Tree and signal strength

vodad

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Dec 14, 2005
269
0
What are the chances of the top of a tree preventing getting any kind of signal from the sat?

I cut down the part that the tech said was probably causing the problem, and there is still no connection to that sat at all, I did not believe the tree was in the way at all and feel the LNB for that sat is bad.

The dish is about 25 feet in the air on my roof, the tree is about 35 feet tall and off to the right when looking from the dish, it is about 8 feet taller than the dish and 20-25 feet from it, also looking from the dish it is about 20 degrees to the right of where the dish is pointing, I just do not see how it is in the way.

The tech did not want to get on the roof and look at anything while he was here.

so I was just wondering, this is not a big tree, there is a branch about 12" in diameter with a few 1-2" branches on it, that is all.

Thanks

James
 
If your numbers are correct, it's not the tree. At 25 feet away the tree would have to be about 20 feet higher than the dish. It might be in line with it because the signal doesn't come from the face of the dish. It comes from a line parallel to the angle brackets on back of the dish. It doesn't take much of a branch to block the signal, so if it's close, it could be the problem.

If it's not the tree the most likely cause is an alignment issue. Check to make sure the mount is secure, no loose screws. You could try to re-align it yourself but if you never did one you might be better of hiring someone.
 
If your numbers are correct, it's not the tree. At 25 feet away the tree would have to be about 20 feet higher than the dish. It might be in line with it because the signal doesn't come from the face of the dish. It comes from a line parallel to the angle brackets on back of the dish. It doesn't take much of a branch to block the signal, so if it's close, it could be the problem.

If it's not the tree the most likely cause is an alignment issue. Check to make sure the mount is secure, no loose screws. You could try to re-align it yourself but if you never did one you might be better of hiring someone.


I have good strengths on the other locations, 110, 118, 119 upper 60's so I doubt that 129 would be off by enough to make it not have a signal at all. I will run some more tests, I am still betting on LNB if I had another I might climb up there and put it on, but there is the height thing. also cabling comes to mind, I think in the 20 foot run to the switch from the sat, there are two barrell connectors, I have switched ports on the switch and 129 does not come in no matter what port it is on, wanted to rule that out too.

I just hate to have dish come out and the installer not want to try anything. I could see the sat having low signals, but no signal at all makes me think something else is wrong.


129 worked fine last year, we just switched it to 61.5 cause my strength was better on it, now that tree is a lot smaller than it was last year. and no strength at all makes me think something happened with the cable or the LNB.
 
What your service rep should have done is replace the LNB and do a Check Switch. If he didn't do that, he didn't do his job, and CEO At Dishnetwork.com would be hearing from me about that.
 
If your numbers are correct, it's not the tree. At 25 feet away the tree would have to be about 20 feet higher than the dish.

How can you make a statement like this when you have no clue where the poster is located? You have no clue what his elevation is, what satellite is not being received, any pictures and have absolutely no info to work from.
 
What your service rep should have done is replace the LNB and do a Check Switch. If he didn't do that, he didn't do his job, and CEO At Dishnetwork.com would be hearing from me about that.

Yea people who know nothing make policy statements. If I as an installer rolls up and see's a tree branch in the LOS then there is a good chance that is the problem. Especially now that the original poster said that he is missing 129 as it sits pretty low on the horizon.
 
What I said was that if his numbers were correct then it probably was not the tree. The reason I said that was because with the distances he quoted the elevation angle of the dish would have to be less than 17 degrees for the tree to interfere with the signal. I don't have to have pictures he gave me all the information needed, two sides of a right triangle.
 
How can you make a statement like this when you have no clue where the poster is located? You have no clue what his elevation is, what satellite is not being received, any pictures and have absolutely no info to work from.

You took the words right out of my keyboard. :)
 
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