Installation guide

Installation/Aligning the Dish 105
This step of the installation accurately points the dish at the satellites. This alignment
is critical to the performance of the system. When the dish is pointed directly at the
satellites, the receiver receives a strong signal. Any drop outs in this signal would be
small and corrected in the receiver. If the dish is not positioned properly, the signal
is weak and the number of drop outs increases. Depending on the size and number of
these drop outs, the receiver may not be able to correct for them and the picture will
blank or freeze frame until a good signal is once again received. This would become
worse on cloudy or windy days.
Aligning The
Dish
A significant difference between an analog satellite system and the Digital Satellite
System is the dish alignment process. When aligning an analog satellite system, the
dish could be adjusted while looking at the television picture. When you were close
to a satellite, the picture would appear with sparkles. The closer you get, the clearer
the picture becomes. With the Digital Satellite System, this does not happen. Instead,
as you move the dish towards the satellites, the picture remains blank until a signal is
received. Then the picture suddenly appears. This picture will not have black or white
sparkles in it, even though the dish may not be accurately pointed at the satellites. This
makes it impossible to accurately point the DSS dish just by looking at the quality of
the television picture.
The DSS dish has two positioning adjustments. These adjustments are azimuth and
elevation. The azimuth adjustment is the side to side movement of the dish. This is
done by rotating the dish on the mounting post or mast. The elevation adjustment is
done as an adjustment on the LNB support arm (see figure 88). This adjustment has
a reference scale on the side of the dish that is calibrated in degrees. If the mast is
correctly plumbed, this scale will be accurate.
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ELEVATION
ADJUSTMENT
AZIMUTH
ADJUSTMENT
Figure 88, Elevation and Azimuth Adjustment