Two antennas in SE Michigan

[rphillips187]

Quick question here...

I've noticed a couple of homes in my area with Dish Network that have two antennas so I'm just wondering if this is something I should be expecting to have to do in my area. I've read that some areas may require two and it also depends on your programming, and I've also read some instances where there was some sort of obstacle in the way so two antennas were required.

Is there anybody in the SE Michigan area that may know the reasoning behind this. I'm getting Dish Network installed once I close on my new home purchase in a couple of weeks and I'm looking at Top 200 with HD and locals (Detroit). My antenna should be able to get a completely unobstructed view of the entire souther sky (it will probably end up mounted near my chimney on the roof or on the chimney itself.

My neighbors are being extra loud tonight so I'm about to get out the broom stick...I want my house.

Thanks in advance!!

[BNUMM]

Could be because a satellite is blocked and they need a second dish to get it.

[rphillips187]

Could be because a satellite is blocked and they need a second dish to get it.


I guess I'm just trying to figure out if it's normal to have two dishes with not so out of the ordinary programming in my area, aside from an obstruction blocking a satellite or some other out of the ordinary issue.

[MarkOK]

I guess I'm just trying to figure out if it's normal to have two dishes with not so out of the ordinary programming in my area, aside from an obstruction blocking a satellite or some other out of the ordinary issue.

I'm not in your area, but I have two dishes. I had one Dish 500 (dual LNB) originally. Later on D* notified me that I could get extended locals (mostly UHF channels) and a few other channels for gratis, but they would have to come and install another dish (single LNB). That may be one reason why.

[HobbyTalk]

I live in SE MI. 2 antennas are not required. They may have an extra antenna for international channels?

[rphillips187]

I live in SE MI. 2 antennas are not required. They may have an extra antenna for international channels?

That's what I figured. My parents have E* with only one antenna and haven't reported any issues. Then again, they probably wouldn't know if they were having any.

[DStroyer]

I'm in NE Pennsylvania. I've got AT100+Locals+HD+HBO. I've got 2 dishes - One pointed at 61.5 west longitude, and the other pointed at 110 and 119.

As you can tell from the numbers, that 61.5 is WAY out there, in relation to the others (50 degrees difference), so it's natural that one dish wouldn't be able to see satellites that are spaced so far apart.

Of course, when I got my setup 6 months ago (and maybe when your neighbors first got theirs), I believe all the Voom HD channels were on the 61.5 satellite, so that view of the 61.5 was essential to receive the full HD package. But, in the past few months, they've been moving channels around to different satellites, so it may not be necessary to have multiple dishes by now.

Oh, and the whole chimney mount thing... I don't recommend it. Some guy somewhere had his dish mounted on his chimney. The dish caught a really strong wind one day and pulled the top of the chimney over, blocking the opening, and the guy got a dangerous buildup of carbon monoxide in his home. Go for roof-mount, or even bolted to the side of your house.

[rphillips187]

Thank you for the information. I'll definitely think twice about the chimney mount, although I'll be pretty pissed off if a gust of wind is able to pull the brick loose from my chimney and knock it over. I'll probably have them mount directly on the roof then. The front of the house is facing South and my wife will shoot me if I mount the dish there and the current cable lines are all going into the house on the East side of the house so to keep the guy from stringing wires all over the place it would probably be easiest to just roof mount it and run the wires directly down from there.

By the way, exactly how many wires are going to have to be run from the antenna? I'm going to have just one receiver to start, going to an HD (TV1) and an SD (TV2).

Thanks.

[BNUMM]

If they use a DishProPlus Twin LNB it will be one wire to a separator behind the receiver which will send the signal to the two tuners. If they use a DishPro Twin LNB there will be two wires to the receiver.

[koji68]

I got my second antenna when the VOOM channels came to E*. At that time, there was no 1000, 1000+, etc. It was necessary to get a second dish. Also some of the local channels where only on the 61.5 bird. Now all the locals have to been in the same satellite and you can get up to 4 satellite locations with one dish. Having a second dish pointed to 129 gets you a better signal from than satellite.