921 Questions

[Jason]

I have a couple of questions about the 921.

First of all, do you have to have all new cable run to be able to get high definition or will my current cable work?

Secondly, will the Legacy LNBs be compatible with the 921 or do you have to use Dishpro LNBs exclusively?

Finally, you have to have 2 dishes to get HDTV, correct? In order to hook up a 721 and a 921, which LNBs would I need to use on each dish?

[Jacob S]

(1) Your current cable should work fine, just as long as it is RG-6

(2) More than likely Legacy LNB's will work with 921

(3) Yes, you have to have an additional dish for HDTV (61.5)

To hook up a 721 and 921 you will have to take one of the options below:

FOR 110, 119 SLOT

1 Quad LNBF Dish 500 OR 2 Twin Dish 500's


FOR 61.5 SLOT

1 Dish 500 skew at 0 degrees with two dual lnbfs if both lnbf's would receive the same signal (unsure if this is an option)

OR

2 Dish 300's each with a dual lnbf

You will also need to use switches.

[Big D]

Your current coax cable *may* be okay, it all depends on what it is, how long it is, does it have any splices in it and how good are your connectors. It also depends on your final LNBF configuration, that is if you stay with legacy equipment or move up to DishPro, which is what I did. If your current coax cable is RG59, it is time to change it out. RG6 comes in many styles, the most important spec is to insure you get cable that is 2.2 Ghz swept tested, as newer sat equipment requires the higher frequencies. No sense changing your coax to an older RG6 that is only 1.2 Ghz. Next, make sure you purchase connectors rated for 2.2Ghz, harder to find right now as they are somewhat new, but necessary. As to how long your coax runs are, if it a longer run, buy loss loss cable, costs more but you save up to 3dB a 100' of cable. With a 721 and a 921, you are going to need 4 runs from your switch to your receivers and 3 runs from your dishes, so buy a 1000' box of cable and a bag of connectors with tools and make your own cable runs exactly as long as they need to be, you will save money and have a nicer installation. I bought a 1000' box of Belden 1829A cable for $75.00 at an electrical supply house. With the extra cable and connectors left over, change out all of the remaining coax runs in your home theater set up, it really pays off to get rid of all those misc RG59 cables that came from god knows where.

As for the LNBFs, I suggest you think about going with DishPro. Several reasons being they are newer technology and all newer equipment coming out will be designed with those in mind. Legacy LNBFs work fine with older receivers and for now, they work with the newer receivers, but no guarantees if it will stay that way. The 721 and 921 receivers both are newer receivers and work with the DishPro LNBFs with no adapters required, but one thing to keep in mind is old receivers like the 6000 will not work with DishPro LNBFs without a $50.00 adapter. DishPro also provides several other benefits, coax runs can be up to 200' instead of 100' as with the older ones. The newer DishPro SW34 multi-dish switch requires only 3 coax cables from the two required dishes (110/119 on a 500 dish and either 61.5 or 148 on a 300/500 dish depending on your location, east coast or west coast ). You will need a DishPro Twin LNBF for the 110/119 dish and a single for the wing bird. I bought mine from Dish Depot, they even bought my old legacy LNBF back from me, I highly recommend them. The SW34 switch has 3 inputs and up to 4 outputs, so the 4 inputs you need for the 721 and 921 are taken care of. This provides the best installation for what you require and if you need to expand it some day, it is very easy to add on to as the SW34 can be cabled to another SW34 very easily, adding another 4 receivers. So what you end up with is 2 dishes, 2 LNBFs, 1 switch, 2 receivers and 7 coax runs, pretty clean setup.

If you go with modifying your current equipment and cable, you are left with any number of possible installation problems and I am not so sure it would be that much of a cost savings. Good luck, let us know which way you go.

[boba]

First thing is be patient DISH hasn't even produced a 921 yet. Before you get too excited wait for the product to get to the sales floor then see what the actual product does. The 721 was released in July and here it is in December finally getting the L1.07 software that makes it into a trouble free receiver???

[Jacob S]

You do not need 2.2 GHZ wire if you do not use dishpro equipment and I seriously doubt that they are going to require dishpro lnbf's for dishpro receivers, because if they start making all of these customers out here that got legacy lnbf's with their dishes, Dish will lose TONS and TONS of customers, because they will not want to pay. They will say that it should have come with it in the first place as well, and there would be such big lawsuits, I am sure Dish would be in a heap of dog crap more than anything else they have ever seen, if they try to do this. They have nothing to gain by doing that.

Dishpro does have its advantages though. If your current cabling situation works just fine, then it should work fine with the 721 and 921 if you have legacy lnbf's. If you do buy cable, try to get the 2.2 GHZ even if it is more expensive.

The 3 to 4 switch is the best option if you do not like a bunch of satellites being up. I have seen some people put up an additional dish instead because it was cheaper and if one goes out they still have one left. I thought 3 to 4 switches were expensive, how much do they run? A quad is expensive too.

[Big D]

I paid $230.00 for a DishPro Twin, a Single and a SW34 switch from Dish Depot. I believe the switch alone is $99.00, less then if I was to get a larger legacy switch and Quad. I was able to sell my old twin for $50.00, so really it cost me $180.00 to make the changeover. Now when the 921 becomes available (and if it passes muster to where I buy one), all I have to do is connect the two additional coax pre-runs from the SW34 I have waiting on the shelf just above my 721.

[RAD]

Why worry about this. By the time Charlie get's the 921 on the market they'll be able to directly transmit images into our brains and won't need receivers. ;)

[DevoDave]

Can an old single horn legacy (dish 300) LNBF reciever serve a role in either a 6000 system or a 921 system to come?

[Jacob S]

You can use it for either one of those but you would only have one of the two inputs connected for the 921 unless it has two outputs on the one lnbf (horn as you call it) then you can connect both of those into the 921. The 921 will have two inputs in it because it has two tuners. You would only be able to receive one orbital slot though in which the main one is 119, not picking up the 110 slot as well like you could with a dish 500, so if you wanted the top 150 package then you would not be able to pick up the extra channels.

In regards to the 6000 you could use this dish for the 61.5 orbital slot to pick up your HD channels in which is what the 6000 is intended for. You could also use it for the 119 orbital slot but not be able to pick up any HD channels there.