[DRJDAN]

Dish came out today to install my 2nd dish to get extra locals now available in Dallas. He said could not because no line of sight to 148. Said big tree in neighbor's yard two doors down blocked line of sight to 148. He offered to install but said it had to look right though the middle of big tree and would not work. He said this was the third one today that he could not install. He said I could get 61.5 but the extra locals are not on it. He said 148 was West coast and require a real low look form Dallas to get it.

He got Dish on the phone to advise them. They offered me a second opinion, but I did not ask for it.

Does this seem normal?

 

[MikeW]

Not normal, but possible. It would seem though, that if you aren't surrounded by trees, the installer could find a different location to mount the second dish. If they are installing SW21 switches, he could run the coax to your original dish, install the SW21 at the original dish and have you up and running. You probably know where to look, do you see an opening at any other point on your house?

 

[DRJDAN]

He went all over my roof and said he could not get a line of sight. He even offer for me to come up and look for myself. I did not. He was from a company that does these all the time. I assume they don't get as much money if the install is not done. So I don't see any reason he would want to pass up work.

 

[Guest]

According to my trusty $4.95 calculator, 148 should appear (in Dallas) at an elevation of 23.8 deg.. That figures to 44 ft. (approximate) rise of the signal path for every 100 ft.

Every March and October, satellites (particularly C-band, aka BUDs) go through "solar outage". The phenomenen has a double edge in that if you know the time a particular sat goes through that for your location, at that time look for the sun. If you have an unrestricted view of the sun, reception of that sat is a sure thing.

 

[RJS1111111]

Now that the leaves are on the trees, I realize that there is only one place on my house for a 148 dish, it's way up high on the second story roof, and it's kind of far away from where my DISH 500 is right now (first story north garage roof line). I've got more lines of sight for 61.5, but it can be tricky too. I'm just about smack dab in the middle between these two longitudes:

148 - 105 = 43
105 - 61.5 = 43.5

I eventually want both "wing" satellites so I can get extra locals and Sky Angel.

Looks like I'll need a tall ladder and lots of coax to make this work. I don't think putting either dish on a pole in the yard would help me much, unless it's a very tall, padded pole, more like a tower.

 

[bryan27]

Did the installer actually install the dish and look at the signal strength or did he just look around and say there was no line of sight? When I got my 500 upgrade last month the installer said I couldn't get 110 because of trees and that the signal meter he used said the signal was too low. After we looked at the 110 signal strength on the Point Dish Screen on the receiver the signal was in the 90's and was high enough. So much for the installer saying I couldn't get 110