Some feedback needed on dish alignment

[Martyn]

I've been messing around with alignment of my dish (30" x 32") and I think I have it tracking the arc pretty well, but I'd like some feedback. My hunch is that I've hit the limit of the dish I have and really need to buy one a little bigger. Rest of the set up is a Micro HD with the new ku PLL LNB from Satellite AV. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and my view of the arc runs from about 81W to 123W (125W sits behind the outermost branches of a tree).

For example, on Satmex 5 I can pull in ESNE TV at 0-11% quality but with no breakup. No other channels come in. Daystar on Galaxy 18 (123W) comes in really weak and pixelated with nothing else on that satellite. And on 83W, I can pull in the NBC News testcard but there's no sign of RTV networks. On 87W I can watch everything listed, including LPB HD, but haven't seen a hint of the Florida Channel. BYU TV on 89W is really hit and miss too.

Most everything else listed comes through fine, although on Thursday I went after several NFL feeds listed on another forum and found I could only pull in a couple.

So, based on what I've said, does it sound like I'm about at the limit of my dish? For example, should the RTV channels be booming in or are they a little weaker than NBC Newschannel? Is ESNE one of the stronger channels on Satmex 5 or not? Or does it sound like my alignment is off?

Any feedback greatly appreciated.

 

[primestar31]

I think your dish is too small for your location. I would suggest a 90cm or a 1 meter dish.

 

[Martyn]

Thanks Primestar. I've been thinking about upgrading and am trying to decide between a 90 and 1.2m. If I'm going to upgrade then I might as well do the 1.2m, but that probably means a drive up to Sacramento to avoid the shipping charges. I might need to upgrade the motor too.

 

[phlatwound]

That dish is undersized but have you tried moving it to a sat with a known weak signal, and then pulling slightly up/down and left/right to get an idea of how well it is aimed at any given location? If any of those movements bring your signal quality up that can give you an idea of the tweaks required to improve your tracking.

I am near the center of the country so am probably in the stronger reception bands of most sats, I would imagine that some sats are somewhat weaker out on the coasts.