Installation Manual which explains the process on page 5. All of our installation support folks are also trained thoroughly on the subject..
The grounding disclaimer ("
Note: please check local codes...") is a cop-out. It puts the grounding monkey squarely on the customer's back. Those three graphics (under the disclaimer) are misleading too. I can cite scenarios where
imitating those three graphics can either result in no path to ground, or constitute a direct violation of the NEC regs. In 1-2 family structures for example:
#1 - Since it only
covers the ground wire, the customer has no way of knowing if a conduit by itself actually represents a usable ground path.
#2 - suggests
any "existing ground wire". Wrong. Existing residential ground wires are AC grounds. Satellite systems are DC, and must never be attached to the
load side of a distribution panel.
#3 - suggests
any "existing ground rod", without specifying that
supplemental ground electrodes must be appropriately bonded to whatever constitutes the structure's common ground (typically beneath the service entrance).
The instructions also fail to address apartment and mobile home grounding. The rules are different than those for 1-2 family structures. Be advised before you challenge any of this - I have the NFPA 70, National Electrical Code right in front of me. I'll cite page and paragraph.
Next. AMC15 employs linear orthogonal polarization, which dictates a POL angle (skew) somewhere between + 90 degrees and -90 degrees . Yet the installation instructions are at best vauge about skew. The satellite calculator recommended on pg3 (DishPointer) provides a skew angle and direction, yet pg4 specifies setting the LNB at zero. Is it because the note on pg8 reveals the SkyWay skew can only be adjusted +/-20 degrees? Where I live for example, the POL angle with AMC15 is +21.4 degrees. Oooops. DishPointer also provides
two Az angles; true and magnetic. Yet pg8 further neglects to tell the customer
which one to start with. Magnetic deviation can approach 20 degrees in CONUS alone. If the customer unwittingly uses the
true Az number as a compass point,
the recommended +/- 10 degree sweep could miss AMC15 entirely.
My SW20 questions remain unanswered by the way. In case you hoped I've forgotten, why did SkyWay elect to use the archaic 10Base-T and V.34 standards - instead of the more current 100Base-T or 1000Base-T and v.44 circuitry? Oh, and for the record; the 33.6 kbps (v.34) or 44 kbps (v.44) analog modem transmit standards originate from the ITU, then were
adopted by the FCC.
Anyway. If I wasn't already pretty sure it would be a waste of time, these would make for some interesting questions to ask the "
installation support folks".
//greg//