Help with alignment

[Guest1]

Okay I am trying to install a standard 18 inch dish for dish network and I could get signal on the 119 satellite while holding it but when it is mounted I can't find it. I can't find it anymore holding it either. When I got it the signal was only in the high 40's and I can get 110 around 117. Should I be able to find the 119 satellite and does anyone have any tips? The people that owned the house before us had a Primestar dish and it had been disconnected if that works will Dish network work?

[Mike500]

Make sure that you have the elevation angle correct. Some older, and even some newer dishes are 3-4 degrees off. The arm is offset about 22 degrees. Go out and get a clinometer at Lowe's, Home Depot or Sears. Place it on the arm. It should show a number equal to your setting of the arm's protractor minus about 22 degrees. On some dishes this offset is 21 and on other's, it's 23.

The lnb on the Primestar dish will not work with Dish Network. Dish Network lnb's have right or left circular polarization, while Primestar lnb's are linearly polarized.

[HTguy]

Sounds like your elevation is a couple of degrees low. That would explain why you get a high signal at 110 but a low one at 119. What you are actually getting at 119 is probably the DirecTV bird.

[Jacob S]

Also check the skew.

[HTguy]

There's no skew setting for the 18" dish since it only points at one orbital position.

[Richard King]

The ABSOULUTE MOST IMPORTANT STEP in mounting a dish is to make sure the pole is ABSOLUTELY plumb. If it is you can use the designated angles for your location. If it is not you could search all day. Good luck.

[Jacob S]

That is correct. I had a customer call me on the phone, he nor this guy that knew about satellites could not get the signal in. I told him to make sure he had the mast plumb or his numbers would not be true. I told him to give that a try, and he called me back and told me 'thank you, you are a good guy' saved him $100+ rather than having to come out and set it for him. Some people have a problem with following directions or understand what you are talking about on the phone though.

[xgrep]

If you've got tons and tons of patience and luck, you *might* be able to catch a bird just by sweeping, without bothering to plumb the mount or use the markings. I managed to do it (twice) when looking for an analog Ka bird, but it's nearly impossible with digital, because you don't get a lock soon enough to know whether you're on the bird. A satfinder will help with this, but it's still *always* easier to follow the directions :-).

x

[DarrellP]

It's not that hard, heck, when I moved 5 months ago I sat my dish in a big flowerpot, guesstimated the azimuth and started sweeping till I got a blip on the strength meter then fine tuned from there. It took me all of 5 minutes to lock onto a strong signal and start watching some TV. I held the dish steady with 3 one gallon jugs of water.

Of course, once I got settled in and got it mounted, it was a piece of cake to plumb the mast, whip out the compass, shoot the azimuth, lock it down, done.

[sbill67]

what a STUD!!!

[oljim]

The PS dish will work, if you use a Direct TV LNB with a round neck. A 1 in PVC union cut in half will work as a bushing to make it fit in place of Prime Star LNB . I have used one on 119 for Yrs.