Angle advice....

[denno69]

Hi guys

I need some advice (still learning!). Not sure if this in the right section but...

I have put together my 1m satelite but I am a little unsure as what the angle for the dish bracket should be.

I have set my motor to my latitude (52.7485°) on the latitude scale on the motor brakcet as explained in the booklet and then attached the motor to the bracket that holds the dish. Then I hooked the dish up to that bracket so it's altogether ready to be put up on the L bracket on the wall (which I haven't yet put up).

In the motor booklet it says that the angle on the dish bracket should be 35 degres - (minus) the declination angle and according to the table, the declination angle for 53 degress = 7.6

So 35 - 7.6 = dish bracket angle of 27.4 (which is what is in the table so makes sense)

So I am guessing that I should just set the angle to 27.4 on the dish bracket but I don't know which way round the dish bracket should be?!?!?

Should the angle be at the top or bottom of the bracket?!? The 27.4 is at the bottom of the bracket. There is an arrow that points downwards so I am assumng that that is the way the bracket should face>

Any advice would be great.

Cheers

 

[satelliteman]

Welcome to the forum,

Dish elevation scales are certainly not accurate enough to use for setting up a motorised system. As a guide, the dish should be slightly up from vertical as a starting point. Follow the guides and align up onto your reference satellite and the declination adjustment will have been made

 

[Robbo]

Yes, the imprtant thing here is to set the motor angle according to your latitude, and to get the pole nice and vertical. The dish adjutment can be done by adjusting to get a signal on your nearest satellite.

By the way, I wouldn't mess about with the L bracket-throw it away. Get yourself some galvanised T&K's and a short length of scaffold pole. Bet you bought the kit from ebay, I've not seen one kit from there that doesn't come with a crappy L bracket.

 

[denno69]

Cheers guys

You got it in one Robbo - got it from ebay. Is that not too good? I asked on another forum and it was suggested that it was ok. In fact here it is:


Ebay 220356240463

Regarding the bracket would something like this be ok as it is a 1m sat?


ebay 390065542218

My closest sat will be 0.8 Thor I reckon so I will start with that bird and go from there. It is just a case of trial and error with regards to the declination then?

An another thing, on some of the websites I have visited (for example dishpointer) it says that the elevation should be at a certain angle but then the angle changes for another sat - how does that then work as the motor will not drive the angle of the dish up and down?

And one more question - I have also read that the LNB needs to be a certain angles for certain sats - again how does that work as the motor does not drive that?

Cheers guys

Great forum!

 

[Robbo]

The admin don't want direct links on the site, so I have edited it for you;)

The problem with the 1st item is that you don't know what dish it is, so it will be an unbranded whatever, so the quality may not be good. But it will no doubt do the job.

Did the supplied cable have copper braiding?, as the picture shows the silver coloured stuff which is NOT CAI approved as per the listing.

Yes those brackets are what I meant, although you don't always need the 24 inchers, it is better to go for the 18 inchers, though it depends on which way the wall faces. The 24's are a bit wobbly on the top. Make sure thay are galvanised though, otherwise they will leave rust marks down the wall after a short while, and of course will rust away.



For a budget sytem such as that, the skew is taken care of as the dish rotates round, so you set it at about zero, it's good enough.

Though some of the serious hobbiests will use some sort of skew control instead.


When you mount the motor the axis of rotation ends up being aligned to the earth's polar axis, in other words it tilts up when at zero. This means that when at zero the dish will have a higher elevation, and when you turn it east and west the elevation goes down, at the extremes (the horizon- hence H-H motor) the dish is looking at or near the ground.

See this guys avatar

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/members/96956/mick2me/

 

[denno69]

Thanks Robbo

The system I ordered had some decent reviews from a chap on the other forum who had fitted a few for friedns a family but obviosly the long term is not known - I guess I will find out!

He did mention to get some proper sat cable so I knew is was cack when I bought it but it is cheap enough to buy anyhow.

My next question is if I go for Thor at 1 deg west, as it is the closest sat to me, dishpointer.com is suggesting that the elevation for the dish should be 29.7 so I presume this is the angle that I set the dish bracket to start with?

I have set it as I think is correct but the angle (29.7) is at the bottom of the bracket - see A on the image.

My motor bracket is set to my Lat - see attached image (.

If you can give me any advice which suggests that this is/looks right or downright utter garbage that would be great

So glad I found this forum - it is great! It is sites like these which makes the internet fantastic!

Cheers

 

[rolfw]

Whereabouts are you?

The dish elevation looks too high, it will be the elevation figure as found on dishpointer less the offset for your motor inclination (this will leave the dish face about vertical), can't tell whether the motor setting is correct as can't see any markings, but if it has a latitude scale, then it should be set to your latitude.

For setting up once you have set your inclination on the motor, follow the guides, you can't goo too far wrong if you follow them closely.

 

[Robbo]

The elev figure on dishpointer is for a fixed dish. For a motorised dish, in most cases it will be different.

The motor looks to be a Dark Motor, I think that they have the same offest angle as the Motecks and TM motors, so the angle needs to be set at about 22-24 degrees if I'm right. BUT, the dish scales are often innacurate, and the easiest way to set it, is to whop the dish up, use USALs to send to Thor 0.8W, and do the adjustments (as per the Sticky guides) to get the best signal.

Let me guess... near Birmingham?

 

[satelliteman]

No, it's 35° - Declination for the dark so dish elevation set to 27.5° ish........ if accurate enough.

 

[Robbo]

Clever Cloggs!

Yes, of course I knew that I was just testing seeing if anyone would correct me.


No seriously, I've installed a few of them, plus a few other makes as well. The manual always stays in the bottom of the box, as I pay no attention to those figures at all.

 

[satelliteman]

Yes, the manual is best used for placing all the nuts and bolts together on the floor

 

[denno69]

Hi guys

Not far away Robbo - north of Birmingham. About 15 miles south of Stafford.

It is a dark motor and Sateliteman gets the gold star as it is 27.4.....according to the crappy booklet that should be left at the bottom of the box.

Have to say the guides on this forum are superb - just like the posters!

One issue I think I am going to have is that my south facing wall on the side of my house is right opposite my neighbours (literally his wall is literally 2m away!). I have looked on dishpointer which shows how far away an object can be along with the height and it doesn't look good but how accurate is this site? My south sat Thor @ 0.8 deg may be in the line of the sight of the corner of the house next door :mad:

Also are there any decent sats west of Thor as I was under the impression that most of the good ones are towards east?

Cheers guys

 

[Robbo]

I don't trust the obstruction thingy on dishpointer, though it's good for getting a rough idea of which way the dish needs to point and the elevation angle for all the sats of course.

Depends how high you fancy going really, as if you put the dish above the gutter, you can usually get a good view of the arc in the usual housing scanario.

For 2m away, in your area, you need the obstruction to be less than about 60cm above the bottom of the dish to get a reasonable view of the arc. ( 42E has an elevation of approx 18 degrees). Of course in the centre of the arc you have much more leeway, about a metre.

Blocks of flats can cause problems though.:mad:


Yes, most of the popular sats are generally eastward, though there's 7W that you MAY be able to manage with a good 1m, Satelliteman manages it not too far away.

 

[satelliteman]

denno, you could always post up a picture of the dish installation site.

 

[denno69]

Hi guys

See attached for the images - I got soaked trying tho take them!

As you can see from pic 1, my current stationary sky dish (which was attached before I move in) must be currently pointing at Astra 28.2 fine as there are no obstructions - I pick up FTA channels on my DM600 no problem.

I am planning to put my 1m dish above the sky dish on the corner front just by the white bit of guttering - see A in pic 1.

In pic 2 you can see that the south facing wall is only 2m or so form my wall. So when I try and lcoate 0.8 deg with my 1m sat, according to Dishpointer the corner of the nieghbours wall may be in the line of site.

Any advice would be great

Cheers - i am off to dry myself!

 

[satelliteman]

Cutting it fine for any of the further West sats

 

[Robbo]

It doesn't look too bad, though if you go above the roofline, you shoukd get a decent part of the arc. Eastwards won't be a problem if you put it below though, I think.

Difficult to tell exactly but 1W looks possible from your proposed position, a survey with an angle meter or a dish would confirm.

 

[Dave UK]

Hi denno69. Please excuse me for sticking my nose in but, even though I'm a :-newb , there seems something wrong with both photos!

In the first one, I can't understand how the branches of the tree that must be at least 50 yards beyond your Sky dish are showing between the camera and IN FRONT of your Sky dish? EDIT: I've just realised the branches are probably showing THROUGH the dish.....mesh.......I'm a twit!

In the second, the Sky dish must be pointing 28.2 East of south so surely the direction of the arrow you have drawn is due East, NOT South. (I think!)

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dave

 

[Rick]

In the second, the Sky dish must be pointing 28.2 East of south so surely the direction of the arrow you have drawn is due East, NOT South. (I think!)

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dave

That line looks like a good estimate of due south to me M8 2

 

[Robbo]

In the second, the Sky dish must be pointing 28.2 East of south so surely the direction of the arrow you have drawn is due East, NOT South. (I think!)

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dave

You're wrong and consider yourself corrected.

The line on the 2nd picture looks more like 15 to 20 W by my reckoning.

The dish is at 28E, 90 degrees anticlockwise is about 60 W, and the line looks roughly halw way between the two, making it about 15 to 20W.

Correct me if I'm wrong. (Satelliteman!)

Actually Dave, I never notice the illusion of the tree, it looks like a dinosaur's head trying to eat the dish.:-idea