I have Dishnetwork at home and a spare dish with a brand new LNB that I bought because the I figued the LNB I had was bad due to NOT being able to acquire a signal away from home. I tested it on my RV at home which is parked near the address where my Dishnetwork service is and was able to get a good signal and watch TV. On my next camping trip about 40 miles away I set it up and aimed it and could not get jack squat! with my receiver signal meter on sat 119 it would say not locked. If I switched up or down and then back to 119 it would say "locked" but I could not get the signal strength past 52; then the signal would just go away. It did this for more than an hour before I finally gave up. Am I doing something wrong?
OR
Does Dish know when the receiver is not at/near the service address and somehow block the signal? I have read here people mention "RV" packages for sat TV. I only my home service. I was able to get signal and TV at home in my RV pretty easily, but as soome as I go on the road I get NOTHING!!!
They dont know where you are ... not possable. I dare say the problem is your aiming as frustrating as that seems. Doesnt dish use a dual sat head still? maybe you have locked onto the wrong sat as there are several in that general orbit space. also be sure to check the cables in your RV , I tried and tried.... got no signal and found out the mfg had shorted out the through the wall connection.
Bill
2000 Ford f250 7.3L 6sp man 3.73
ride rite airbags
2004 everest 343L
We've been having trouble locking onto Dish's satellite, too. It's VERY close to another one and it seems to want to pick up that other one. We bought an Align-a-site....I'm not sure it really helps all that much!!!!
Dee & Bob
1990 Fleetwood Fifth Wheel
2 cats - Donner and Dasher
kids are grown and on their own
12 grandkids
life is good!!!!
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I to have had issues of late catching the right signal. I have the 500 with dual LNB. Last weekend I tried for over a half hour to aim. I had directions perfect. I knew it should be locking on but all I got was the "bah bah bah" from the receiver. A breaker had popped on the pole and after restoring the power, I was then aquiring the right signal!! I had not moved the dish at all after the power outage. Very strange. Other times I can set the dish down and eyeball it if I know where south exactly is and get signal right away. But lately I have been having some issues.
Every meal is a feast, everyday is a parade and every paycheck is a fortune!
Winter is not far off, the misery begins
I guess I just need to keep trying. I have the skew and elevation right on the marks on the dish, which leaves me with only the azimuth to figure out. Using my trusty military compass i shoot a 151 degree azimuth and use my satelite finder to lock onto what SHOULD be the signal, but no luck. I use a regular carpenters level to plum my tripod. I had the bubble between the lines, although not EXACTLY between the lines, it was beteen the lines. I suppose that could be the problem. When the DISH guy set up my dish at my house he used a fence post level. Maybe I need to invest in one of those..................
One thing if you are not doing it already is to move the dish very, very slowly when aiming. I have little patience and I have to always remind myself to slow down. Sounds like you have everything else right.
Thats the trick I learned is going past SAT 119 and then come back to it slowly so you will get 110 & 119.. all you need to do is just make sure the dish is level and then go for it.. I too have had a hard time getting SAT 110 lately... I have a SAT finder that I use and it really helps.. I use the Dish 500 Duel LNB and a 301 receiver.
good luck.
2006 Ford F-250 Super Duty, Amarillo Special Edition 4 X 4 & 6.0 PSD,
Tow Haul/Tow Boss/Tow Command, 18" load E tires standard.
Me, a Wife and two crazy kids
2006 Holiday Rambler, Next Level 38FKS
First thing, Elevation is calculated differently when your dish is mounted on a house vs. on a tri pod. Forget elevation all together.
First get a compass, not the piece of******that comes with most tri pods but a real compass.
Second, find the azimuth or directional heading on the compass where you are supposed to be. Line the dish up in that general direction.
Third, set your skew according to your zip your in
Fourth. turn the receiver on, go into the system and point dish option.
Fifth slowly move the elevation up and down. If no signal turn the azimuth slightly, you shouldn't need much until you locate a signal. A few degress either direction if you are lined up properly, again a good compass helps greatly.
sixth, once you get signal, tighten things a bit and make very small adjustments to see where the signal drops or increases. Normally I just slightly tug the edges of the dish, up - down - left - right and signal either goes up or down. I fine tune that way in small increments.
Seventh, once you get decent signal 85+ run a check switch
Once that is completed you should have 119 and 110 with signal. Let the guide update and you should be done.
A lot of people get caught up on the elevation thing. There is a good website outthere that shows that if you are standing up and are nomral size an elevation of 45 would be your arm extended out straight in front of you. That should give you a general idea on where that dish should be pointing but if you have in on a tripod on teh ground most likely your issue is the elevation is too low raise it up a bit on the dish and play with it.
Remember small adjustments once you get signal, its takes a few seconds sometimes for it to register changes. Patience is a virtue.
One other thing, if you find a sat and can't seem to locate the other one run a check switch. This has happened to me several times before where I found 110 but not 119 no matter how much I tried. After messing with the dish for 30 minutes I did another check switch only to find out it was a software issue preventing the unit from finding the sat.
Boy, I thought it was just me! For whatever reason, in my driveway, I can plug into either my house dish or my tripod with no problem. On the road, the very same alignment process is hit and miss, and recently has been mostly miss. I use one of those cheap, loud, obnoxious signal finders, and get 110 with no problem, every time.
A couple of days ago, I tried for an hour to lock onto 119, and gave up. I plopped the tripod a couple of feet away, and bang, got 119. At least that gave me a starting point. I still don't understand what is going on, but I got two peak signals, a bad one about 4 degrees lower than the good one, but the false peak was the published angle for the zip code.
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