Thrilled new DISH subscriber - do it!!!!

I still "feel the joy" every day. I still have a child-like awe of the technology, and how so many channels can be crammed into a sat signal, or even a wire. I sit on my patio and look at my dish, wishing I could 'illuminate' the signal to make it visible like the neon lights under a Honda Civic, or the colors of the DBSTalk logo.

I am even impressed that I transmit the output of my two DPs 12 different ways to seven TVs and two VCRs.

No, I don't take any of this stuff for granted. From age 10 (back in the Howdy Doody days), when I envisioned a larger screen and a 'remote' to deal with an unstable vertical-hold, it's been my life-long holy grail. Now, I aspire to the Nirvana of HDTV.

To those of us, including myself, that have said "It's only TV", I say that for many of us, television, and DBS in particular, it is much more.

From complex uplink facilities, up to the satellites and down to our homes, all this stuff still interests and amazes me.

Originally posted by Jacob S
The RG-59 cable might be a concern later on if you choose to go with dishpro technology and that type of wire may fail later on you and it may not, depending on the quality of that wire. As long as there is no switching going on like a dish 500 then there should be no problems. I have seen where other people have gotten a wire and used it for a while then it failed on them in which I did not install. They would attach a peice of RG-59 cable to the coax I had to extend te cable and then try to say that I added it when I didnt. It is important to add RG-6 wire when you do add a peice of wire on.

Click to expand...

I'd like to add a bit of clarification to this if I may. As far as the equipment is concerned, RG-6 and RG-59 are electically identical. They are both 75 ohm coaxial transmission mediums, and if manufactured properly, any 75 ohm cable whether 6 or 59 will "look" the same electrically to receivers, switches, and LNBF's, whether they are DishPro or not.

Other than the fact that 6 is a bit more physically rugged the only difference (all other things being equal, such as amount of shielding) is in how much each attenuates RF signals over a given distance. RG-6 has only about 75% of the loss of RG-59 making it superior in that single regard, a difference that is ONLY significant when cable runs are long.

The bottom line then is that RG-59 is perfectly acceptable for any short runs at L-band frequencies, but RG-6 would likely be more appropriate for anything over 50 feet.

With apologies to Jason, as he stated, the quality of the wire (whether RG-6 or RG-59) is really what's key. While either is acceptable and neither is really inferior or improper to use, If you are purchasing wire for connecting up a DBS setup, RG-6 comes with a higher recommendation (especially for longer runs), but if you have quality RG-59 on hand, you really risk little or nothing by using that instead.