"Sky" satellite dish

[ProDave]

That's an LNB for a Sky dish.  the end of the arm on the sky dish will have an upturned "pip" (bit of bent metal) that the forward edge of the black plastic bracket clips under, and a hole in the LNB arm that lines up with a hole in the plastic bracket.  A snap off plastic pin pushes into this hole to locate it.

There should be no ambiguity at all.

 

[Sidewinder]

The LNB slides through the mounting bracket that clips to the arm, so that you can adjust the horn to be at the focal point, this advice is given in the instructions, it also needs to rotate to set it up.

 

[ProDave]

The LNB slides through the mounting bracket that clips to the arm, so that you can adjust the horn to be at the focal point, this advice is given in the instructions, it also needs to rotate to set it up.

That will be only a very small amount of movement and is definitely in the realms of fine tuning. you should get a signal regardless of that dine tuning,  To be honest the present generation of satellites are a lot more powerful than they used to be so i rarely make those fine tuning adjustments.

 

[Sidewinder]

Well, fed up now.

I left this for a while to see, if it was in the right direction the Sky box would pickup a signal, and been a bit busy.

So today, I decided to try again.

So using https://www.dishpointer.com/.

I got the elevation and angle the dish should be at.

Had to twist the bracket a little to get the elevation to 23.7 deg, then set the angle to 142 degrees as per the specc on the website.

Cut 4” off the end of the cables and fitted new F type plugs, done these before without issue.

Centre core was nice and bright, outer was ok.

Still no signal on the Sky box!

 

[ProDave]

You WON'T get it right with a compass and a protractor. That will only get you CLOSE.

So now with the sky box monitoring the signal strength and quality, rotate the dish SLOWLY a few degrees side to side. 

No signal, increase the elevation a TINY amount and scan side to side slowly again.

Repeat until you get a signal.

It is MUCH easier and quicker if you have a decent satellite meter with you by the dish that you can see as you move it.

 

[Andy™]

youre trying to find a satellite 22,000 miles away... you need to be very accurate

 

[OnOff]

I messed around with a <£20 FTA box on a generic dish & LNB a while back over on the build forum. Got there in the end with @ProDave and others help. Bloody pain without a proper meter.

Only got a dish because of neighbours conifers. He's now cut them down and the terrestrial aerial works fine again!

https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/10853-fta-satellite-box/

 

[ProDave]

Well, fed up now.

I left this for a while to see, if it was in the right direction the Sky box would pickup a signal, and been a bit busy.

So today, I decided to try again.

So using https://www.dishpointer.com/.

I got the elevation and angle the dish should be at.

Had to twist the bracket a little to get the elevation to 23.7 deg, then set the angle to 142 degrees as per the specc on the website.

Cut 4” off the end of the cables and fitted new F type plugs, done these before without issue.

Centre core was nice and bright, outer was ok.

Still no signal on the Sky box!

Another thought.  HOW are you measuring the elevation?  you should not have to twist the bracket to get the elevation needed. So I wonder if you are measuring it wrong.  There shouls be markings on the bracket at the point you adjust the elevation to give you some idea, and some makes of dish you can put the bracket together the wrong way up which makes the markings completely wrong.

The front face of the dish should be just about upright where you are, up here the front face of the dish normally points downwards a few degrees.

 

[Sidewinder]

pWell going back to gun sights, an elevation of 23 degrees is the barrel pointing up from the horizontal by 23 degrees, so the arm on the dish is pointing up by 23 degrees.

This is the only definition of elevation that I know in this respect.

 

[ProDave]

pWell going back to gun sights, an elevation of 23 degrees is the barrel pointing up from the horizontal by 23 degrees, so the arm on the dish is pointing up by 23 degrees.

This is the only definition of elevation that I know in this respect.

These are offset dishes. That means the LNB is offset from the prime focus position.  So with the face of the dish upright, the elevation will be nearly right. but you will have to try up or down a few degrees.

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/satmeter.htm