Signal strength for Dish

I just ditched Comcast & signed on w/Dish this past week. When the tech was doing his installation I noticed the signal strength was at 50%. When I questioned him about that he told me that was how Dish was currently programming their receivers. I have the Turbo HD dish, the 722 dvr receiver, w/250 channels & the HD add on.

This bothers me cause I just spent some money upgrading my television to a nice HD flat screen Sony & had been all fired up about getting the best picture possible. I have a two year contract, so, switching over to Direct or going back to Comcast isn't a possibility for the present.

Can anyone give me some input on the issue of signal strength w/Dish? It seems I would get a better picture w/a stronger signal. True? Is it possible for me to increase the signal myself somehow?

Which sats are you viewing? if the are the Eastern Arc (61.5, 72 & 77) that is all you can expect. But note that having a higher signal does not give you better picture quality, it only ensures of less signal dropouts during extreme rain or snow.

I had the same problem on 61.5 for HD. Signal levels, all of them, 50 or less and drop outs durring rain.
I opened a service call with customer support and decribed my problem as "intermitant signal loss" with error of "satelite signal lost". Dish sent a tech out and he re-aimed my dish for 61.5 and now most of the signal levels are above 50 ..some as high as 75 ..on the meter scale. The tech fiddled with the dish for about 20 minutes.
All my dropouts are gone ! No screen fuzz/cracks from signal loss.

Which sats are you viewing? if the are the Eastern Arc (61.5, 72 & 77) that is all you can expect. But note that having a higher signal does not give you better picture quality, it only ensures of less signal dropouts during extreme rain or snow.

I'm on 61.5. I'm looking at the setup now & see I'm getting q 30% signal which us even worse than at the set up. There are some clouds here in Florida, but nothing too heavy. I see the set up options allow me too enter in my zip code to "calculate peak angles." I'm not sure if I should play w/that, but I'm really tempted.

The set up tech seemed mildly displeased w/Dish for lowering the strength -- which he said was done via the programming. That leads me to believe in past installations they were set for a stronger signal. I wonder what the benefit is to Dish for lowering signal strength. I'm new at all this, but is it akin to internet bandwidth concerns? They must have some reason for lowering it.

I had the same problem on 61.5 for HD. Signal levels, all of them, 50 or less and drop outs durring rain.
I opened a service call with customer support and decribed my problem as "intermitant signal loss" with error of "satelite signal lost". Dish sent a tech out and he re-aimed my dish for 61.5 and now most of the signal levels are above 50 ..some as high as 75 ..on the meter scale. The tech fiddled with the dish for about 20 minutes.
All my dropouts are gone ! No screen fuzz/cracks from signal loss.

I guess I'll phone customer service too. I wanted to get some info first to strengthen my case.

In Atlanta, my HD local channels on 61.5 are spot beamed and come in at between 75 and 80. The non locals such as the History Channel and Discovery come in at about 50. All survive light to moderate clouds and rain with no problems, but the non locals will lose the signal in a storm. It takes a bad storm for the locals to go.

"But this amp turns up to eleven....that's one louder." - Spinal Tap

Signal strength is relative. A year ago, Dish sent out software that reprogrammed the receivers to show signal strength lower (~ 15-20%). The strength of signal didn't change, jut the read out.

"But this amp turns up to eleven....that's one louder." - Spinal Tap

Signal strength is relative... The strength of signal didn't change, just the read out.

This is a correct statement...

To the OP: You did not indicate if you were having any issues at all with your reception/video quality/dropouts, etc. This is the more relavant question. As one off the other posters pointed out, a lower signal doesn't necessarily mean loss of data, however, it CAN mean that you may be more prone to "rain fade" or other similar issues. :2cents

The strength of signal didn't change, jut the read out.

True for me until about six weeks ago when my locals got some spot beam tweaking, because my signal strength jumped from 50 to 75 -80 on all my local channels. :)

True for me until about six weeks ago when my locals got some spot beam tweaking, because my signal strength jumped from 50 to 75 -80 on all my local channels. :)

Are you sure someone didn't mount a large magnifying lens over your dish?:banana:

This is a correct statement...

To the OP: You did not indicate if you were having any issues at all with your reception/video quality/dropouts, etc. This is the more relavant question. As one off the other posters pointed out, a lower signal doesn't necessarily mean loss of data, however, it CAN mean that you may be more prone to "rain fade" or other similar issues. :2cents

No, no real problems. I guess that's the bottom line.

Your locals wouldn't happen to be on 129, would they?

If so, the new bird up there made the difference.

No, no real problems. I guess that's the bottom line.

Just a reminder that a lower signal MAY affect you once in a while during storm activity... I say may, because you won't know untill you experience it.

Liveing here in SoCal though, we hardly EVER get rain ( :( ), so I have RARELY experienced that "rain fade", but it HAS happened to me before... Thankfully, it wasn't during some HD UFC PPV event when I had friends over or something!!! :thumbsup:

Just a reminder that a lower signal MAY affect you once in a while during storm activity... I say may, because you won't know untill you experience it.


As I'm sitting here, there's a frog strangler going on outside. But Fox News keeps on playing. This is why:
http://i383.photobucket.com/albums/oo280/rkduncan/DishMount.jpg
Mount in brick (not the roof) under an eve as much as possible.