Pointing the Directv 1.2 Meter dish with the triple (99,101,103) Advice

[alfwalter]

I have pointed many dishes in my lifetime, from CBAND to DTV to Dish etc...all shapes and sizes...however, I have NEVER pointed a 1.2 meter Hawaii/Alaska Dish since I've never lived there.

Don't want to rehash signal, client wants the 1.2 meter dish in FL for rain fade. I have an AIM meter and a Superbuddy....

In either, I don't see a listing for the 1.2 Meter LNB (99,101,103) - I do NOT need the 110/119

I have googled all over...and can't find an answer on EL AZ Tilt etc for the 1.2 meter Triple LNB...

I am assuming, I can put my AIM meter on the SL3, match the EL and tilt etc and point it in that way? Seems tight, but am I correct?

Or does anyone have any advice / Tutorial on how to point the 1.2 DTV dish in other states?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. And Happy New Year to all.

Marc

 

[slice1900]

Why would you need a special setting in your meter for that dish? Just treat it as a slimline and other than the readings being higher due to the larger dish the peaking process should work the same once you have the rough aim dialed in (which would work differently but you don't use a meter for that part)

 

[Inclined Orbit]

I've peaked a number of Alaska/Hawaii dishes in So Cal and also the first prototypes issued to the DirecTV ODU lab. That was a long time ago and I don't remember them having a turns counting or "dither" procedure, just typical adjustments you would find on any 1.2m dish. The beamwidth would be narrower on these resulting in a better peak on 101 without using a dither procedure compared to no dither on a Slimline size dish.

Not having the instructions in front of me I would start with the dish plumb, the skew set for your zip code then peak 101 the best you can paying extra attention to the azimuth adjustment and maybe detuning each side slightly while taking a meter reading then trying to estimate the center between two identical detuned points east and west.

One thing you don't want to do is try and peak on 99 or 103 Ka band as the distance between those and 101 will vary slightly depending on where you are in the US and peaking on 99 or 103 will nearly double the error on 101 and the other Ka slot. 101 is what you want to peak on. The Alaska/Hawaii dish gave about 5dB more C/N if I remember right and a definite improvement for rain fade. We used them for the main building distribution at a couple of DirecTV uplink sites.

They were kind of a PIA to assemble and peak than a Slimline and much heavier.

Edit: If you have a Slimline available in the same area do a survey on your AIM and print out the results for Ku and Ka then compare with the finished Alaska/Hawaii dish. Since the AIM is an actual receiver it will not only show peak signal levels, it will also show degradation due to adjacent satellite interference if there is any due to mis-pointing errors. You should see close to 5dB more signal on Ku and I don't remember what to expect on Ka.