Realignment for 99c

621 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Mertzen, Aug 4, 2008

CliffV

Discussion Starter · Aug 4, 2008

Last Thursday I succesfully re-aligned my AU-9 to get better signal strength on 99c. It was strange enough that I thought I'd share the experience.

Here is a sample of my signal strengths before re-alignement:

99c: Transponders 1 and 2: 47 and 66
99s: Trasnponders 2 and 4: 95 and 96
101: Transponders 17 and 18: 81 and 98

Notice that 99s and 101 are fine, but 99c is very low.

I tweaked the re-alignment by having my wife walkie talkie my signal strength readings off an HR21-700. After tweaking, I got:

99c: Transponders 1 and 2: 89 and 87
99s: Trasnponders 2 and 4: 98 and 99
101: Transponders 17 and 18: 81 and 99

I tried tweeking each of azimuth, elevation, and tilt. Only azimuth was off. But it was off by almost a full 2 rotations of the dithering adjustment. (I ended up pointing just a little more to the West.)

So the signal strength on each of the satellites improved a little. But 99c improved a lot. Does that imply that the 99c satellite (D11) is actually a little bit further West than the 99s satellite (Spaceway)?

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Mertzen

· #2 · Aug 4, 2008

CliffV said:
So the signal strength on each of the satellites improved a little. But 99c improved a lot. Does that imply that the 99c satellite (D11) is actually a little bit further West than the 99s satellite (Spaceway)?

Nope it just means that your alignment was off:

- Old Ku signal is wider so even a good reading on 101 can mean the dish is not properly aligned.
- 99s is a spot beam and hence more powerful so it will show a high signal even though the dish is not properly aligned.

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Mertzen

· #4 · Aug 4, 2008

CliffV said:
However, the 99s signal only went up by 3 points and the 99c signal went up by 21 to 42 points. It seems a little strange that there is such a large different unless 99c is a little to the West.

Just out of curiosity, I went to lyngsat.com. It says D11 is at 99.25 degrees and that Spaceway 2 is at 99.08 degrees. I guess that counts as a "little" bit West.

Again that difference in improvement is just conus vs higher power spot beam.

And indeed there is a small difference but they are still pointed the same direction. :sure:

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