139W from the East Coast?

[Pittsville]

I'm about 40 miles from the Atlantic Ocean at 38N and 75W. I get a calculation of 12 degrees elevation for aiming at 139W. I'm positive I have trees in the way and I'm surprised my dish works at all, as close as it is to the trees.

I have been able to go as far as 125W and the feedhorn looks almost like it's paralell to the ground. If I didn't have the trees would it be possible or realistic to try to aim at 139W?

I am currently moving my dish with a 12v power supply so I don't have any positioning reference. I use a great tip from Iceberg, of moving the dish until it loses reception on one satellite to be aimed at the next one. It works great, like from 83w to 85w, or 95w to 97w etc. but I can't step all the way over to 139 that way. I plan to get a positioner box in the future. I was using a really cool old Radio Shack receiver to move the dish, but it died. It was huge but it could store positions and I figured it was 10 clicks per 1 degree.

I think 72 or 74 is my south satellite, so i was also wondering if I could go in the other direction for some of the satellites in the 58 degree range. I'm clear of trees in that direction. I tried it briefly but I didn't get anything. The dish is a 10' mesh Channelmaster. I don't think the skew and focal depth are set precisely. It seems like it works well so far but I figure that if those trees happened to die and fall over I might have to do some tweaking to aim at extreme positions.

 

[phlatwound]

If you had line-of-sight there is no reason why you couldn't receive a satellite at 12 degrees elevation, I think Hispasat @ 30W is about 12.2 degrees elevation for me and I have gotten it.

Seems like I have read here on the forum of some folks getting stuff in the 6-8 degree range also.

And as far as working your aiming your dish without a positioner, you could just time the travel when traveling from known satellites that were a good distance apart and interpolate from there, might get you pretty close.

Also, if your dish is tracking the arc well, you could just put a straightedge on your reflector (I'm assuming prime focus dish here, offset would be similar), and read the elevation directly. When your dish reads the proper elevation your azimuth should be pretty darn close.

 

[Pittsville]

Thanks phlatwound. I might try going East again tonight, but from what I've seen so far on Lyngsat there isn't anything I would be real interested in, in that direction. But it's FTA, so you never know

I think I might have to do like you said and time the movement. I have been moving and blind scanning but it takes a while with the Azbox and I don't have a means of identifying everything I find because I don't have internet access out in the garage where I hide out.

I use a satellite I know I can't get from the receiver's list to search with. Then I identify what satelitte it is, tune a channel there, and move the dish until it comes on. Then I have to blind scan again to put the channels where they belong.

 

[FaT Air]

If it's above the horizon, and there are no LOS obstacles, why not? I have Hispasat @ 30W at 6° elevation. 12° should be a "piece of cake".
On the Eastern side, you should be able to get to 5W I bet. (I have no idea what's available that far east, my bud will only get to 55.5W. fixed Ku on 30W)
I HOPE THAT YOU HAVE THE LIMIT SWITCHES SET IN THE ACTUATOR - that will keep you out of trouble.
To help out finding eastern sats here's what I have for strong TP's
78W 3888 V 23000 (Only TP I can get.)
72W 3935 V 2824
61W 3630 H 2785
58W 4040 H 26590
55.5W 3695 V 8888
end, that's as far as I can go.
BTW: what side of the dish is the actuator on?

 

[Pittsville]

Thanks for the list of transponders. It will help. The dish mover is on the west side of the dish. I have the west limit set so the dish goes as far as it can in that direction. I was working on setting the east limit, but I never tried adjusting the limits before, so it was taking a while and it got dark so I didn't get the east limit set. The dish was going too far in the east direction, so I decided to move it back to 103w and let it sit there a while.

I didn't get to play with it tonight because I was working on a really tough computer problem out there. I opened the case to clean it out some, and I decided to put another cd drive in it, and see if I could get a different video card to work. After that, no video came out of it. I reseated the card a few times, unplugged the new cd drive, got it work one time, then it quit again, went through all that a few times, and finally I figured out that it has to have the monitor cable fully plugged in, or it won't work.

 

[jwwbrennan]

I have a 1.2 meter Ku working well over tree tops at 10.4[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]º[/FONT] (63[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]º[/FONT] to 125[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]º).[/FONT]

Sometimes using the right computer language can help get to the heart of the matter. It can clear the room so you can concentrate on difficult cables requiring contact to work.

 

[Lone Cloud]

I'm in the west so I can grab 139 easy.

Anyway, you are wanting to go 64 degrees off of due south I go about 65 degrees off of due south to get my easternmost satellite - 55.5w. There is still space in my dish to go further at that point. I just haven't tried too hard because I haven't seen much way down east that interests me. If your elevation, declination and zenith point are where they are supposed to be, there shouldn't be any reason why you can't reach over to 139w from your longitude.

Except for your trees, of course.

 

[mikekohl]

A couple of tips. There are no video channels on 139 that can be received outside of Alaska and the Pacific NW.
However there are hundreds of audio channels that will work using an MPEG-4 digital receiver that has Dolby and AAC audio capabilities. Assuming you can clear the trees, a 7 or 8 foot dish should have no problem getting these signals, even in your location. Eyeball the feedhorn from the back of your antenna and see if trees frame the center of the feed. If they are not above that height, you probably have a good chance. In absolutely clear conditions, I have used six foot antennas in the Upper Midwest for these audio signals, but think that a 7 or larger would be advisable given your location and lower elevation.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I'm in Virginia and I can get 139w even through the top of some trees that are like 75ft away. I've found that there's pretty much nothing worth watching on anything past 137w though unless you want an endless supply or satellite radio, which is about all that's on 139w! It's a good strong signal though.