[Guest]

So I took the plunge and got the oval dish. I didn't have too much trouble acquiring a signal but want to know how hard I should try to get the signal strength up.

On a clear day when I installed I was getting 87 on the 101 bird and 77 on the 119. Living on the west coast I figured I should be able to do better on the 119 but didn't worry too much.

This morning (light rain) I was down to 80 on the 101 and 69 on 119.

I'm a little concerned that on some days my 119 signal just won't be good enough. So now I'm thinking of going back and trying to fine tune.

What I don't know is what parameters to adjust. The oval dish has elevation angle, tilt, and azimuth to play with. If I'm getting such different results on the two sats would it be a tilt problem, elevation, or what? I just don't want to go crazy and make things worse.

 

[Guest]

Until spotbeams are up 119 will be lower then 101. You could get 2 seperated 18" dishes for 101 and 119 but since you already got a 24" eliptical dish. Id play with all 3, elevation angle, tilt, and azimuth, but just a little.

Steve

 

[Guest]

I don't have directv so take what I say with a grain of salt. I wouldn't play with the tilt or skew angle unless you absolutely cannot get a better signal by adjusting the elevation and azimuth. And Steve's absolutely right about using small increments - I'm talking about very small fractions of an inch movement in either direction. Do one direction at a time - don't try to adjust elevation and azimuth at the same time. Also, before you start, you should probably mark on the scales where it is set now so you can always go back to where you started if you have trouble getting any improvment. I find that a sharpie works best - don't scratch the scale - it'll rust eventually.