Where to measure from on dish

eirman

I've got a triangular device made up with a spirit level at the base and a high powered green laser at an angle of 22 degrees on the upper part. I want to work out how much the neighbour's tree is interfering with satellite reception.

Where do I position my device on the dish for the best assessment of leaf blockage? The bottom center would seem to be the most logical position.

Can I rely on the arm that holds the octo LNB for the true direction?

Cantona's Collars

This website will help http://www.dishpointer.com/

eirman

At the moment I'm getting 9 + 9 on each input on the sky box, so I know that the dish is correctly aligned. Once the heavy rain and wind come along the signal gets a bit ropey. The dish itself barely moves in strong wind.

The green laser is powerful, but not powerful enough to reach the astra28 satellites ... it's intended for the leaves next door.

Peter Rhea

Position your device at bottom centre or as close as possible, with the base level.

Dishpointer, mentioned by zerks above, has a line of sight checker but you'd have to know the height of the tree.

Hugh Cream

zerks wrote: »

This website will help http://www.dishpointer.com/

whats the deal with this mate, does it tell you which way to point a satalite to get a signal?

Stinicker

Download and install Gorbtack and enter the height of the tree, dish and distance between dish and tree. The Satellite comes in at a higher trajectory that the LNB arm, and is bounced off the dish surface and onto the LNB.

SalteeDog

The path from the dish to the satellite is effectively a cylinder - diameter of which is the same as the width (not height) of the dish. I would suggest you take 'readings' with your green laser from four points - top, bottom, left and right of the dish. If leaf obstruction is inside the cylinder bounded by those four edges then you have a problem. If possible use a digital camera to take photos and analyse them later on PC (you can add guide lines at correct angles etc.)

All a bit Heath Robinson really but if nothing else a bit of fun.

Tony

If you have a smart phone the dishpointer pro app is very useful.

eirman

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Position your device at bottom centre or as close as possible, with the base level.

The above advice was the most useful. It gave me a target for my chopping.

Thanks to everyone for your input.

jay5296

Tony wrote: »

If you have a smart phone the dishpointer pro app is very useful.

There's many apps out there for finding Satellites. I use Sat finder myself, well i try to use it... Yeah great for spotting sats as are they all. They give you all the correct information, azm, ele and if there's obstructions. But what i find difficult is alligning the dish with your phone!!! How do you actually physically use your app to line up the dish. I mean we can all point our phone to the sky and find 28.2/13/19 east, thats the easy bit but where do you stand with the phone in relation to the dish. Trying to hold the phone square with dish is impossible along with trying to hold your hand steady. Is it a matter of holding the phone somewhere above your LNB! Forgive me if i'm missing something here but the only use i get from them is to give you a rough idea of where to point the dish, which you can always do by looking at the neighbours sky dish.

Tony

I don't use the smartphone to line up the dish, it just shows whether you have line of sight or not to the satellite. I mentioned it only in the context of this thread as the OP needed to know what part of the tree caused the obstruction.

http://youtu.be/5AFtcgYRcu4

jay5296 wrote: »

There's many apps out there for finding Satellites. I use Sat finder myself, well i try to use it... Yeah great for spotting sats as are they all. They give you all the correct information, azm, ele and if there's obstructions. But what i find difficult is alligning the dish with your phone!!! How do you actually physically use your app to line up the dish. I mean we can all point our phone to the sky and find 28.2/13/19 east, thats the easy bit but where do you stand with the phone in relation to the dish. Trying to hold the phone square with dish is impossible along with trying to hold your hand steady. Is it a matter of holding the phone somewhere above your LNB! Forgive me if i'm missing something here but the only use i get from them is to give you a rough idea of where to point the dish, which you can always do by looking at the neighbours sky dish.

jay5296

Yeah absolutly, great for checking obstructions, but wouldn't it be great to have an app that attaches to the dish to work out allignment. Doing a bit of research and found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AekmsOOp7A&feature=related

Tony

Not sure how much extra benefit that would be as the alignment will never be optimal without a connection to the LNB

jay5296 wrote: »

but wouldn't it be great to have an app that attaches to the dish to work out allignment.