Quote:
Originally Posted by nhulst
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3- Dish size: 80 cm
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However, I never get a signal quality above the mid-50's, which means that it doesn't take much rain to push the signal quality down into the 40's where the picture drops out.
Sadoun's guide here shows a minimum view angle of 15 degrees:
Dish Pointing Tips
Is this a hard-and-fast rule or a guideline? Would it be worthwhile to try and get the dish set up a couple of feet higher to get a couple more degrees of view angle?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pmb1010
I think that picture is illustrative only.
Do no use those values as any steadfast rule.
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I'd go one further, and say that there is no such thing as a minimum view angle. With reception of the sat you're looking for, at reception is straight line, and no angle is involved. You do receive signals out at an angle, which is where the beamwidth comes in, but that is generally unwanted reception, such as from adjacent sats. You don't need ANY amount of "view angle". Basically all you need is for the whole dish to see the sat, meaning that if you have an 80 cm dish, all you need is an 80 cm view of the sky to get reception. I've aimed dishes at sats through 5' holes under nearby trees, over far off trees, between limbs... used rope saws to cut off individual branches that were blocking one sat, etc, etc.
There is no such thing as a minimum view angle. If you use the protractor/straight edge thing PMB mentioned, or any other method, just make sure you check the view of both the bottom and top of the dish. For far off obstructions, it's not important, but for nearby obstructions, I've had the bottom half of the dish blocked when the top of the dish had a view.
And re the mid 50s quality readings, not unusual. Getting a dish bigger than 80 cm is probably the only way to help with that, but you're probably never going to *completely* eliminate rain fade.