New guy with tough installation.

[Cosmic Thing]

Hello All,

I am about to do my first installation and I have a couple of questions. My site has a lot of trees to the south and west. I will be using a Fortec 80 cm dish to get BYU-TV on Galaxy 28. This is 5 degrees west of due south at my location. I have searched my property and found the best position is on the western property line looking toward the least densest part of the trees. I don't think that the 56 degree inclination is going to clear the treetops. There is a lot of daylight coming thru here but I am still concerned that there will be a problem. Just how bad are trees anyway? I have seen a lot of Dish Network antennas that are aimed directly at stands of trees and they are getting good reception.

The Fortec dish I will be using has a 22.75 degree offset. Will this effect the skew or aiming of the dish and why do they use these offsets? I have noticed that the newer Dish Network dishes have a variable offset adjustment on the mount.

Thanks for any advice that you can offer.

 

[Mr Tony]

Hello All,

I am about to do my first installation and I have a couple of questions. My site has a lot of trees to the south and west. I will be using a Fortec 80 cm dish to get BYU-TV on Galaxy 28. This is 5 degrees west of due south at my location. I have searched my property and found the best position is on the western property line looking toward the least densest part of the trees. I don't think that the 56 degree inclination is going to clear the treetops. There is a lot of daylight coming thru here but I am still concerned that there will be a problem. Just how bad are trees anyway? I have seen a lot of Dish Network antennas that are aimed directly at stands of trees and they are getting good reception.

The Fortec dish I will be using has a 22.75 degree offset. Will this effect the skew or aiming of the dish and why do they use these offsets? I have noticed that the newer Dish Network dishes have a variable offset adjustment on the mount.

Thanks for any advice that you can offer.

how far away and how high are the trees?

The 22 offset doesnt bother skew. All it means is the dish "sees" 22 degrees higher than what the dish looks like

Below is a perfect example of offset. The dish the farthest away is a 6 foot C-Band dish which is prime focus...which means it looks at the satellite as it should (no offset). Its at my true south, which in Minneapolis is 38 degrees. The dish closer (the dark grey one) is also at true south of 38. Look at the dish how it looks. Looks straight up and down

 

[Cosmic Thing]

Thanks Ice',

Well that's good news for me. Adding 22.75 to 56.4 degrees just might clear the treetops in this instance. There may be some hope of getting some RTN from G10R after all.

 

[Anole]

Leaves on trees will kill Ku reception, be it Dish or FTA.

With the Fortec FTA dish, you skew the LNB; the mount doesn't allow for that.
And if you're only a few degrees off your true south satellite, the LNB skew won't be much.

You didn't say where you were, but I'm assuming pretty far south.
If your elevation is 56º, then it's 56º.
What Ice was saying is that when you dial your dish to 56º, it appears to be looking 22º lower than it is really receiving a signal from.
So , the dish may appear to be aimed at the trees, when it is actually looking over them.
You don't add the two numbers together.

To get more clearance over the trees to your south, you move the base of the dish either UP in the air, or North on your property.
Either will get it away from the trees.
There's a web site around here some place with calculations (I'm sure someone will chime in) for "your satellite elevation" and the height of "distant objects".

BUT, the easy way is to build this free sighting-inclinometer.
Okay, one buck for the angle gauge (protractor) at the 99¢ store...

 

[Cosmic Thing]

Anole,
I understand that I am not actually adding the 22.75 degrees but it is good that the angle is actually higher than I thought. I could place the dish at the northern edge of my property but the tree situation is just hopeless from there. The site I plan to use became available because the property owners to the west of me cut down some trees to build a house. Otherwise there would be no chance at all.