OTHER Question about LNB position

[a33]

It is easy to virtually restore the shape of the dish. All is needed is a metal ruler clamped to the edges of the dish. Like on the pictures I just made.

Good trick.
I'm not very happy with doing an extrapolation on input measures, though. I'd rather do them on output measures.

For the non-flat-faced dishes calculation, any dish shape is possible.
Even a dish form like the Fracarro Penta:



So I would just use the flattened bottom of the Hughes-net dish as the one and only bottom, and do the measurements from there. No problem. The diamond shape (T-B and L-R) is the only thing to take into account.

Greetz,
A33

 

[k1cza]

I'm going to go out on one last limb here. What is the elevation angle reading on the bracket versus what your install info. says it should be when you're getting the best signal you can? Just a hint. Is it very close or way out there? These Ka band dishes are engineered pretty 'tight' in the first place. If you look at some of the installer data you'll see why.

The elevation angle is almost spot on. The dish was already pointed at 99w for HughesNet, and I was able to pick up 97w pretty well without any adjustments.

Well, the calculator for non-flat dishes has made the approach of such dishes somewhat easier, I think, than experimenting and guessing.

That sounds a lot easier than the mirror method, thanks for sharing. Hopefully all this will help out jessica6. My HughesNet dish is now dismounted and sitting on the ground behind my shed, but this will be useful if I play with it again. Now that I'm spoiled by having a rotor, that is unlikely

 

[a33]

The way to get the needed inputs:
Form a diamond on the dish face: top-right-bottom-left, with 4 equal length sides. (Just the parabolic surface, not including the rim.)

To add, in case this might not be clear:
Start with finding the Top and Bottom diagonal.
The Left-Right diagonal should then be measured at exactly half the distance Top-Bottom, to get a perfect (equal-sized sides) diamond.

This might not be at the broadest part of the dish, and not be at the 'highest' points of the dish rim.
What counts is the perfect diamond shape: all sides of the diamond (Top-Right, Right-Bottom, Bottom-Left, Left-Top) must have equal length.

So in the case of the pentagonal dish (picture above): the Left and Right on the parabolic dish rim might well be somewhat further towards the Top, than the actual left and right extremities of the dish. (I never measured a Penta dish, though.)

Greetz,
A33