Motorized Geosat Pro dish aimed at 30W

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AcWxRadar

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Apr 26, 2006
4,575
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40 miles NW of Omaha. Omaha?
Radar, did we ever see a picture of the dish you have pointed at 30W? You're pretty far west is why I ask.

Toucan-man,

I received my new replacement USB adapter for my cellular phone micro storage memory chip today. Now I can retrieve my photos. Here are some pix of the dish parked at 30°W, Hispasat (from 96.4°W longitude).

RADAR

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Over here at 79.3 even with 30W sat higher in the sky with lots of bumps and trees no hope at all in pointing that far east. I think you lucked out with flat land and no trees.Then again... you get tornadoes.
 
lt looks like your view east is completely unobstructed. My longitude is 81.6W, and I can get 15W fine... that's the equivalent of you being at 96.4W and receiving 30W. When I point my dish at 15W, it looks just like the pics you posted.
 
I like it. Has it been reliable for you motoring over that far east?

Toucan-man,

Thank you. Yes, the signal is strong and the channels pop in everytime like a snap! I usually watch Cubavision on TP 11884 V (signal quality is currently showing 80% on my AZBox).

Tonight I am logging in 21 active TPs with 61 ITC TV and 58 ITC RADIO channels. The weather is not the best for scanning right now, but it is fair. Since I do have to look through a lot of the atmosphere it does diminish the signal quality at times when it is heavy overcast or raining.

Iceberg said:
boy if you got any snow that sucker would be buried

Ice,

It is definitely low to the ground, but when we get lots of snow, we usually also get LOTS of wind. The dish is in quite an open area of the yard and the wind blows all the snow away from the base of the dish. It's kinda "self-cleaning". Bad part of where it is located is that certain times in the spring, the wind direction (and strong gusts) hit my dish at just the right angle and starts it "fluttering". The dish and the LNBF support begin to set up their own harmonic vibrations and if they are not in sync, I can detect quick blips in the signal quality that cause the video and audio to drop out for a split second. At times, this can be very annoying.

lt looks like your view east is completely unobstructed. My longitude is 81.6W, and I can get 15W fine... that's the equivalent of you being at 96.4W and receiving 30W. When I point my dish at 15W, it looks just like the pics you posted.

Andrew,

At my location, I would only have a LOS to as far as 20°W, but I won't get there with my motor. I would have to set up a fixed point dish to test the sats between 20°W and 30°W. I am almost at the physical limits of the motor travel when at 30°W and I can only go a degree or two more.

RADAR
 
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On March 4th, 2012 at 07:47 a.m. my local time, the sun will be in perfect alignment with Hispasat 1D @ 30.04°W.

If I can capture a photograph of the sun's position on or about that date and time to reveal where the satellite truly is on my eastern horizon, I will do so from a position directly in front of the dish. I will then post the picture here. There is, of course, a window of several days when I can do this. Hopefully I will be able to get a good picture on the best day and the quality of the picture will do it justice.

RADAR
 
Hello again folks,

Well, I missed the perfect day by +1, but got the perfect time, weather and opportunity. Biggest problem is taking a picture of the sun with a digital cell phone camera w/o any photographic expertise. Never-the-less, I managed to snap off a few pictures that will give you an idea of where Hispasat 30.0°W is on my horizon (from 41.6°N, 96.4°W). It is not very high, but it is a lot higher than I bet some of you imagined.

When viewing the photo, you will have to attempt to pinpoint near the center of the HUGE disc of the sun (which is overly enlarged in the picture because of no filtration or a proper lens). I was hoping for an overcast morning with the kind of haze that allows you to just make out the outline of the sun, but it was a crystal clear sky and that created the effect of depicting our sun as a "Yellow Super Giant".

The elevation of the sat is where I recalled it to be, but its longitude is further south and less to the east than I thought it was. I thought it was closer to the trees to the left in the picture.

I am glad that the power poles showed up well in the photo, that gives a good reference for height.

One picture was taken standing on the left side of the dish, one standing in front of the center of the dish, one from the right side and one from the center, rear of the dish looking over the top of the dish itself. You can tell which one is which by looking at the subtleties in the landscape markers. If you angle your monitor screen extremely (like a laptop display) you can really get a better perception of the foreground elements or the skyward elements.

RADAR

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Telstar 12 @ 15°W

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