Larger Dish

[travman]

I live in Saskatchewan, Canada, and therefore need a larger dish to get the Dish 119 Signal. I get 110 at about 80 percent with my 20" inch Bell dish. I was looking on ebay for a larger dish, and saw many 30" x 40" Channel Master Dishes. Has anyone tried these, and will they work for Bell / Dishnet. The reason I ask is they are quite cheap compared to any 36" dish I have found out there.

[biggs]

What I would do:
Get a motorized 3 or 4 foot dish and make sure you have nothing in that direction. If you can't pick up any signal with the dish you have now you either have an obstruction or the dish is way too small. I'm northeast USA and using a primestar modded dish, 110 signal is 130% and 119 is only 89%. I have neighbors trees around here messin wiff me. You can snag an old primestar off flea-bay for around 25-35 bux and shipping. Since it cannot be tilted for skew, you can mod the mount or better yet use a motor setup.

[greenmachine]

I tried a star crap 30" dish and it would only get me high 40's for signal strength on 119' so I got an old 5 ' mesh dish and it wasn't any better so I dug my old 10' mesh dish out of the bush and it gets high 50's . A one meter star crap dish works probably better but I didn't want to spend 150$ on something that wasn't going to last. I am North of PA Sask.

[cybercurves]

You're gonna need at least a 1.2 meter dish (4 ft) or better yet a 1.8 meter dish (6 ft). With a 1.8 dish you'll pick up all the 119 channels during the day, but the signal drops about 20 points during the evening enough to lose about 70% of the channels for about a 5 hour span.

[travman]

I dont know where you live, but I know that near central Saskatchewan a 1 meter dish works just fine. I have a friend getting over 90% during the day, and he loses only about 10% strength during the evening. Never once has a channel been lost for any amount of time

[cybercurves]

It all depends where you live. There is a dead zone in the sat signal which typically lies in the central part of Canada. If you live farther up north you're fine. If you live in the south area close to the US border you're fine. The difference is only 100 miles. That's how close it is.

[travman]

Well if greenmachine says he is north of PA.....wouldn't that put him in the northern part of Saskatchewan???

[cybercurves]

Well that could still lie in the dead zone of the signal or wave.

[greenmachine]

By a map I,m pretty much in the middle of the province ,but my signal strength is high fifties and it doesn't matter what time of day but I have problems with the wind shaking that big ugly dish. You take the old C band LNB out and make the hole a hair bigger and you can slip a BEV LNB right in.

[cybercurves]

Exactly. Your modified C-band dish will shake like a leaf whenever the wind blows and the fact the signal strength is weak to begin with isn't helping. At least a 1.8 meter dish won't shake, but it's costly.