Q: Direct TV and Dish together

[oblio98]

I live in CT and I currently have a DISH Network system consisting of a 721 PVR and a 6000 Receiver for HDTV. I have both receivers located in my theater room, and aside from the component video which directly goes to my projector, I have the normal video/audio outputs of each of the receivers fed to a Channel Plus modulator, making each receiver available on all TV's in the house, the PVR on Channel 85 and the 6000 on Channel 87.

I like DISH because I get the independant stations, and up until the time I added the 6000, I got the Distant Networks, which was great. THey took those away, although for some reason, NBC granted the waiver!! I really wanted the HDTV from CBS, but alas I cannot get it.

What I am thinking of doing is replacing the 721 with a 921 (when it comes out), thus deleting the need for the 6000. To replace it, I am considering a Direct TV receiver(!!). Since the merger was squished, I must resort to Direct TV to get the local stations, the YES network, and the MLB package.

I have NO IDEA about Direct TV. Do they have multiple sats like DISH? What type of dish will I need to get the locals plus the MLB package? I looked on eBay, and there are dishes with 1, 2 and 3(!) LNBs on them. Is the Direct TV Sat located in the same area as the DISH network sat? Could I place both dishes on the same post?

Do you know of anyone else who has done this?

Anything else I should be thinking of?

THANKS

:-jon

[spanishannouncetable]

You cannot do what you want, or at least, not cheaply. Directv does not sell locals a la carte. You would have to take Total Choice & locals @ $35.99 or TC+ & locals @ $39.99.

YES would be thrown in at no extra charge. MLBEI could be taken a la carte.

To get Hartford locals, you would need the 18x24 dish w/2 LNBs (1 for 101, 1 for 119). All MLBEI channels and YES are on 101 with the majority of Directv programming, while Hartford locals are on the 119. If you want Directv HD channels, you will want to add the SatC kit w/3rd LNB pointed at the 110 sat.

[oblio98]

Thanks for the reply.

So, if I wanted to have locals, MLB, and HDNet, would I need two dishes (for Direct TV), or could I use a single dish with a 3rd LNB?
(Can one dish do 101,110 and 119??)

THANKS

[stugil]

I'm in the same boat. I've been with Dish since 98. If i don't get locals soon I Might switch. If I do I'll get Directv's New 3LNB Dish which is 18x20 with all 3 LNB's on It and Built in Multiswitch for4 tvs

[PeterB]

Get the DirectTV Plus dish, but the older style without the intergrated switches. If you dont want/need HDTV from DirectTV, you can use this single dish to provide DTVs 101 and 119 feeds (youll need 119 for Hartford locals) and Dish's 110 and 119 feeds.

I run this setup for quite a while when I had a Dual DTV and Dish sub. I even run the 4th LNB stuck on the end for Expressvu.

[Jacob S]

Dish Network allows you to purchase only the locals but charge an extra $5 fee, which is cheaper than what cable charges for just the basic channels in most areas. I thought DirecTv allowed you to as well as long as you purchased a package for under $10 that included the music channels?

[oblio98]

Thanks guys

:-jon

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by PeterB
Get the DirectTV Plus dish, but the older style without the intergrated switches. If you dont want/need HDTV from DirectTV, you can use this single dish to provide DTVs 101 and 119 feeds (youll need 119 for Hartford locals) and Dish's 110 and 119 feeds.

I run this setup for quite a while when I had a Dual DTV and Dish sub. I even run the 4th LNB stuck on the end for Expressvu.

Holy carp! That's insane. Isn't expressvu's satellite on 91? You're saying you got 91 from expressvu and 119 from dish on the same dish? That's almost a 30degree angle. What kind of signal strengths did you get? I'm almost 90% sure I'm switching over to DTV within the next month but because of a retailer dispute I have to stay on with Dish for another 3 months past the end of the Dish contract. Having both on one dish would help very much in reducing the clutter on the side of the house. (Of course I 'could' just drop Dish even though I'm paying for it, but what fun would that be? :D). Anyway, can you PM or email me with info on how to do this? Since Dish and DTV both have sats at 119, is it safe to assume that they are essentially the same satellite and that any settings I use (aka from either DTV or E*) will be safe to use? Do you think it'd be a little weird to ask the DTV install guy to do this for me? Maybe if I offered him some brownies......

[Jacob S]

There are special dishes to pick them all up on the same dish, so it is possible. one type of dish has a little reflector in front of it in which bounces the signal a second time before reaching the lnbf helping to reduce the size of the dish to make this possible. They also have bigger dishes with a row of lnbf's to make this a possibility as well and I have seen another solution, and have a link somewhere, if I can find it. It was discussed on here in the past.

[Steve Mehs]

$200 on Ebay
http://ebay0.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_022cb15d49ae6711a7bd48c55916e468/i-1.JPG

or ~$120 for an old style D*+ Dish, ~$40 for 2 additional LNBs and a buck for a bag of those tie back thingys :D
http://www.techweenies.com/images/DSS/DSS_Dish_017.jpg
http://www.techweenies.com/dss-1.shtml

[rowdymon]

Steve, I have access to that old style dish (the 2nd one in ur post). But what would the signal strength be like if I did this? I don't want to have to suffer through occasional blackouts. I have one of those cheap signal meters (the sf-95 kind that emits an annoying pitch), but this only works for aiming one satellite at a time. Do you recommend something else for this type of an install?

[Steve Mehs]

I really don't know how well the reception is, but I suppose it's pretty good, considering the guy that put it together uses it. I don't think none of us wanna go through an occasional signal drop, if it not absolutely necessary. :)

Personally, I would just use a separate dish for each service, or if by no other choice a dish like that one I posted a pic of from Ebay. I'm not big into DIY, but YMMV.

[Jacob S]

I have tried the dish500 rig up strapping a directv lnbf to it and could not get a directv signal in on it. What did I do wrong?

[PeterB]

Rowdy: I get high 90s on my DTV system on 119 and 101. Bev system is high 80s-low 90s.

I hooked up my old 3900 to make fun of the charlie chat tonight :) and I am getting 110 on the non-spotbeams of 119 for dish.

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by PeterB
Rowdy: I get high 90s on my DTV system on 119 and 101. Bev system is high 80s-low 90s.

I hooked up my old 3900 to make fun of the charlie chat tonight :) and I am getting 110 on the non-spotbeams of 119 for dish.

Are those DTV signals out of 100 or 125? On dish, the signal meter goes up to 125 for some reason.

Stupid question alert: What side of the dish does the Bev lnb go on if you're looking at the dish from the back? I'm in Chicago. I
think it should be on the left side (right next to the 101 lnb), right?

By the way, doesn't installing a dish lnb in the 119 slot mean that you won't receive any DTV programming from that slot? Is there even anything on that 119 satellite?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have mine setup like the second one and it works well. :D

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
I have mine setup like the second one and it works well. :D

Nice, how many hours did you spend on the roof?

[PeterB]

Originally posted by rowdymon


Are those DTV signals out of 100 or 125? On dish, the signal meter goes up to 125 for some reason.

Stupid question alert: What side of the dish does the Bev lnb go on if you're looking at the dish from the back? I'm in Chicago. I
think it should be on the left side (right next to the 101 lnb), right?

By the way, doesn't installing a dish lnb in the 119 slot mean that you won't receive any DTV programming from that slot? Is there even anything on that 119 satellite?

1) out of 100

2) yep, next to 101.

3) it can be split, DTV had HDTV, spanish, Nasa TV and some locals there..

[rowdymon]

Do you think Directv customer service could get someone to set up the dish like in the 2nd picture?

[PeterB]

Originally posted by rowdymon
Do you think Directv customer service could get someone to set up the dish like in the 2nd picture?

I doubt it, but you can just get them to install the DTV plus dish, even have them run a extra coax from the dish to the room you want your bev system in. then go up, with the tiewraps and the lnb and your up and running in minutes.

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by PeterB


I doubt it, but you can just get them to install the DTV plus dish, even have them run a extra coax from the dish to the room you want your bev system in. then go up, with the tiewraps and the lnb and your up and running in minutes.

If DTV sets it up, they will point it towards their own 119, 110 and 101 satellites. I would need the 119 and 110 to point to Dishnet's satellites. So I'm pretty much going to have to do this myself, right?

p.s.: Do I really need a broker for expressvu? Can I just sign up for Expressvu with a canadian account and set the mailing address to me here in the states?

Thx

[PeterB]

Same sats. 119 is 119 no matter who is transmitting from.

For expressvu, I use a Canadian relative's address, and use credit-card autopay.

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by PeterB
Same sats. 119 is 119 no matter who is transmitting from.

For expressvu, I use a Canadian relative's address, and use credit-card autopay.

OK, I'm going to do this myself since I already have a DTV plus dish. I have the GAYBO receiver from DTV; I set it up using the 3-satellite settings from the GAYBO, right? This is exciting; Between DTV, E* and expressvu, I can pretty much watch any hockey game in the world, right? I might even get rid of E*.

[rowdymon]

OK, I'm looking at the diagram from techweenies and something doesn't make sense. Right now all I have is the regular 18" dish for DTV and a dish 500 for dishnet. I live in Chicago; so the dtv dish points somewhat south/south-west and the dish500 points a little 'more' south/south-west. So as I understand it, if I use the DTV+ plus dish to try to get all 3 on one dish, I'd have to use the left-most LNB for DTV, and the middle and right LNBs for Dishnet (looking at the dish from behind). Can somebody confirm this?

I am confused also because the DTV+ dish itself has markings to indicate where the Sat A, B and C lnb's should be installed. And the markings actually have the 119 (Sat B) on the left-most side of the dish (from behind) instead of the right-most side. What's going on here?

Just for reference:
My 61.5 dish is facing to the southeast (aka faces to the left of the other two dishes (18"DTV and Dish500)).

[rowdymon]

I'm sorry to dredge this thread back up, but I still need your help. I'm very PO'd right now because I can't get the multidish installed properly; the only satellite that I seem to be receiving is 119. And I'm not seeing 101 very infrequently. How come when I change the transponders on 101 (in the settings on the DTV receiver), the signal goes up and down depending on the transponder? Are there specific transponders that I should have the DTV receiver set to when I'm checking the signal strength? If so, what are they? Is it the same for Dishnet too? Thanks in advance,

- H

[PeterB]

The LNB tagged "A" on the y bracket is for 101. B is for 119. C is for 110.

transponders vary a bit due to atmospeheric conditions and weither its a spotbeam or not.

I usualy get close to the sat, find the weakest non-spotbeam transponder and tweak to that.

[rowdymon]

On my dish, the LNB tagged A is on the right-most side. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as I hook up the wiring correct; after all they are all the same LNB's, right?

BTW, do you konw what would be a good transponder to check signal strenght on in Chicago? I know my spotbeam is either on 18 or 26. Does that mean I should check the signal strength on ANY transponder on 101 other than 18 or 26?

[greg_n]

Here is nine birds one dish....


http://www.global-cm.net/multifeedsys.html

[rowdymon]

Originally posted by greg_n
Here is nine birds one dish....


http://www.global-cm.net/multifeedsys.html

Doesn't really help me much, but an interesting pic.

[rowdymon]

Well, I finally got it setup. Been up there since about 12:30 and it's almost 5:15 now. I'm cold, wet and exhausted, but it was all worth it. I think I'm going to run over the old dish 500 with my neighbor's truck :D. I can't believe it took so long, but I think I wasted about 3 hours because of a faulty RG6 cable. Luckily I had another one handy. Thanks for all your help, guys. I'm sure I will come back when I get the urge (and the $$) to watch Evu as well. Have a good holiday season!

- Rowdy