Tweaking the Satellite Dish

Yesterday, Linda found a fashion channel from the free channels on NileSat to add to our "favorites." The channel was "coming and going," "breaking up," or "pixelating" - depending on your familiarity with direct broadcast television technology.

I figured it might be time to refine the aiming of the dish again. I originally posted about HotBird last year. Then about re-aiming to NileSat in January. When I made the change to NileSat, I only re-aimed the dish, I didn't alter the orientation of the LNB. Satellite signals are strongly polarized so the LNB on the ground must be oriented to the correct angle to match the transmitter on the satellite.

Here's a picture: The LNB is the little "doodad" on the end of the pole. Closeup on the right.


Loosening the nuts on the LNB bracket lets you twist it. I moved it about twenty degrees and boosted my "Q" or quality on the channel meter from a marginal 50 into the upper 70s. We have much more reliable reception on all channels now.


And while we're at it, here are another couple of pictures of dish farms on building rooftops.