty much already done that. Maybe I'll go up again and play with it. But based on what I'm seeing for others in this area I'm starting to pretty mch assume that Dish1000 + Seattle, WA = unreliable 129 signal.


I had some problems when I first setup 61.5 with signal dropping out, especially on TP 5 and 7. As far as I am concerned the bigger the dish the better in my opinion. This is why I love my Superdish. I have only lost signal 3 times in like 3 years on it. All 3 times it was iced over real good. People complain about the Super, but not me. I am leaving 110 and 119 on my Super.


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## Pat A (May 29, 2002)

Jim, the closest thing that I have found for a echo 5 footprint is here:
http://www.geo-orbit.org/westhemipgs/fecho5specp.html
It shows an AK lobe. Back when echo 5 was at 110, I got stronger signals from it than I get at 110 now. Infact, back then I started off using a 30" dish to pull in TP14 (which I think was double powered at the time). I have a feeling that now that it is at 129, the AK lobe is now probably pointing at Siberia. I talked to an installer late last week, and he said that he was able to find a signal with a 6' antenna.....unless E* mirrors the new HD at 148, I think we are going to be SOL up here yet again.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Well, I still like Legacy. I get a minimum of 70 on all the active Tps at 129 using an 18" dish.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

chuckflarhu said:


> When i'm on the point dish page and looking at the signal strengths, is it ok for me to change transponders to check signals? I think it is but just want to be sure.
> 
> Anyone go a basic explanation for that stuff? I know computers but not this stuff.


Yes by all means try different transponders, do note though you may not be able to lock all TP's because of your geographic region and or subscribed services.

Here is the install manual for personal reference. http://www.dbstalk.com/specsheets/DISH1000_InstallationGuide.pdf


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

Rogueone said:


> http://ekb.dbstalk.com/297 is the coverage map for 129. looks to me like Alaska is covered, it's not shaded


Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see 129 on that page.

Pat A:
Thanks for the info. I would hope that Dish would aim it at us. Of course I'm assuming that it can be aimed.


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## Jeff McClellan (Apr 22, 2002)

Rob Glasser said:


> I'm using the DPP Twin/DP Dual config. Does it make a difference? Is one better than the other?
> 
> I live very close to Chuck and have had the same results and signals as him.
> 
> ...


Oh, about 3 degrees towards the goal line.:lol:


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Jim Parker said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see 129 on that page.


Tward the bottom - It's a colored map right below the spotbeam plots.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Jeff McClellan said:


> Oh, about 3 degrees towards the goal line.:lol:


Actually it is .5 degrees from the goal post!:eek2:


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

So, now we have 4 people in the Seattle area in this thread, and all are having problems. I'd be curious to know if anyone out there in the Seattle area is NOT having problems?


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

James Long said:


> Tward the bottom - It's a colored map right below the spotbeam plots.


I'm still confused. Are you referring to the D1000 exclusion map (the bottom map) or the green map showing ConUS with the red line (the second map from the bottom)?


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## Jeff McClellan (Apr 22, 2002)

Rob Glasser said:


> So, now we have 4 people in the Seattle area in this thread, and all are having problems. I'd be curious to know if anyone out there in the Seattle area is NOT having problems?


Those who previously lived in Pittsburgh probably.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Jim Parker said:


> I'm still confused. Are you referring to the D1000 exclusion map (the bottom map) or the green map showing ConUS with the red line (the second map from the bottom)?


The exclusion map. Not 'coverage' per se, but where E* is comfortable selling the dish.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

OK, I understand your point now. Unfortunately, it's not what I was trying to figure out. I was told by an installer that the footprint for 129 did not cover us here. I was looking for something to confirm or refute it.

Thanks anyway.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

EchoStar 5 has a lobe off of the main beam for Alaska. Kind of dificult to say whether it still hits Alaska from the 129 though.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

John H
Apparently not. I had another conversation with the installer. The engineers have confirmed that the beam is not stable here. It locks on for 45 minutes or so then loses lock for 45 minutes or so. Hawaii supposedly has the same issue. Dish is looking at the situation.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

Interesting, I wonder if the problem they are seeing in Hawaii and Alasaka is related to the problem that we are seeing in Western Washington State. Instead of losing lock for 45 minutes, we appear to lose lock for 30 seconds to a minute periodically, can't say it's every 45 minutes like clockwork but seems to happen 1 - 2 times an hour. Once second I'll be at 70% and locked, the next I'm at 40% and not locked, on a nice, clear, sunny, windless day. Similar results have been posted by a few other here.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

FYI, the 45 minutes is what I was told by the installer. I have no first hand info, and as with all hear-say, should be taken with a grain of salt. It wouldn't be the first time that an installer was not completely accurate.


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