google earth kmz files for satellites?

[Dee_Ann]

Hi guys,

I’m looking for a kmz that has all the satellites that will give you something similar to what dishpointer.com gives you.

Their page/app will only show you one satellite at a time.

What I’m hoping for is like a way to draw a line from all the useful satellites, from their actual orbital spot to the exact place where I want to have a dish.


I’m looking at moving to a different city in a much larger place and IF it happens, I will get to start over from scratch.

There are no satellite dishes there at all. Not one. So I will have to plan out where and how to put my dishes at the new place.

The only real problem is that the place is so flippin big that I would have to run very long cables. As it is now I think I have 4 runs, I would like to do 5 runs.
I am thinking that I would be better off to use RG-11Q. I’m using siamese RG-6Q now but it’s not very long, less than 50’..

The wires I use now I get in 500 foot rolls and it’s very high grade, rated for satellite and HD video bandwidth. I bought the best I could find and it’s served me exceptionally well.
It also works great for security cameras to carry video and over the CAT-5E side of the siamese that can carry power and data signals to control PTZ motors.

The place I might move into is so big that I would likely have to put multiple satellite tuners for both FTA and subscription Dish around the place and that would make for some very long cable runs to the dishes.

The major issue I face is placing the dishes in a way that isn’t a jumbled up mess like I have now. I have to plan it out very carefully.
I THINK that I can hit everything from 61.5 all the way to 137.. When I went to look the place over the other day I had just switched my iPhone to iOS 7 and I forgot to reload the dish pointer apps.
I’m not sure I how low I can see, as in stuff like buildings in my way. I’m pretty sure I’m ok with 61.5 but the Alaskan stuff is very iffy. But it won’t break my heart if I can’t hit them. As long as I can hit everything between 83 and 129 I’ll be very happy. I don’t think trees will be an issue. I just hope I don’t end up having to mount dishes up on the building, it’s a commercial lot with a huge metal building that will be my studio/home. The building is pretty tall, like 25 feet I think and I have no idea how you would attach my big dishes to it, it’s all sheet metal. Oh yeah, as for my OTA antenna, I definitely can attach it up high on the building, I would put a very heavy duty motor and a very large antenna so I can pull in the long distance stuff that gives me trouble here.

I suppose I have three options. Dishes out back, inside the fence, out of sight but a looooong cable run. Or dishes in the front which would put them pretty much down the edge of the parking lot and there for everyone to see and potential vandalism/theft but a shorter cable run. I’m not too big on this option. And one other option would be to put them on the building somehow but I would think that wouldn’t be wise. I’m thinking that they should be on very heavy pipes, in the ground with LOTS of cement. Hurricane proof of course.

Right now there are some trees along the east and north sides of the back of the lot and I kind of think they won’t be in the way but they are bare right now. I’m also unclear as to if they would be on my lot or the neighbors lot.
It’s still early on and it may not even happen at all. I’m hopeful but I don’t want to get too attached to the thing in case it all falls through.

I wish I could see the place with the trees fully greened out, that’s what I really need to see.

Are there any satellite planning apps? I really want to avoid the jumble mess like I have now. My ex plunked a few dishes down in random places many years ago and I sort of got locked into the same stupid process of just putting dishes down in random places without thinking it through then regretting it. I just can’t go that route again with this. I’ve got 9 dishes and two of them are quite large. Actually I could make it an even 10. Two of them are motorized. I also think I would like to leave a spot for a second 10’ C-band dish. I think I’m going to paint them all with green, brown, etc. “Dazzle” camouflage to make them blend in and not look like satellite dishes.

So has anyone ever moved and had to relocate a lot of large dishes? Did you have any special apps that helped you figure out where to plant the dishes?

Thanks!

 

[sgs]

Obviously, your largest dishes should go further back (ie "north") compared to the smaller ones, so the big ones don't obstruct the little ones.

When planning, you might not need lines to every possible satellite, just the edge cases, i.e. 83 and 129 degrees.

If you put in your address on dishpointer.com, you should get a google map with a green pointer marking the location. You can move the green pointer to exactly where you are considering putting the dish on your property. Then simply select 83, see if the line of sight looks okay, and then select 129 and see if line of sight is still okay... Every satellite in between will be covered by those edge points; if there is an obstruction that is tall enough between those edges, you know the dish location is no good and you'll have to try another. If you're having trouble seeing the green pointer or getting it exactly where you want it, zoom in or out.

Also, from the satellite images look for markers on the ground (nearby buildings for example), to help you know where your edge points are, when you're on site.

After you have a good spot for the "dish farm", then you just have to give enough room that all the dishes are clear of the "shadow" of any other dish.

sgs

 

[Dee_Ann]

After messing around a few days trying to figure out what’s what, I learned something new.

While I was messing with dishpointer.com I noticed there was a little “button” I guess you could call it under the window that says “+Google Earth”

So I gave it the spot that I THINK I would want to plant my dishes then I select the satellite I’m aiming for and click the afore mentioned google earth button and a little file downloads with a .kml extension.
I have no idea what the difference is between than and a kmz but it’s a google earth file for sure.

So I went through and did that same procedure over and over for each satellite I’m interested in.

I opened google earth and went to my target location and put a maker on the property so it’s easy to home in on.
I went to the menu and selected File, Load then highlighted all the little .kml files I downloaded from dishpointer..

Bingo !!

It looks grim for everything east of 110w.. :cry:

I also went out there and finally remembered to use my iPhone and run the dishpointer app and get a few screenshots of it. Also not looking good.

I need to go back again and enable all the important satellites and run it again for another screenshot. When I took these I just had the subscription satellites selected since I’m paying out the wazzoo for Dish.
I wanted to be sure I could get my $ubscription stuff. It appears I’m in the green zone for that at least.. But I would have a problem with a lot of the FTA satellites and I especially want 83.
I’m still recording Harveytoons twice a day and the silly Saturday night B movies as well. And I’ve also begun recording H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost on C-band 101. 101 appears to be right on the edge of the tree and I can see that being a problem too.
So that tree has to come down. It’s a HUGE tree, probably 80 feet tall, if not more. And it’s very, very much in the way..

IF, and that’s a BIG IF, I get this place it’s going to be a lot of hard work moving my dishes. I’ll have to hire someone to plant the poles. I think what I will do is have the fence people put them in for me.
The whole place has to be fenced in with commercial fence and barbwire so while they are doing that they could use their machines to drill holes in the ground and plant the poles for me.
I would have to give them specific instructions on placement and how much cement to use and stuff like that since it has to support big dishes through hurricanes, much more wind load than a fence would have.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Oh well, never mind. We figured there were just too many things in the NO column to go through with the deal.
I’m not moving after all.
Darn, I would have loved to have 12 times the space I have now. I could have had an awesome studio!

But, eh...

At least in the process I did learn how to do some cool stuff with dishpointer and google earth..

 

[Tron]

With all that space, you could have put up those commercial dishes from that headend. What happened with those anyway?

 

[Dee_Ann]

With all that space, you could have put up those commercial dishes from that headend. What happened with those anyway?

Yes, I could have, several of them.

I did really want those monster dishes. I still do want them. But my physical condition has slid down a lot and I’m about 80% disabled now.
I’ve also lost the use of my right hand due to arthritis.

I’m just not able to do anything anymore and it only gets worse from here. As for my dad helping me, he’s 77 now and going blind.
Neither one of us is up to physical labor things anymore. One of the big reasons I decided against buying that place was that moving would probably kill both me and my dad.
Between the two buildings I would have had over 12,000sqft of floor space, though about 4,000 of it was living area. We were going to sell all our other properties and move everything into that place.
I was going to live there and have a photography studio and give my dad half of the place to store his stuff. He was going to remain living in his house but I was going to sell mine plus another house and a lot with a barn full of my dad’s stuff.
The new lot was 75x200. The other factor was it was going to cost an additional $50,000 to make the place livable, the previous owner left it in a sad state. All in all it was going to cost $150k to buy it and fix it up.
Oh well...

Anyway..

As much as I would LOVE to have those dishes I’ve had to let go of that dream. It makes me ill to think that someone will come along and scrap them.
I could throw up and cry to think of those dishes being ripped down with a tractor and crushed up and hauled off in some redneck pickup truck to the scrap yard. :cry:

I’ll just have to make do with what I have at hand I suppose.

 

[Tron]

Wish I had more room and lived closer. Urban (and suburban in my case) areas don't work well for large dish installations.