Very Few Dish Tripod Antennas, Many Starlink Antennas Here

[wdk450]

I'm at Thousand Trails Pio Pico about 40 miles Southeast of San Diego. I had the moving day from **** last Monday, culminating in my not being able to get my Dish tripod antenna to correctly aim. I have been successfully using this setup for about 10 years. I spent Monday night without TV. Tuesday morning I drove around both halves of the RV park, about 120 occupied spaces, looking for another working tripod Dish antenna to copy the angles from with my smartphone. I could only find 2 such antennas in the park - There used to be lots of them. I finally got the satellite tv system working just in time for the Padres playoff game.

While driving around the park I was astounded to see about 40 Starlink satellite internet antennas around the park! I looked into Starlink when it finally became generally available, but the $600 initial equipment cost an d $160 a month data charge was too steep for me.
I have my laptop pc hotspot linked to my IPhone XR on the ATT system. I use a Wilson MyFi 4 band cellular signal amplifier with a multiband cellular antenna 20 feet in the air when I am here at TT Pio Pico. That takes me from 1 bar signal strength to 5 bars on the phone here.

The other park I alternate at nearby, TT Oakzanita Springs, has cell towers just across the highway 79, and 5 bars signal unamplified on ATT and Verizon I have used there. I pay ATT around $60 a month for an unlimited data plan.

 

[jmarnell]

So many folks these days prefer streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime to satellite or cable TV, I assume that's why they're going with Starlink internet service. But like you, we feel the price is too steep for the Starlink internet. We've also had good luck using the hotspot feature on our AT&T phones. In fact we got an extra phone the last time we upgraded (BOGO deal), so we leave one in the RV all the time with the hotspot turned on for our monitor system. And since we aren't full time, I like being able to pay for Dish service on a monthly basis and not have to pay for the months when we aren't traveling.

 

[LBR]

I'm at Thousand Trails Pio Pico about 40 miles Southeast of San Diego. I had the moving day from **** last Monday, culminating in my not being able to get my Dish tripod antenna to correctly aim. I have been successfully using this setup for about 10 years. I spent Monday night without TV. Tuesday morning I drove around both halves of the RV park, about 120 occupied spaces, looking for another working tripod Dish antenna to copy the angles from with my smartphone. I could only find 2 such antennas in the park - There used to be lots of them. I finally got the satellite tv system working just in time for the Padres playoff game.

While driving around the park I was astounded to see about 40 Starlink satellite internet antennas around the park! I looked into Starlink when it finally became generally available, but the $600 initial equipment cost an d $160 a month data charge was too steep for me.
I have my laptop pc hotspot linked to my IPhone XR on the ATT system. I use a Wilson MyFi 4 band cellular signal amplifier with a multiband cellular antenna 20 feet in the air when I am here at TT Pio Pico. That takes me from 1 bar signal strength to 5 bars on the phone here.

The other park I alternate at nearby, TT Oakzanita Springs, has cell towers just across the highway 79, and 5 bars signal unamplified on ATT and Verizon I have used there. I pay ATT around $60 a month for an unlimited data plan.

I installed the Android app "Satellite Pointer", then saved in Favorites Echostar 10, Echostar 14, and Ciel-2 for the 3 used on the West Coast. I also selected a couple of Sirius Sats for reference. Saving in favorites will drop the entire Satellite belt and show only the ones you use.

When in doubt about Dish reception, this app will let me know if it's a go, no go, or marginal coverage thru tree branches.

 

[wdk450]

I've got the smartphone app that shows me the 3 desired western Dish satellites in the sky. I think I started with a bad dish location that blocked some of the signals, changed the dish elevation setting while trying to get the poor dish location to work, which made all following steps harder.
For nearly 3 years I have just been moving every 21 days between 2 TT RV parks about 40 miles apart, so my antenna elevation stays the same, and once I get the tripod levelled all I have to do was swing in the dish azimuth with a signal meter West to East, stopping on the 2nd signal peak (119 degree middle satellite signal).
Once I got the system working again, I took my short bubble level and a permanent marker, marked the dish LMB arm and dish reflector surface where the ends of the level sits when the dish is correctly aimed, and the bubble is in the middle of the level, for a repeatable correct elevation setup.

Thanks for the help!!!