Using the sun to track your sat path

[pmb1010]

Hope everyone had a chance to use the sun's positional advantage this weekend to take a look at how their setup is seeing the sats.
The sun tracked pretty much the clarke belt path this weekend.

Kind of an eye opener, and also a confirmation tool...

I was wondering if the tree in the back of the yard was in the way, found it was not. My dish position "sees" over the top of it.

Was nice to see the leaf shadows on the sat once it started towards Satmex5 and G10r area (neighbor's trees) so I now know the offending branch section.

I used a compass to watch & check where the sun was, and what part of my dish was illuminated by sun for the 4 hour period.

I dont know if I read about this tip here, or someplace else but thanks if it was posted here!

Tomorrow should be pretty close, maybe out a couple degrees or so, but good enough for this type of study - so if you dont have you work and the sun shines tomorrow, you can do the same thing.

[glen4cindy]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

The sun tracked pretty much the clarke belt path this weekend.

Kind of an eye opener, and also a confirmation tool...

I was wondering if the tree in the back of the yard was in the way, found it was not. My dish position "sees" over the top of it.

Tomorrow should be pretty close, maybe out a couple degrees or so, but good enough for this type of study - so if you dont have you work and the sun shines tomorrow, you can do the same thing.

I am trying this today as I am home. The sun looks awful high to be tracking the clarke belt. Does it look high because of the dish offset? I have this one tree that is growing from a 6 year old to however long it survives. So, if I understand your post correctly, anywhere in my yard I stand, if I look up and have a good view of the sun, I can put the dish there and it will work?

Thanks!

[pmb1010]

yep dish "sees" a bit higher that it appears.

so yes your premis is correct