Info needed to upgrade receivers

[dlenscoe]

Hi, I'm new to the forums so here goes. I live east of Pittsburgh,Pa (17 miles). I wanted to upgrade to HD but was told that I would need a 2nd dish. The problem there is no line of sight.(there is a hill behind my house and the HD line of sight is lower on the horizon). I was the told that 61.5 would be available but I would have to wait for my locals to be moved over.(still waiting since december). I am left with 2 possibilities,I guess? Could dish network install the 61.5 dish for all of my programming and use my 110 to bring in just my locals? The other possibility is to scrap the HD and keep standard def. I have had dish for 14 years and am still using dish 1000's (14 years old). I have dish 500 dual lnb. There are 4 co-axials going to 2 sw21's ,then 2 co-axials coming into my house. What are my options for upgrading receivers? I was looking at 2 322's. Can this be done and what would it take?
Thanks for any advice. David

[Stewart Vernon]

Welcome!

Upgrades of receivers and costs are determined by lots of things, usually easier to login or phone in to Dish and ask them what costs for what upgrades. Eastern arc customers are forced to take MPEG4 ViP receivers even if they only want SD... other customers still can get SD receivers if they want.

If you go HD, you'd either need to see 129 or 61.5 in order to get the majority of the HD channels. That location might also depend upon where your HD locals are, if you want them in HD via Dish as well, or you can just go with OTA since the ViP receivers will tune digital OTA as well.

I thought I remembered Pittsburgh being on 118.7, but they might also be on either 61.5 or 129 too. My memory is fuzzy on DMA locations other than my own.

[BobaBird]

For (2) 322 receivers, both the duals and SW21s will be replaced with a DishPro Plus Twin (http://www.dishuser.org/twin.php#dpp).

Upgrading to HD will require a 3rd (or in your case a 4th) orbital slot. The national channels on 129° and 61.5° are the same (It's not clear which one is obstructed for you, but you can use the other).

Pittsburgh HD locals are on 118.75°, so you will get a Dish 1000+ (http://www.dishuser.org/plusdish.php) for 110/118.75/119/129 or a Dish 500+ (same dish minus the 129 LNB) and 2nd dish for 61.5°. Pittsburgh HD has also been uplinked but not yet available on 129° ch 4608-4611.

[dlenscoe]

Hi, Thanks for the responses. I have legacy 1000's which I plan to replace. I have dish 500 which give me 110 and 119 degrees. A dish network tech came to do the HD upgrade but said that he could not do it because he could not get a line of sight for the HD satelite. He said that it a lower aim ( i'm not sure which satelite he is refering to 118.75 or 129). Can the 61.5 and my current dish be interfaced (with equipment changes of course). The reason for keeping 110 is just for my locals. I've had dish for 14 years. I hate to switch to direct but I'm losing my patience with waiting for them to get the locals added to the 61.5. Can 110 and the 61.5 be interfaced to to get what I want. Thanks, David

[BobaBird]

Well, 118.75 isn't too low because the Dish 500+ picks up both it and 119 on the same dual-band LNB. Also, 118.75 only has a few HD locals and a bunch of international channels. In the east, the dish for 61.5 is aimed higher than for 129, so 129 must be the problem.

The national HD channels on 129° and 61.5° are the same except for a few RSNs. The DPP Twin on the Dish 500 is probably the easiest way to 61.5 (more ways to add a dish (http://www.dishuser.org/addadish.php)), but that won't get you the HD locals. You want a Dish 500+ with another dish for 61.5.