Satellite TV reception in the North

This previous post may help.

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Probably going to be pretty much the same. I travel Alaska "A LOT"..... Cannot get Direct TV after Prince George no way no how. The bird is too far down on the horizon and my dish just won't get down that far and work. I have tried it with three different dish arrangements and notha on all of them. However once I did get it in Ketchikan but only once. Must have been bouncing off of something. At any rate that has been my experience with it. Maybe somebody else has had more luck with it than me.

If you were to ever have a prayer of getting Sat signal up north you need to ditch the small dishes and get a really BIG dish. One that is placed high enough in the air to get a clear signal.

You need to understand what is limiting your reception and what you can do about it. The Winegard Trav'ler will only tune down to about 18 degrees above the horizon. As long as you have a clear view of the satellites, you can get DirecTV programs on a Trav'ler as far north as Douglas, across the channel from Juneau. I have done this in Douglas, 58 deg 16 min north, but if I were on the east side of the Rockies, your reception will go away much further south due to the shadow of the mountains. With a very slight modification, I have spent a summer in Valdez, 61 degrees 07 min north, and have been able to receive all but the 119 satellite. A mountain was in the way for 119. To get my antenna to tune that far down below 18 degrees I put a nickel ($0.05) in the antenna LNB arm pinch point and did a manual search.

When driving in the far north with the Rockies between you and the satellites, reception is going to drop out a lot sooner than if you are on the west side of the mountains or have a clear channel over water to the same satellites. Geographic location of the antenna is the biggest factor in these receptions. Just moving the antenna one RV space to either side in our Valdez park made a huge difference as to what I could get and what I could not.

The OP is hoping to get Dish, not Directv so the satellites are much farther West and higher in the sky.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
The OP is hoping to get Dish, not Directv so the satellites are much farther West and higher in the sky.

I understand that, but a mountain is still a mountain. All the satellites are in orbit over the equator, and all at approximately 22,000 miles high to be able to keep a fixed sky position, so a difference of 10 degrees longitude (119 DirecTV to 129 Dish) is not going to make that much difference. When the Rockies are in the way and the antenna low tune angle can't be met due to latitude, you're still not going to get a signal. If you were talking about the Canadian Bell system with satellites at 81 and 92 degrees longitude, that would be an entirely different issue.

Sorry, but DirecTV is at 99,101,103 so the difference in elevation between 101 and 119/129 is substantial. Imagine the difference between satellites located on a Central TX longitude and satellites located along CA and the Pacific Ocean.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Sorry, but DirecTV is at 99,101,103 so the difference in elevation between 101 and 119/129 is substantial. Imagine the difference between satellites located on a Central TX longitude and satellites located along CA and the Pacific Ocean.

Go to http://iamanedgecutter.com/showthread.php/825-Transponder-Maps-Domestic-Data-9-28-2016?p=21928&viewfull=1#post21928 post one and click on the link to TPN_Map_Domestic_180418.xlsx for DirecTV individual channel assignments for each and every DirecTV channel. Domestic channels run from satellite at 99W to 119W. DirecTV also uses 95W for specific overseas programming in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Philippines, Vietnam and other areas.

As I said, a mountain is a mountain. Find the satellite you need, regardless of the provider, and shoot a line from where you are to the bird you need. If there's a mountain between, you will not get it, regardless of how big a dish you have.

Again, the OP is talking about Dish, Not DTV, AND he is talking about using a portable automatic antenna. These antennas CANNOT "the bird you need" they can only locate the satellites they are programmed to receive. For DirecTV and this type antenna that means the 101 satellite. I also suspect he's not really interested in programming in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Philippines or Vietnam.