RT4000T in Marine Environment

[madmako]

Greetings,

I am a Dish Network customer and wish to use a tracking dome system with my Dish receiver on my 42' boat. While I know there are dome Sat domes designed for multi-axis marine environments (roll-pitch-yaw) like KVH, Intellian, etc., I would only use the dome when at anchor, not underway, when the boat is subject to rotation with only minor roll depending on wind and weather.

The unit would be mounted on a flat roof like an RV, along the centerline to mitigate the effects of any minor rocking that may take place. I don't much care about footprint size or height. I have plenty of room. The location is in the Northeast U.S..

The RT4000T seems to be a good fit for the environment I have described, but I would feel more comfortable to gain insight and recommendations from a Winegard technical support rep.

Thank you,
Capt. J. F. Shea

[Winegard Tech Help]

J.F.,

I see a possible issue in the fact that you're using it in the Northeast. DISH coverage (especially satellite 129) can be tough and even in some cases impossible to receive because of the extremely low look angles necessary to target the orbital satellites.

The problem when using it in a marine setting is that we would want to have it run a constant conical search so it could compensate for the movement you'll experience. DISH has a different set of satellites (61.5, 72 and 77 - the Eastern Arc) which would be the optimal satellites to aim for in the Northeast, but as far as I know there isn't a dipswitch setting to use the Eastern Arc while always in-motion. I'll have to look into it, but I'm not even sure the in-motion software will work with Eastern Arc period because of how close 72 and 77 are. Let me check with engineering and get back with you.

[madmako]

Thank you, sir. I look forward to your response.

- John

[Bill Adams]

According to the users manual the Eastern Arc option is not an option for the in-motion domes. The Hybrid mode was designed to deal with the 129 issue and replacing it with the 61.5 for HD. Winegard, do you know if Dish is still duplicating the 129 signal on 61.5 or have they moved this programming?
Should you be able to use this setup, when you are changing dip switches you will also have to change the setup for how long the antenna remaining in idle mode. In order for the antenna to continue tracking the "antenna" must be moving faster than 10 MPH which will not be the case while you are at the dock so the unit will stop tracking after 6 minutes. There are options available to extend this time to many hours.

[Winegard Tech Help]

John,

There is a dipswitch configuration to use Hybrid always in-motion. You will need to put switches 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 down to use this.

DISH has moved some programming around and 61.5 serves mainly as the Eastern Arc SD satellite now, with a majority of HD being on 72.

[madmako]

According to the users manual the Eastern Arc option is not an option for the in-motion domes. The Hybrid mode was designed to deal with the 129 issue and replacing it with the 61.5 for HD. Winegard, do you know if Dish is still duplicating the 129 signal on 61.5 or have they moved this programming?
Should you be able to use this setup, when you are changing dip switches you will also have to change the setup for how long the antenna remaining in idle mode. In order for the antenna to continue tracking the "antenna" must be moving faster than 10 MPH which will not be the case while you are at the dock so the unit will stop tracking after 6 minutes. There are options available to extend this time to many hours.

Thank you, sir, for the response.