Tower or no Tower?

[scarecrovv]

I have a radio shack 10 foot mesh dish that I'm planting. But here's the situation: The post that comes with it is only a little over 5 feet, however I do have a 10 foot tower that i can stick up and put the post on that. That will keep the dish up past any possible snow but will it catch more wind? Also , would it be of any benefit for picking up satellites lower on the horizon? It will be more work to set it up and if there aren't any benefits besides the snow issue I wont bother.

 

[Titanium]

Raising the dish install location will only help if you have a nearby structure or other obstacle that is blocking the satellite. It will not allow you to see more satellites near the horizon.

To put this in perspective:

• The visual horizon at 5 foot elevation is less than 3 miles
• At 100 foot elevation the visual horizon is about twelve miles
• Satellites are located almost 23,000 miles distant
• It is estimated that if the dish was raised 1000 feet you would see approximately one more degree below the horizontal plane.

There are many formulas for calculating point-to-point and google will provide much more in-depth information than I will ever know... LOL!

 

[KE4EST]

That is what I came up with one time, after some Goggling I figured up I would have to put my dish on a ~1200 foot pole to gain 1 deg.

 

[lfp302]

Is there still terrestrial microwave? If so, raising a dish will increase possibility of interference.

 

[FaT Air]

Yes there is, maybe even more so than BITD. Some wireless internet providers are using very close frequencies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11y
Instead of burying pipe, or puting it on a tower, build a 'floating slab' mount for it. http://www.satelliteguys.us/album.php?albumid=248

 

[scarecrovv]

Okay so no tower it is. Maybe I will put up a windmill on the tower instead lol.
Thanks guys.

 

[kittyhas1000legs]

Windmill, OTA antenna (or two), pizza dish adapted for wifi... There are always options.

 

[lfp302]

Just remembeing the old c-band analog days. Those microwave towers were a problem.

 

[Titanium]

Those microwave towers are still a problem. Now you don't see the sparklies in a digital signal, but the signal quality reading drops. You need a spectrum analyzer to see the RF interference.

A lot of guys aren't even aware of the reason that they have poor reception on specific satellites and transponders. It was a lot easier to identify when you would see sparklies in the picture!


Brian Gohl
Titanium Satellite

 

[scarecrovv]

Yeah I've got one of those buggers directly south of me........ Think if I ask them nicely they would move it?

 

[Cham]

If you live in an area where snow would be a problem, you do need to raise the dish enough so it won't get buried.. even if it is only the bottom. I made sure the lowest point on my dish was about 4 1/2' above the ground to make sure of this. Was certainly glad I did that this year, only had a foot of clearance at the bottom on the eastern side of the arc when the snow was deepest.

The negative side of the higher the dish the more stress on the mast... so it should be bigger diameter and/or reinforced. You don't want it to sag or it is difficult to track the arc.

For your tower... become a ham radio operator... you will find lots of uses for it!