Dish alignment problems

Kashkai

I know this has been discussed to death on this forum (I've read through the last 15 pages of threads to know!!!) but I've hit a brick wall with my dish alignment.

I thought I had it done right, i.e.:

Clear line of sight (trees scalped and a shadow of their former selves)
Dish set up and elevation checked - 22 degrees approx
Moved the dish around until my satellite metre was going crazy, adjusted it and adjusted it until the metre was about to explode.

However, my freesat receiver (A grundig) showed 0% signal. Ok so I'm not pointing at Astra 2 I hear you say but I've followed the compass directions given for my area in the Dishpointer's site, checked the direction of my neighbour's dishes and used them to align my dish. However nothing, nada, zip.

I'm going to use my old Sky box tomorrow as it will at least let me know if I'm pointing at Astra 2 which the Grundig won't do.

Final query - the world and his missus says that I should point the dish at 28 degrees east of due south which is 152 degrees on a compass but why does dishpointer state that it should be 143 degrees which is the direction that my neighbour's dishes are pointing?

If I'm missing the bleedin' obvious, please let me know as my kids have this "Daddy has let us down" look on their faces after me promising to free them from RTE land.

Paddy Samurai

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I know this has been discussed to death on this forum (I've read through the last 15 pages of threads to know!!!) but I've hit a brick wall with my dish alignment

Just put the knife on the right,the fork on the left and a spoon at the head of the dish.Also use a napkin and you should have no problems.

Apogee

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

However, my freesat receiver (A grundig) showed 0% signal. Ok so I'm not pointing at Astra 2 I hear you say but I've followed the compass directions given for my area in the Dishpointer's site, checked the direction of my neighbour's dishes and used them to align my dish. However nothing, nada, zip.

You're probably aligned to Astra 1.

Final query - the world and his missus says that I should point the dish at 28 degrees east of due south which is 152 degrees on a compass but why does dishpointer state that it should be 143 degrees which is the direction that my neighbour's dishes are pointing?

Because your location is in Kildare and not on the Greenwich Meridian.

Sam Radford

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

Final query - the world and his missus says that I should point the dish at 28 degrees east of due south which is 152 degrees on a compass but why does dishpointer state that it should be 143 degrees which is the direction that my neighbour's dishes are pointing?

Because 28 degrees east of the southern meridian line is defining a point in space and not a compass bearing.
See http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/satposition.htm

snaps

sounds like def on astra 1. even though it looks like your dish is pointing the right way its not! try nudging the dish down a little to a little less elevation? Is you mount square vertically? If not that will effect your elevation of the dish.

Also its always best to have your freesat receiver pre tuned (Setup) on a dish already installed on 28east astra 2. Freesat receivers are not the best at all to use to get a dish setup as the receivers themselves need setting up and having a channel scan.

Kashkai

Using my old Sky box, I initially locked on Hotbird? at 13 degrees east so using that as a reference point, I moved the dish a little left and a little down and I finally managed to get a lock on Astra 2 which was not where my compass was telling me it should be. Now I'm pretty good at using a compass but Astra 2 was 3 degress right of where the compass was telling me. Bitching aside, it was great to finally see the locked signal on the SKY box after 4 hours of trying. Another half hour of minute adjustments got me 100% signal strength but I couldn't do any better than 50% signal quality. No further adjustment of the dish for elevation or azimuth would improve the signal quality. I even skewed the lnb clockwise but this didn't do much to improve the quality (a few % at best).

Any tips on how the quality could be improved further or should I be alright with 50% or so? BTW I have all the freesat channels with great reception so should I be happy with my efforts?

Final question, the lnb I bought has a pull down cover to proect the f plugs from the weather but they are still exposed from underneath. Should I get some silicon grease to cover them and if so, where would be a handy place to get it?

Tony

Congrats on aligning your dish, no need fo silicone grease if the F connectors are terminated correctly. Your compass may appear to show you the wrong direction because of magnetic deviation between magnetic south and true south.

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

Using my old Sky box, I initially locked on Hotbird? at 13 degrees east so using that as a reference point, I moved the dish a little left and a little down and I finally managed to get a lock on Astra 2 which was not where my compass was telling me it should be. Now I'm pretty good at using a compass but Astra 2 was 3 degress right of where the compass was telling me. Bitching aside, it was great to finally see the locked signal on the SKY box after 4 hours of trying. Another half hour of minute adjustments got me 100% signal strength but I couldn't do any better than 50% signal quality. No further adjustment of the dish for elevation or azimuth would improve the signal quality. I even skewed the lnb clockwise but this didn't do much to improve the quality (a few % at best).

Any tips on how the quality could be improved further or should I be alright with 50% or so? BTW I have all the freesat channels with great reception so should I be happy with my efforts?

Final question, the lnb I bought has a pull down cover to proect the f plugs from the weather but they are still exposed from underneath. Should I get some silicon grease to cover them and if so, where would be a handy place to get it?

snaps

could be the cable causing poor signal quality? Also the lnb does have to be skewed a fair bit for astra 2. Looking at the dish about 16 degrees clockwise (Where the cable comes out the bottom should be about 7 o clockish)

Kashkai

snaps wrote: »

could be the cable causing poor signal quality? Also the lnb does have to be skewed a fair bit for astra 2. Looking at the dish about 16 degrees clockwise (Where the cable comes out the bottom should be about 7 o clockish)

I have the lnb skewed to the correct angle as you state above. You could be right on the cable causing the signal problems as I'm using a cheap length of cable I bought in B & Q last week to practice fitting the F connectors. I have 100 metres of TX100 cable that is waiting to be used as the permanent installation when I get the chance, i.e. when the wife gets back from her folks in Mayo and I don't have to mind the kids. However, if I'm getting 100% signal strength, is it the cheap cable thats only giving me the 50% quality or is the dish alignment still off? (I don't want to mess with it again as it took me a lot of effort to get 50% quality on it and I'm not the most patient guy to begin with!!!)