A question of skew?

[icstephen]

Ok I am new to all of this and I have my 36" dish up on IA5 and am getting around 80% signal, that being said yesterday I was trying to hit some other satellites and I looked at the Sandoun satellite tips page(http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Dish-Pointing-Tips.htm) and it talks about skew and the way it is worded it looks like this applies to all fixed dish installations. It also says " your LNB is marked with a label indicating polarization tilt" I looked but did not see anything on my LNBF label about skew...also when I use their calculator ( http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Satellite-Heading-Calculator.htm ) it gives different skew for each satellite (some over 30 degrees....which on the tips page says the skew should not be over 30 degrees).

Like I said I get a good signal on IA5 I have the LNBF lined up with the dish (no skew or 0 deg) and get around 113 tv channels and about the same for radio, Now would I get a better signal by adjusting the skew? and if so what should I use to measure the degree of skew (to match what the calculator gives me).

Here are my particulars:

Location: ball ground, Ga. 30107
: 34.33N 84.37W -4.82 mag deviation

System: Receiver - Fortec star lifetime classic NA
: Dish - Fortec 90cm (36")
: LNBF - Fortec star FSKU-v 0.4db universal lnbf
: Cabling - 50ft rg-6 coax

any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Mr Tony]

skew is pretty important with a fixed dish. Everybody's skew is different because your true south is zero (so in your case, your true south is AMC2 at 85 whereas mine is IA6 at 93)

Skew is very important especially the farther away you get from your true south. It can mean no picture versus picture. The best thing to do is slowly skew it to see if the signal does move. I checked and the skew for IA5 for you is +18

so to skew it would be counterclockwise if you are standing in front of the dish. Or to put it another way, right now the coax plug is at "6 oclock"...it shuld be at about "4 oclock"

But like I say, just play with it for optimum signal. Mototrized units always stay at zero. The motor does the skewing

 

[icstephen]

Thanks Ice...I did not even know about skew until I saw it on Sadouns site when I used the sat finder calculator. what about when the calculator gives a skew of over 30 degrees. an example is that for my location G10R comes up as 33.3 El / 235.2 Az / 43.1 positive skew. I do appreciate the info I hope to get an even better signal when I adjust it. Also on a side note are there any wild feeds on IA5? I know we don't talk about the details here (so no details please) but is it worth my time to search for them? or is most every FTA channel on IA5 on 24/7 and on Lyngsat.

Thanks
Stevo

 

[Mr Tony]

There are some feeds on C-band but 99% of KU is listed at Lyngsat

I dont see why you cant skew it more than 30. I would just skew for optimum performance...I just did that yesterday. My skew for G10 is off by about 10 from what it shuld be, yet my siganl is higher

 

[icstephen]

well I wondered the same thing but on the Sadoun site it said no more than 30 but I may have been reading it wrong...I am going to adjust it today and see if I can improve my signal. I am hoping to get 2 or 3 more dishes and a switch in the next 2 weeks and get some other sat's. It should be interesting because when I was trying to get some other Sat's the other day it was a no go and I am figuring that to get the Sat's that I want I will need 1 (maybe 2) dishes in the front yard and at least 2 in the back but I should be able to get around all the trees and get the Sat's that i want.

 

[Sadoun]

Actually you can adjust it more than 30 degrees in some cases, bothing wrong with that. The statement on our website will be corrected.

 

[icstephen]

Actually you can adjust it more than 30 degrees in some cases, bothing wrong with that. The statement on our website will be corrected.

Thanks - I was just confused...I really appreciate the website and all the help on it. Actually I was all set to get some more dishes and lnbf's from you...but my septic system had other ideas ($1300.00 worth) maybe next month...LOL

 

[Sadoun]

...but my septic system had other ideas ($1300.00 worth) maybe next month...LOL

Oh, that stinks.

 

[123tim]

I would just skew for optimum performance...I just did that yesterday. My skew for G10 is off by about 10 from what it should be, yet my signal is higher

Iceberg,
This makes me wonder how much signal could be lost by the skew being "off" on a motorized system. Do you think that yours is off for just G10, or would it be off for any satellite?

 

[Mr Tony]

This was on my fixed dish.

The only satellite I have issues with on my motorized is AMC1 and that is because the skew for that satellite is something like -25 what normal skew is

I get Pentagon just fine but the feeds are a bugger to get

 

[TiminMb]

Something I'm going to play around with on my motorized system as well. I set it at zero for my true south sat. I also tried some other settings and it seemed very tolerant. However, I would like to optimize it for G10 and this as well as the distance of the lnbf from the dish deserves some tweaking.

 

[icstephen]

Oh, that stinks.

---No pun intended...but thats what I thought as the sewage backed up into my basement last night.

 

[sharris]

In my experience as stated in here before, skew is a wierd animal. depending on you setup i.e., mast being perfectly plumb, dish angle, weather etc... these are things all us FTA animals always constantly adjust. Believe me when I say that you will burn a distinct path into your roof shingles over time....always searching for that ellusive "perfect signal". As someone here said before.."we are pretty easy animals to track"

 

[Mr Tony]

Believe me when I say that you will burn a distinct path into your roof shingles over time

been there done that...its pretty sad when you can find the exact spot where the rafters are in your house