Attempt at 15w

[iBoston]

For me, the signal is about 3 degrees above horizon. I want to try and get the VOA..

I would be using a 39 inch dish. I already know from setting up 30w, the darn dish looks like it is pointed at the ground. So, for 15w, I'm sure ill have issues mounting it right side up being the dish will need to be pointed so far down... So, what is the formula when you turn the dish upside down?? Any pointers? Ill be mounting the dish at about 9 feet above ground, and has a nice line of sight and the ground drops off so, the terrain works in my favor... There are no trees... With VOA being a 1/2 FEC, I'm thinking i might have some luck picking it up, and would be a great test.

 

[jorgek]

Instead of upside down, I tilted the mast forward when trying to receive 8W.

 

[iBoston]

Yea, i did that with 30w. I've been reviewing some old posts. Thus far - I cannot receive a signal. I may make sure i can receive a test signal first.. This is the dish that blew off onto the ground a year back.. Not 100% the lnbf is good.

 

[iBoston]

But my real question is whether or not i have a chance of receiving a signal that is only 3 degrees above horizon?

 

[iBoston]

Also, if i am unable to pull in anything on 15w, does anyone have access to 22w and are there any 24/7 KU TP's that can be picked up. I know its used for CNN feeds in the past, but a check-in on current status would be nice.

I know i can receive 22w, as many years back, i was able to pull in some signals on 22w on my 10' Cband dish. That is about 7 degrees above horizon for me.

 

[jorgek]

Yea, i did that with 30w. I've been reviewing some old posts. Thus far - I cannot receive a signal. I may make sure i can receive a test signal first.. This is the dish that blew off onto the ground a year back.. Not 100% the lnbf is good.

Is it possibe due to the dish falling that it is warped? It does not take much to mess up the focal point. I dropped a 33" dish and I could never peak it right.

 

[iBoston]

Is it possibe due to the dish falling that it is warped? It does not take much to mess up the focal point. I dropped a 33" dish and I could never peak it right.

Actually, the RG6 cords saved the dish.. It never hit the ground, but the lnbf took a wack... The dish has no visible damage. But, i have not pulled any signals in as of yet with this dish. Maybe tomorrow, ill grab a signal I'm very familiar with and weed out any other potential issues.

 

[cyberham]

The best days of 15W seem to be in the past. It was one of my first-ever received satellites from Nova Scotia. I used to receive MSNBC and exotic tps including from TVGE from Equatorial Guinea (now on 97W).

The lowest I've seen in past was 12 degrees elevation. I could reliably receive 3W using my USALS motor mounted near ground level.

Pointing at 3W (12 degrees elevation):


For 3 degrees elevation, if possible, I think you must go inverted. Going inverted makes the physical mount issues disappear. I've heard ground noise may be an issue when pointing that low of an elevation.

Pointing at 14 degrees elevation:


When I last received 15W last year, VOA was about the only regular tp in low band. I could receive while motoring past to 3W. There were some radio channels also on 15W. The VOA tp is only 2.7 C/N lock so it is quite easy to receive.

On 22W, I used the following references as my data tp beacons so I knew where I was looking in the sky. The bolded one was the best (24/7):
12080 H 10332 5/6 DVB-S2 8PSK
12089 H 4720 9/10 DVB-S2 8PSK
12180 H 5423 AUTO DVB-S2 QPSK

ADDED:
For an inverted dish, the actual angle of elevation = physical dish elevation - dish offset. So when the dish is at right angle to the ground (beaming parallel to the ground), it's actually pointing at -22 degrees elevation for my 1m dish. For 3 degrees elevation, if your dish offset is 22 degrees, then you need to physically point the dish at +25 degrees.

 

[primestar31]

You HAVE to do an inverted dish for a sat that low to the horizon, but even so as stated, ground noise is likely going to wipe out any signal, unless you use a much larger dish. Then you might have a chance.

 

[KE4EST]

As others have said, terrestrial noise is going to be too high to receive a signal at that elevation.

 

[cyberham]

I'd still like to hear from anybody who has ACTUALLY tried and succeeded in receiving a sat from, say, below 12 degrees elevation since I personally know that elevation is possible. One problem you may encounter is finding a sat that is that low on Ku may mean you're outside its footprint.

The 15W footprint cuts off in a western direction around Wisconsin, Illinois and south from there.

 

[iBoston]

The location i chose to try and lock 15w wasn't a good location after all. The chosen location is best for west of 80 degrees. I ended up using that dish to lock down 129w. So, i have a fixed location at 129w. I have one more brand new in the box 39" dish I've had for about 3 years. Ill pick the better location and try again at 15w, but if that doesnt work, ill try 22w and 45w. - I know i can get 45w, as i could fetch that off my USALS KU dish i had a couple years back. I already have a fixed dish at 30w (12 degrees above horizon) and 34.5w

 

[iBoston]

I'd still like to hear from anybody who has ACTUALLY tried and succeeded in receiving a sat from, say, below 12 degrees elevation since I personally know that elevation is possible. One problem you may encounter is finding a sat that is that low on Ku may mean you're outside its footprint.

The 15W footprint cuts off in a western direction around Wisconsin, Illinois and south from there.

On my 10' Mesh Cband Dish, I many many times locked 27.5w and watched the couple FTA channels that were on it. That is below 10 degrees for me. I also locked 22w at 7 degrees above horizon on a couple occasions, but only got the strongest signals on it. That was before i put in my 12' which is in the way of the 10' on those extreme east satellites.

But, i will also add that i might be in a prime location. I'm 600 feet above lake superior, and there is nothing but 5 miles of rural land that continues to drop from my home to the lake, followed by 100+ miles of lake superior and even continues tracking over the other great lakes.

 

[cyberham]

I had a fixed dish on 22W for a short while in Nova Scotia. It was quite easy from there. But I found there weren't enough active feeds to make it worthwhile. So when I got my 1.2m motor dish oriented to favour the east, I could motor by 22W regularly. I recall there were good feeds of a bike race in France daily for about a week. And live opera too being fed to the U.S. for a subscription service.

 

[Brct203]

The best days of 15W seem to be in the past. It was one of my first-ever received satellites from Nova Scotia. I used to receive MSNBC and exotic tps including from TVGE from Equatorial Guinea (now on 97W).

The lowest I've seen in past was 12 degrees elevation. I could reliably receive 3W using my USALS motor mounted near ground level.

Pointing at 3W (12 degrees elevation):
View attachment 166330

For 3 degrees elevation, if possible, I think you must go inverted. Going inverted makes the physical mount issues disappear. I've heard ground noise may be an issue when pointing that low of an elevation.

Pointing at 14 degrees elevation:
View attachment 166331

When I last received 15W last year, VOA was about the only regular tp in low band. I could receive while motoring past to 3W. There were some radio channels also on 15W. The VOA tp is only 2.7 C/N lock so it is quite easy to receive.

On 22W, I used the following references as my data tp beacons so I knew where I was looking in the sky. The bolded one was the best (24/7):
12080 H 10332 5/6 DVB-S2 8PSK
12089 H 4720 9/10 DVB-S2 8PSK
12180 H 5423 AUTO DVB-S2 QPSK

ADDED:
For an inverted dish, the actual angle of elevation = physical dish elevation - dish offset. So when the dish is at right angle to the ground (beaming parallel to the ground), it's actually pointing at -22 degrees elevation for my 1m dish. For 3 degrees elevation, if your dish offset is 22 degrees, then you need to physically point the dish at +25 degrees.

last I checked 15W actually had hunderds of channels, the TuVes direct-to-home service from Latin America. Unfortunately only a few religious channels are ITC. Those transponders require a slightly stronger signal than VoA, so in case of marginal reception, they can be missed while VoA is coming in fine.

I found that because they are both fairly low near the horizon, I can easily get 14W and 15W together on the same dish

 

[cyberham]

Here's a copy of the blind scan I did of 15W on June 1, 2021:

 

[cyberham]

Any updates on this project? Apart from the finger-numbing cold these days, no reason not to pursue it now.

 

[iBoston]

Yea, i ran myself out of time. Ill have to wait until spring.. I had some other dishes go off center, and those required my attention.

 

[cyberham]

I can only imagine the amount of work required to keep all your dishes aligned. In my case, my USALS dish can now reliably receive all Ku from 150W to 81W continuous. So I could run a cable to the other side of the property and point my 60e fixed dish to the east. But the arc from 81W to 53W has little to receive on Ku. So all this leaves me is to try pointing the fixed 1.2m dish on C-band toward to west. That bigger dish does work better than the 1m dish for C. The forecasted snow hinders this work.