Silly Question about Dish 500

[PNotar]

With all the talk about switches for hitting multiple locations, I had a strange question. I'm guessing this shows how little I've been paying attention to what I have, but here goes.....

I have a Dish 500 hooked up to a legacy receiver. I looked outside at the dish (it's low, I can reach it with a step-ladder) and there is no visible switch. Just a single coax that comes into the house and (after a few connections) goes straight to the receiver. When I get the 921, I'm planning to get a dish for 61.5 (has some locals we don't care about, so it will be free to get the HD programming). Of course, I'm hoping to get SuperDish if they don't cancel it today at noon. I've been assuming I'll need a DP44 when all is said and done.

My question is: If I need the DP 44 to get 4 locations, why don't I need some kind of switch now to get 2 locations? What am I missing?

Thanks!
P.

 

[sclaws]

I'll guess you have a Twin500 LNB, which combines 110/119 on one line-out from the dish itself. There should be another line out of that LNB that you can run for a 2nd receiver. You'd use a SW21 for each tuner feed when combining with the 61.5...this is how mine is currently setup, but I feed 2 receivers as opposed to a 2-tuner single receiver.

 

[PNotar]

I'll guess you have a Twin500 LNB, which combines 110/119 on one line-out from the dish itself.

Thanks for the info. Any guesses why they did not incorporate this concept into the SuperDish instead of requiring a 3 or 4 bird switch?

There should be another line out of that LNB that you can run for a 2nd receiver.

I'm pretty sure there is no second cable now. Perhaps a screw-on socket under the LNB that just isn't patched now? Have to give it a closer look tonight.

Thanks for your help!
P.

 

[Stargazer]

When the Dish500 first came out it also did not have a built in switch but a sw-21 switch to connect 110 and 119 orbital slot lnbf's (2) into (1) line therefore thats the reason it is called a sw-21 switch. The SuperDish is the same as when the Dish500 first came out, has an external switch instead of one built in. It is probably too big to build into the lnbf's.