How much of a "Southern View" do I need?

[penguinsix]

Hi,

Been up on my roof most of the morning, moving my new motorized (HH90) Fortec 33 inch dish around trying to find some signal quality, to no avail (Strength in the 75-79 range). I know there are a lot of little things I need to deal with (and will shortly after lunch) but I have a big issue I wanted to ask about first:

Trees.

My roof dish is 35 feet up. There are a bunch of trees to the south of my house, about 40 feet south of the dish and extending 50-60 feet high, ie about 20 feet of trees 40 feet away from where the dish is located. I know that is a big no-no, but was wondering if I might still get lucky because I was able to get a pretty strong signal when I had DishNetwork up on the roof in the exact same location that the FTA dish is now located.

So I was wondering, can you get Dish but not FTA? If I got Dish, is that a good sign or was I just lucky (between a tree or something).

Also, I have another option--a seawall into the Chesapeake Bay that has a pretty good southern view until you point to about 220 degrees magnetic. Totally unobstructed to the East, but trees and the such to the west. How much "East-West" (left right) is the dish going to turn? My magnetic declination at 10.85 (191 I gather) and I took a compass down there and didn't see many problems. I was just wondering how far left/right of due south the dish will move.

 

[PSB]

Most motors move around 70 deg. East and west. Sure you can get Dishnotwork to work if it has a clear line of sight to the satellite, but if the rest of your veiw south is blocked by trees you will not have much luck. Signal strength means NOTHING, all you are looking at will be signal QUALITY.

As for clearing the trees it depends where you are and what elevation you need to get the satellite. For example if the elevation to the satellite is 40 deg. You would have to be 24' away from the 20' trees to clear them, let us know the elevation to the satellite and we can let you know if you will clear the trees (or not).

 

[penguinsix]

I was just trying to get T5 to start with, but it it is going to be hit or miss on each satellite I'd rather move it somewhere where I don't have as many problems.

 

[penguinsix]

I think I might go with the seawall option.

 

[penguinsix]

I'll try to post pictures but I have to get past the anti-spam option. Hang on...

 

[anik]

I think I might go with the seawall option.

I've never lived near the ocean but I think I'd be concerned about the corrosive effects of salt spray on the metal parts of the dish, not to mention a storm surge if you ever get a hurricane that far north. Of course, if the trees really are an insurmountable obsticle then you may have no other choice, but I will say that the satellites often tend to be higher in the sky than people think they are.

Next sunny day you have, see if the sun clears the treetops from the location you want to put your dish. At this time of year, if the sun is completely above the treetops all day and casts no shadows on your proposed dish location then you are golden, and will have no problems from trees. If, however, a tree casts a shadow on the place where your dish would be, then any satellite behind that tree may not be receivable. However, if it's just the very top of the tree casting a shadow that ends maybe midway up your dish, you may still be okay, at least until the tree grows taller (since the sun is now just little lower in the sky than the actual satellites).

You could also check from your proposed seawall location and note what time the sun starts to drop behind the trees. If it's within half an hour or so of local sunset then you should be able to pick up most of the arc. The greater the difference between the time the sun drops behind the trees and sunset, the worse off you are.

 

[penguinsix]

It is literally right on the edge of the shadows.

 

[penguinsix]

The peak of my roof has no shadows. The deck where I put it, well, the deck has some shadows, and I put it on the rail a few feet up so it is really right on the edge.

Unfortunately, going on the roof is going to require a professional, as it is quite steep and quite high. Ropes, belay, the whole nine yards.

The seawall is a pretty nice option as it has a killer due south view, but I'm not sure when the shadows will hit my proposed location as it is down at the bottom of a cliff. I was thinking about the salt issue (although technically a fresh water bay, the Chesapeake does taste salty when you fall in it). Thought about some housing for the motor to protect against the spary, and when the occasionally hurricane does come it will have to come out.

 

[penguinsix]

<img src =http://www.penguinsix.com/images/dish.jpg>
http://www.penguinsix.com/images/dish.jpg

That's the view from the dish.

<img src =http://www.penguinsix.com/images/distance.jpg>
http://www.penguinsix.com/images/distance.jpg

That's the distance to the trees.

<img src =http://www.penguinsix.com/images/seawall.jpg>
http://www.penguinsix.com/images/seawall.jpg

That's the view from the seawall. The wood runs right along 191 degrees, basically..

 

[penguinsix]

3:00 EDT and the seawall is under shadows.

Drat.

 

[Azel]

This site may help.
http://perso.numericable.fr/~gjullien/satellite.htm

Or site along a the edge of a protractor with a weighted string tied to it's center for the desired elevation (a home made Angle Finder).

 

[penguinsix]

I feel like Bluto Blutarsky when it comes to signal quality...

zero point zero.

For the sake of argument, let's say the trees are messing up my feed. Would I get a quality reading of 0 or something (anything).

Everything is plumb, accurately measured, pointed, and whatnot. I'm starting to wonder if a setting in my Pansat 3500 is messed up (I had Standard LNB, Diseq 3, USALS positioning and I can't remember everything else).

Maybe I used a crappy cable between the LNB and the motor. Signal strength is consistently 75 or so no matter which satellite I try for, and the motor is moving the dish around when I change satellites. Just a big fat hairy 0 on signal quality, no matter what I do East/West or elevation.

Gotta be the trees?

 

[dogstar1313]

I just recently got my setup dialed in and I can tell you a couple of things I learned during my installation. They may help, or they may not.


1. Double check your LNB skew. When I assembled my dish I set the skew to zero and clamped it down, but not quite tight enough because evidently when I later hooked the cables to it I bumped it about 20 degrees off center. From my position behind the dish I couldn't see this easily so I didn't notice it until after two frustrating days of trying to dial in the arc and failing miserably. Once I corrected this it wasn't long until I was on my way to getting dialed in.

2. A cheap signal meter with a sensitivity adjustment is a good thing. I used one and I think it was very beneficial in locating sats. What I did initially was turn the meter's sensitivity up to where it was barely beeping and registering like a 3 or something in an area of the sky I knew had no signal. Then, using a compass, I moved the rig on the pole to the approximate location in the sky for the sat I was shooting for, then I would very slowly move the rig on the pole til I pegged it, then turn down the meter sensitivity to about three and move slowly until it would peg it again, then turn it down and peg it again, etc. Once I was pegging the meter with sensitivity set to 1/2 or less on the meter I would go inside and see what the receiver said. Most of the time when I went inside I had strong signal, but no quality, usually because I was not actually on the sat I was looking for, or at least I assume that's why because a blind scan would find the proper transponders for the sat I was actually pointing at and then I had quality on those. From the scan results I would determine which sat I was hitting by using Lyngsat to lookup the channels I was seeing. When I was stumped and couldn't figure what sat I was on using Lyngsat I would post in a thread I had going in this forum and someone more wise than I in these matters would kindly assist me. Once I figured out which sat I was actually on I would know whether to rotate east or west from that position. If I wasn't where I needed to be I would go back out with the meter and move the dish in the appropriate direction and tune the sensitivity similar to how I did initially until I had a good strong signal in a new location. Then I would repeat the whole blind scan dance to determine where I was. I did this several times until I was finally where I needed to be. Since the TV is about 150ft. from the dish there was no way I could tweak the quality by myself so at that point I woke my wife up in the middle of the night and gave her a walkie-talkie to help me dial the quality in (I don't recommend this procedure however as it produces negative side effects from which I am still suffering).

I'm sure this isn't the best method, but it worked for me and maybe something of it will be useful to you or someone else.

 

[penguinsix]

I'll check the LNB tomorrow. I'm in the same boat as it is "out of sight" right now and probably misconfigured.

I'm seriously considering moving the dish to ground level on the other side of my home so I can have greater access to the nuts and bolts while I try to get it set up.

 

[penguinsix]

The LNB didn't look that off center. I'm going to play with elevation a bit until about "noon" (when I'm going to check my due South vs. the Sun) and then if all else fails, take the thing apart and try a different location on the other side of my house that I think will be able to get past the trees.

I just wish I could get a "hint" of signal quality up on the roof--just 1 or 2 even, as that would kind of mean I'm close. I've been stuck on 0 so much I wonder if I'm doing something else wrong.

 

[dogstar1313]

Unless you are pointing at the sat you have the receiver set for you won't see any quality. That's why I would blind scan every time I got a high signal strength. The receiver then would scan in the transponders for whatever bird I was looking at and then based on the channels it found I could determine where I was and where I needed to go. Like I said before it's probably not the best method, but it worked well for me.

 

[penguinsix]

For what its worth, I've officially given up on the roof deck as a location. I watched the shadows of the trees in question most of the morning and they were on and off the dish's face throughout the early hours. I've disassembled it and have moved it to a ground location on the other side of the house, where the Sun is well above the trees and the dish will be out of the shadows.

I'm going to plot "due south" in 29 minutes and 30 seconds with a sun dial (i.e. a stick). Will let you know how it goes.

 

[djnrg787]

ive seen a dish network dish that is on a roof and theres a big bushy tree right in front of it, the guy who installed it i guess didnt think trees grew cause at the time it was small but it still gets plenty of signal over 100, but the picture does have a grainy digital look but i think thats how all dish network is.