Have you ever installed a dish and....

[McGuyver]

Have you ever installed a dish and hit the target first off without tuning it?

Not to boast but I was wondering how many others have done this, I remember some years ago my first setup was a 36" 3ABN dish kit and I followed the instructions, aimed with the compass and set the elevation according to their suggestions, my target was 101.0W AMC4. All I had was my pre-programmed FTA receiver and a 13" TV up there on the roof, I turned on the Rx and TV and BINGO! It came right up to the 3ABN channel, then I tried to fine tune it and every little bit I tweaked, I lost the signal, the best setting was the first. I was quite surprised that I had it set precisely without tuning.

And then recently it happened again, I installed a mount on the roof and slipped the dish on, I eyeballed it, tightened the bolts and went into the house and turned on the set and BAMB! I had strong signals and never had the need to lug my TV and equipment up on the roof to tune.

After all the time I've spent on my roof playing with dishes, aiming to various sats, I've come to know the locations of my favorite sats and fortunately my roof (rear of house) is facing in the best possible angle with lots of room for multiple dishes.

 

[Mr Tony]

Have you ever installed a dish and hit the target first off without tuning it?

just did it tonite

Went and moved the C-Band dish out of the garage, dropped it "in the vicinity" of where it should be and went inside. Got my TV, receiver and cables and hooked it up. Turned on the receiver and bam...60 quality (thats about normal)

you remember where dishes go when its +12 with windchill of -14 out

 

[digiblur]

Never did it with a KU FTA dish but I've done quite a few times with DirecTV dishes. No compass needed.

It's a great ability to have at setup time in the morning for college football tailgating. You'll have plenty of beer to drink for the day from all the friends you make. "Hey! You're the dish guy. Wanna beer?"

After lunch when the OTA HD games start I break out the OTA antenna skills

The wife says I should get a shirt made up with a bum holding a piece of cardboard saying "Will point dish for beer!"

 

[dfergie]

I've done it with both dish and direct dishes camping... but it evens out...I have needed the SETI array to find a few times before also

 

[Anole]

you win.

This anything like fishing stories?

I can't claim to have ever found one on the first try nor by accident.
Not when using a mount.

Several years ago, I got a bunch of DSS dishes and needed to test their LNBs.
So, one at a time, I attached the LNBs to an 18" dish and hand-held it to shoot a test signal.
If I'd used a fixed dish on a mount, that'd have taken all the fun out of it.
Actually, I didn't have one handy, and thought I'd see what would happen.
Oh, and it was at night, too. Warm summer night, so quite pleasant.

Try it some time. It's not really very difficult.
Well, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6 get progressively easier.

 

[McGuyver]

using that method....

This anything like fishing stories?

I can't claim to have ever found one on the first try nor by accident.
Not when using a mount.

Several years ago, I got a bunch of DSS dishes and needed to test their LNBs.
So, one at a time, I attached the LNBs to an 18" dish and hand-held it to shoot a test signal.
If I'd used a fixed dish on a mount, that'd have taken all the fun out of it.
Actually, I didn't have one handy, and thought I'd see what would happen.
Oh, and it was at night, too. Warm summer night, so quite pleasant.

Try it some time. It's not really very difficult.
Well, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6 get progressively easier.

I use that same method quite often when having a dish mounted, aimed with one LNBF and "hand scanning/searching" with another attached LNBF to find other nearby birds, I do it primarily when planning to catch two or more birds with one dish, (multi-lnbf dish) then I fabricate my "McGuyver" brackets.

 

[iafirebuff]

I have aimed and re-aimed so much that I can now use my compass, put the recevier to an active tp and boom. Pure luck I am sure, but I look back on my 8-10 days it took to initally hit G10 that I laugh (I used to cry)

 

[turbosat]

Agree with the fireman, I can hit sev of them easy, but finding g10 seems to be the toughest to do. Here, an offset dish looks like its pointed right into the
forest, when it's actually aimed at g10 lol.

 

[SatPhreak]

I hit nimiq1 once when setting up a dish for an inlaw. It sure surprised me when I turned on the ird and tv and immediatly saw a picture!

Never had luck like that with a FSS sat though.

 

[i4tas]

Before I ever got my actuator setup on the BUD, I wanted to get G16 so I loosened the blots moved it to where I thought it was, tightened them, went inside and had signal...

I also once has a DSS dish and was testing it to see if it worked and I held it with my arm and got signal for a quick second or two - Echo 3 it was.

 

[Stargazer]

When I first started installing Dish Network almost nine years ago I pointed it where I thought it should go without using a signal meter outside or on the tv screen and I got 100%. This was back in the days when there was only the single eye dishes (Dish300).

 

[rv1pop]

I set up the dish by the directions - though the compass did not work - (too much iron in soil ?) hooked up and turned it on and TBN came in strong ! Of course I was on G25 and should have been on AMC4 by the numbers, so really, I was off by a bit!

The receiver was preprogramed and happened to be on TBN when powered up, so when I changed to 3ABN I had to tune the dish which at that point was easy. Thanks SatGuys for the training!

 

[McGuyver]

I did it again yesterday, after modifying a dish with another feed arm and setting the skew to about 36* I set it on the post and eyeballed it, turn on the set and had 70% signal and 81% after tuning it. Pretty close....

 

[Steveo]

Yeah, I have done so. On C Band that is. and I mean not just setting it up for a single sat. The trick is to get the declination and elevation perfect for true north (south). Spend heaps of time on that but once you do all the sats will be there. Getting your head around the concept first is the most difficult thing once you have all the rest falll into place easy.

 

[Inno]

Did it two weeks ago with an express-vu dish for a friend of my mom. Although I used to be an installer for an express-vu retailer. In the few hundred dishes I installed though, it's not as common as one might think.

 

[VinceT3]

I've done it with my dishnetwork dish.. never ever with my T90

 

[tvropro]

Did it quite a few times installing c band dishes for people back in the early 90's.

 

[Tron]

I've done it with my dishnetwork dish.. never ever with my T90

Doing this with a T-90 would be a feat worthy of Guiness' attention

 

[Larry1]

I've done it with both dish and direct dishes camping... but it evens out...I have needed the SETI array to find a few times before also

How true.. I have found the Bell sat without moving the dish while on a ladder, but while I was about 25ft up a tower (to clear some trees) it took over an hour to find the same sat. Sometimes it is not just where you think it should be.

 

[Woofle]

I must be lucky

Agree with the fireman, I can hit sev of them easy, but finding g10 seems to be the toughest to do. Here, an offset dish looks like its pointed right into the
forest, when it's actually aimed at g10 lol.

I must be lucky that G10R is my "true south" satellite. (I'm at 122, it's at 123), and it's up pretty high in the sky and therefore, probably a bit stronger for us here.

But it was a bear to find. I thought with a 90 cm dish I would be getting stupid-strong signals, but turns out thre really *is* an art to getting a dish pointed bang-on, that seems to get a little easier every time you do it.

How did I finally do it? I pointed in the general direction of true South, and tweaked until my cheap satellite meter went nuts. That was (presumably) DISH at 122 (very strong, even with my linear LNB.)

Then hooked up the Mercury II, set it to transponder 11800, and tweaked it a tiny bit west and a tiny bit up and down, and then a little up and down, and there it was.

Happiness is RTN to unwind to and warm up to after a long cold dish pointing session