Does it matter what BRAND dish I buy?

[stuartr]

I'm going to buy a triple LNB dish when I sign up shortly.  Does it matter what brand of triple LNB I buy?

Best Buy has a Terk dish and I can see that Terk isn't really held in high regard.  I don't know if that extends to the dish. 

Any thoughts?

[Steve Mehs]

All the dishes are the same, just a different logo on the front.

[american_2000]

I mostly install the RCA's. they are a pain in the kiester to get the holes to line up on the LNB for the screws. Like Steve said, they are all the same, just different designs.

[Msguy]

Most Dishes are the same weather they be Sony, RCA, Phillips. the most important thing is the pointing of the dish and the LNB to receive programming. The signal and picture quality should be top priority. Not the brand of your dish. I have an RCA Dish that i had since the Summer of 1997 by the way.

[bills976]

Yes, the dish is irrelevant. The most important factors besides proper aiming of the dish which can cause signal loss are use of quality RG6 cable and a good multiswitch. If you have those, there should be no problem.

[dbkelly]

So, can you use a Dish500 dish with a DirectTV/Tivo Setup? It make sense that it won't matter, other than relign the dish to the new sat. locations.

[HarryD]

What you can do is remove the dish500 dish and use it with the mounting lnb/arm from an 18" non Sony dish. That will increase your signal and decrease your rainfade.
When I switched from E* to D*, this worked out great for me. I increased my signal from 87 to 96.

[dbkelly]

Thanks HarryD.

I've also been told that I will only be able to receive on the 101 orbital slot, not the 119 slot. Sounds like I want some kind of D* dish so that I can receive all the channels I'm subscribed to.

[Brian Shannon]

I would strongly disagree.

I had very bad luck with a Winegard/Phillips dish sold at Best Buy. Less than 60% of the signal strength of my 6 year old Sony dish.

[crkeehn]

I believe that the problem with Terks have been with the OTA antennae that wrap around the dish. Terk promotes them as an easy and effective means of receiving OTA transmissions, however they are not as effective as a standard antenna.

[timf]

To clarify the situation of manufacturers, there are many different manufacturers of the standard 18", single satellite location dish. This is a simple design that can be used with many other satellite systems.

The new 20" dish, which has 3-in-1 LNBs with DIRECTV printed on the back, is a special dish made exclusively for DIRECTV. As far as I know, there is only one company that makes these dishes for DIRECTV. Then, all the brands who sell DIRECTV dishes silkscreen their logo on the dish and sell it under their name. However, the design is identical.