Aiming the dish through a small "window" ... advisable?

[StevenMark]

I'm thinking about putting a Dish 500 on a pole between my house and an outbuilding. The view window is about 8-feet wide and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to locate the pole so that the dish can see the birds (119° and 110°). Is it common to do this sort of thing – set up for a tight shot? Seems like this should be OK since the dish aims at such a tiny spot in the sky.

I already have a 500 mounted about 150' from the house with wide open view of the sky, but would like to shorten the cable run and get rid of the 100' underground segment.

 

[navychop]

Honestly, I wouldn't put up a dish anywhere that couldn't get 110, 119 & 129, even if you don't have HD today. They may reassign channels to different sats for various reasons. It appears Dish is moving toward HD setups for most installs, as some older SD receivers are being replaced by ViP211s.


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[boba]

I'm thinking about putting a Dish 500 on a pole between my house and an outbuilding. The view window is about 8-feet wide and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to locate the pole so that the dish can see the birds (119° and 110°). Is it common to do this sort of thing – set up for a tight shot? Seems like this should be OK since the dish aims at such a tiny spot in the sky.

I already have a 500 mounted about 150' from the house with wide open view of the sky, but would like to shorten the cable run and get rid of the 100' underground segment.

Trees continue to grow how long do you estimate this small window will last before it fills in? Also wet leaves/branches hang down will this cause rain fade?

 

[Stargazer]

I've gotten the signals in holding the dish in my hand pointing out the window in the past.

 

[nelson61]

I would not do anything that did not get 129. 129w is the main HD satellite for the western arc.

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[StevenMark]

Good point re: the bird at 129°. Its azimuth is 14° South of the focal point for 110/119. I'll use that in my planning - If I'm lucky all 3 birds will be visible .

Tree growth won't be a problem. There are no trees within 200 yards in the direction the dish will be pointed.

My window is wide open vertically, it's the horizontal where I'm limited. My second dish showed up in today's mail. I'll play with it tomorrow, we'll see how it goes.

 

[navychop]

Ah! With two dishes, you should be able to do anything!

 

[StevenMark]

Mission Accomplished

I put the 2nd dish on a tripod mount to sight it in. As good luck would have it, there's a clean view right down the middle between the 2 buildings. Couldn't have planned it any better. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart

 

[harshness]

Sometimes you can "outsmart" yourself (spend extra money and time) if you aren't willing to do a little math. If the "view" isn't down a long corridor, you should be able to get it all on a single dish.

If the buildings shared a common sight line along the south wall, you could place the dish as far back as 15' from that line in Milwaukee, WI (a near worst-case scenario for a WA install at 22 degrees spread) and still get all three birds. Of course this assumes that the 8' number you gave is the minimum distance between any overhangs.

The advantage to a single dish is that you can often save big money on switchgear which may cost more than a complete dish/LNB assembly (versus a DPP44).