Jul 02 2009
How To Adjust Satellite Dish And Look For Channels
If you prefer to do it in the professional way, It may ask you some equipments which is not the scope of this writing. But how could you track and align to the desired satellite yourself and save some money?
First you should have the frequencies and other data of the channels you prefer to watch. What is required is frequency, symbol rate, FEC & Polarity. You could acquire this information on the net for free from a site like lyngsat.com.
For that matter, recent receivers come up with all preset data of these channels and you do not need to search it on the net. You just enter setup/installation and choose one of the transponders given in the satellite. be sure you have put the satellite dish antenna in place the lnb being connected to the receiver with the appropriate coaxial cable and the connectors on the both tips of the cable. After you be sure that everything is in place, press menu then select manual and not automatic scan in the installation sub menu. When you enter the manual scan there is a place you could see the signal status. Again some new receivers have this signal status on the front cover and some even have a beep sound that assists you check the satellite.
After that go to the dish antenna and do something here. I am quite sure that there are many people using satellite television in your neighbourhood. watch the direction of the dish and try to bring your dish in that direction. Move about half centimeters and wait for 3 to 5 seconds till the signal shows up if it does not showup move again half centimeters and wait. If you spotted the position you would see the signal status on your TV. I have to warn you here that it is not a really easy task to check the correct position.
If you are a newbie do not expect to do it in a few minutes. In the analogue satellite receiver time it was easy. Once you feed the frequency, you could “see” the channel when you are around the area of the position of the satellite. Then a little adjustments and you would see the channel clearly. But in the digital realm you shift the dish position a little and you would loose all the signal. So when you make the search for the position of the dish you have to move just a little and stop and see if the signal appears again move a little and wait till you could see the signal. You move you wait and see and again you move a little you wait and you see… you do this until the signal shows up on the TV screen.
When the signal shows up you fine tune the position of the dish until you acquire optimum signal level. Then fix it on that position. Go to your receiver and acquire out of the manual and acquire into the auto scan mode. Then press okay on the remote of the receiver. The receiver scans and saves every channel in that satellite. This way you could do it yourself instead of hiring a professional. You could also use satellite tracking device that gives you bigger sound as you come close to the position of the satellite- if you could acquire if from a friend or if you could buy it cheap. This device makes your search a lot easier.
