I am new to this forum, but not new to satellite tv. I have recently bought a HDTV, and called D* for an upgrade. Here is my experience:
Last week, I had my system upgraded to the hr20-700, and the 5 lnb dish. The installer did an overall good job with the install, but when I repeatedly checked the signal levels from 103b, I was seeing 35-60 signal strength on both tuners and all transponders. 101 and 119 were in mid to high 90's. (Location is north east of Atlanta).
After seeing other posters readings in the 85-97 range, I decided that maybe he didn't peak the signal correctly. Knowing that the tilt angle was correct, with the signal levels I was seeing at 101 and 119, I looked up the manual for the 5 lnb dish for any answers, and lo and behold, there it was.
You can have nearly perfect readings across the board for the Ku band sats, and have next to nothing on the Ka, which has a much smaller boresight, or beam width. With this information, I proceeded outside with my 1/2 socket, and ADD son, (not really, but he's ten which means about the same) watching the signal strength meter for 103b.
Now, what I did is not what is recommended by the manual, but knowing the tilt angle was correct, it only seemed logical that my antenna was misaligned by a small margin in either the azimuth or elevation. I chose to test the azimuth first, as the fine tune screw was easier to get to, and tried to nudge the antenna to the right, to see what effect it would have on the signal at 103. I was then very surprised to find that the tech didn't lock down the dish!
After a few choice expletives, I pulled the antenna back to the approximate location it was at, and then my son said the signal on 103 went to the mid 90's. After a few minutes of trying to peak it further, I locked it in place. I went inside and checked 101, 103, 110 and 119, and now have 90+ on each sat and tuner. I should note, the signal levels on 101 and 119 improved about 5 points each after this tweak as well.
Bottom line, you can do it yourself fairly easily but please read the antenna manual first. You do not need a Ka band sat finder to do a good alignment, just a decent knowledge of geometry, and ONLY adjust one axis at a time.
Background Disclosure:
I have experience on the space side, having worked in the satellite industry for twenty years. I have had a hand in building components for many satellites, primarily microwave waveguide switching devices for receive and transmit applications for commercial and military birds. (DTV-7 was among them).
