Dish 500

Dish 500 is a satellite dish provided by Dish Network that was developed to replace the discontinued Dish 300 model. Dish 500 is slightly larger than the Dish 300 model at 20” in diameter, but is capable of receiving broadcasts from both the 110°W and the 119°W orbital locations owned by EchoStar, effectively doubling the capacity that was provided by the Dish 300 and allowing Dish Network and EchoStar to provide customers with up to 500 channels to a single satellite dish.

How Dish 500 Works

Dish 500 had an upgraded dual-LNB assembly that Dish 300 didn’t, allowing it to connect to both EchoStar orbital locations simultaneously, while the Dish 300 was only able to connect to the 119°W location. This was a necessary advancement for EchoStar to properly use the 28 transponders it had recently acquired from ASkyB and MCI WorldCom. To support its larger dual-LNB assembly, Dish 500 measured 20” in diameter and weighed slightly more, but was still light enough for easy installation and maintenance.

Applications

Dish 500 could be used for connecting to both EchoStar orbital locations simultaneously in order to provide customers with up to 500 channels. Dish 500 could also be used in conjunction with an older Dish 300 model for reception of signals from Latin American orbital locations, such as the 148°W or 61.5°W orbital locations, or for additional reception of the 119°W orbital location.

Advantages

Dish 500 is advantageous because it allows for consumers to connect to multiple orbital locations at the same time in order to receive a wider variety of services and channels, such as History Channel International, Boomerang, The Science Channel, Planet Green, and Comedy Central.