Manually re-aligning a minidish

patmartin008

Having heard of others successfully using their Sky Minidish and an alternative receiver to view FTA's I have decided to buy a Technomate 1500 as I've now left Sky.

Eventually I will get a bigger dish but meanwhile I hope to use the Sky dish to pick up Hotbird or Astra.

My question is; how easy/difficult is it to manually re-align the dish as it isn't motorised?

Fortunately I can access the dish easily so I can re-jig it with no problems. I presume I'll need some sort of Sat meter to find 19.2e or 13e? If so can anyone reccommend one?

I have hunted through the forums but cannot find any precise info on this so any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks

Patrick

robbieb43

They are pretty easy to align - there are few designs but it is just a case of loosening the nuts that hold the angles and very gently twisting. I use a cheapo meter (Stafinder and the like £5-£10) with a tone output which makes it really easy as you just listen for the whistle to top it out. If you are just realigning on 28 the it is worth twisting the dish gently up and down a few millimeters and side to side (just genly flexing it) so that you can get a feel for which direction to move it, before you loosen off. If you are moving to 13/19e then try not to lose the inclination as its is harder to find the new sat once you have lost this. Can't speak for the gain you will get at 13e though but suggest you just suck it and see. I also find the use of a wife and a mobile phone are useful accessories in such activities.

patmartin008

Thanks for the feedback.

I had a go at the weekend and found that the dish would not move sufficiently (to the left as I look at it) due to the bay window next to it!

Back to the drawing board for now. I think I'll have to re-locate the dish or maybe find a new mount than will allow me to have the dish hanging further away from the wall so it can turn to the left without hitting the wall.

Meanwhile I'll try to find a meter too as I'm sure that relocating the dish will be a lot more effort than just re-aligning it.

Thanks for your help so far!

Patrick

rolfw

Is that the left as you look at the dish from the front?

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patmartin008

Yes. To the left as I look at the front of the dish.

I also tried to the right and had no joy.

For clarification, should it be 10 degrees to the left?

Thanks

Patrick

robbieb43

For hotbird it would be about 15 degrees to the left at this latitude. If you can't get it you could alway try for 19e I suppose - the Astra foot print shows it nearly as strong as 28e, so should work. If you go east away from you bay window Turksat @ 42e also has a quite strong footprint on its west beam, but I guess we are talking fun now rather than serious viewing :-)

patmartin008

Thanks Rolf and Robbie for all your help.

Had another re-jig of the equipment this evening and switched the dish around from left to right. Lots of drilling and mess but after fixing the dish and a few minor adjustments the signal started coming through.

Currently watching the Simpsons in Spanish. Excellent.

Thanks for all your help. Much appreciated.

Gracias.