new six foot dish installed

[MikeInAlaska]

I decided to just put in multiple six footers instead of trying to rig up the offset LNA.... I'm not sure my wife is impressed at this point with how they look in the back yard !!

Since my last dish install maybe eight years ago, I found a couple excellent resources that helped me:

This website I am sure is well known here, it gave me the azimuth and elevation for the exact point in my yard and desired satellite: http://www.dishpointer.com/

Then I went to the JPL ephemeris generator: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi
There I put in my latitude, longitude, picked the Sun as my desired object, and told it to give me the azimuth and elevation of the Sun throughout that day in 1 minute intervals. The report showed me that the Sun would be at the same Azimuth of the Dish 119W satellite at exactly 11:33 AM. I went out at that time and turned the dish to point right at the Sun. A few minute later cobbled up some cables, fired up a receiver and it was locked on from the first moment, I've never had that happen before!

Now... a question for you. I am getting 90 - 96 signal on 119W, but my other six footer only gets 70-80's on 129W. Is it a weaker satellite? Or could something like the LNA be old and inferior? The non spotbeams on 129W are even down in the high 20's or 30's.

Mike in Alaska

 

[fred555]

I decided to just put in multiple six footers instead of trying to rig up the offset LNA.... I'm not sure my wife is impressed at this point with how they look in the back yard !!

For some reason the pics dont seem to be loading.

 

[KAB]

Your signal strength is WAY GOOD! 100 is a fantasy....don't go by that scale. Yes 129 will be a little weaker, the nature of the beast.

 

[MikeInAlaska]

100 is a fantasy....

 

[MikeInAlaska]

So I am pulling higher signals on my old 722k than I get on my new 211z, a couple transponders on 119W have 100 or 101 signals.

Here are the two six footer dishes, one on 119W and one on 129W. My mom lives a couple lots away and is hooked into both dishes on about 150 feet of RG6 each. She is getting high 90's on the same transponders.

We also have a 1 meter dish on the empty lot between our lots, pointed at 119W (but now retired in favor of the six footer) It still has an offset LNA for 110W. I'll eventually point the small dish right at 110.

Eventually I'd like to have a triple-LNA beam out front of one of the six footers and call it good for all three satellites.

 

[MikeInAlaska]

So is that a true thing, that the 722 receivers are more sensitive than the 211z? Are the latest dish products even more advanced with better signal processing?