SatSig topic:

Satellite dish alignment

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Feb 14^th, 2008 at 10:08am

Hi,
having read through a lot of these forums I must say that I am really impressed with the help & support available.

I would like to know if someone can help me with my issue, please forgive me if I sound like a complete thicko !!

I have moved to Bar sur Loup in south of France :
Lat 43.7014 Long 6.9894 or

Lat 43deg 42.1 mins North
Long 6 deg 59.4 mins East

I have my own dish & digital decoder etc & have set the dish up on a pole pointing South (taken from a compass)

I have used various online calculators & they have all given different azimuths & elevations.?

All I want to do is to be able to watch Sky TV & BBC1, 2, Ch4 & ITV with the ocassional freeby sky prog.

Can someone please advise me what the azimuth should be & what the correct elevation should be ??
Many Thnx Andy

Feb 14^th, 2008 at 11:28am

Try this page for satellite dish pointing in France
( If you speak french any suggestions to improve my efforts at writing in french would be appreciated. You can copy the text of the page to a word processor and then edit the text. For that matter anyone else who is french speaking is welcome to have a laugh and send in suggested text improvements. )

Regarding the satellite dish pointing page first select a satellite, e.g. Astra at 19.2 east or Hotbird at 13 east, and your location. The result will be your dish pointing angles.

Set the elevation (up/down) on the bracket behind the dish.

Regarding polarisation start with your LNB upright. For Astra add +7 to the calculated result. For Hotbird add +3.5 to the calculated result. Then while facing towards the satellite turn the LNB anticlockwise for a negative number of degrees and clockwise for positive polarisation angles.

The azimuth angle refers to the side to side angle. A magnetic bearing angle of 180 is south. 90 deg means east and 270 deg means west.

Tune your receiver to some known TV carrier (see https://www.lyngsat.com/hotbird.html or https://www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html ) that is in a beam covering France. Read the handbook.

You only need an approximate idea of azimuth, as with the elevation set accurately a bold wide sweep of the antenna is sufficient to find the satellite first time. Then spend at least 30 minutes peaking up in both az and el.

Regards, Eric.

Feb 14^th, 2008 at 1:27pm

Hi Eric,

Cant really help you with the French as its just as alien to me also.!!

OK, happy with the elevation & azimuth.

I have a new dish that I have bought over here(80cm Metronic) which the LNB has a cross hair type marking on the top as i am looking down on it marked to show (i assume is the center/top when looking down onto the LNB).

There are no other markings on the LNB at all so altering it/moving it would be almost impossible ? or am I going in completely in the wrong direction here.?

I have entered into the calculator Astra 19.2 & it has given me Azimuth 162.9 (compass) & 38.1 Elevation but I dont understand 12.5 polarisation at all ?

Many Thnx
Andy

Feb 14^th, 2008 at 1:48pm

The LNB may have a clamp round the feed throat which, if loosened, will allow the LNB to be rotated. When setting up satellite TV LNBs, start with the LNB upright. The hairline mark will be at the top. Then rotate either way by the required angle. Any scale may be very small or non-existent, in which case you can wrap a strip of paper round, measure the circumference. Calculate the length for 5.5 deg = circum x 5.5 /360. Mark the strip, reposition and turn the required amount. It is not too critical on a receive-only system, only you suffer if it is wrong.

The calculated polarisation angle for you is -12.5 deg, add 7 for Astra and the result is -5.5 deg. This means that while facing towards the satellite you turn the LNB 5.5 deg anticlockwise. Not far at all. If you adjust using the signal quality readout on the receiver turn the feed till you get a severely degraded but exactly recorded degradation, then turn to the opposite side for exactly the same degradation and half the angles.

All above assumes you have a simple dish intended to be pointed permanently at one satellite using an azimuth/elevation mount. Quite different considerations apply if it is motor driven and your indoor box is intended to steer the dish to point at all visible satellites. If your dish has a motor please say and we will start again.

Regards, Eric.

Feb 14^th, 2008 at 2:14pm

Hi Eric,

This sounds like just the ticket.

Many thanks for everything youve been a saviour & no we dont have a motorised dish...thank christ !!

At least now we can look forward to some "real/decent" telly as opposed to the French shite you get over here.....even if I was French I think I would struggle to watch it.!

Kind Regards

Andy