Satellite dish

YC1:
I'm going through the same thing with mine and had a dialog with the folks at Winegard last week. I sent screen shots of the satellite data and they confirm there is a problem, but no real resolution from them, and they don't have any procedures to align the dish other than just replacing parts. I found that a little surprising that there is no field alignment procedures published because these things take allow of abuse from wind, trees, people on the roof washing the coach and getting their hose caught in the dish (grrrrrr... ), etc.

When mine does a search, I see it peak and go right through 99 where it will settle out significantly weaker than the signal I saw as it passed by during the scan. Winegard suggested to look for bent parts on the antenna, specifically arm alignment. I was already going down that road anyway because I knew the LNB's are just fine. I intend to take a square over this weekend and look at Az alignment of the arm against the reflector, and today climb the tower where my home antenna is and make measurements on the elevation of the arm with respect to the top of the reflector. One of those two alignments has to be off.

I'm curious what you find on the slop, because I've seen this before, and actually don't remember any I have wiggled that don't move ~1/4- 3/8" or so laterally. No big deal on 101 @ Ku, but it obviously is at 20Ghz+ looking at an already questionable alignment. Hopefully there is a gear mesh alignment in there that can be tightened a little.

I'll trade you trouble shooting results.. :)

Bill.Satellite wrote:
It really sounds like you tweaked something as the arm and dish are very sensitive to being moved by outside forces.
You could stow the antenna and then when the LNB is 1-2 feet off the roof measure from the roof to each side of the bottom of the LNB. They should be the same distance. You can also look to the dish itself and see if there is even the slightest wrinkle (bend, scratch, wave) anywhere. The arm of the LNB being slightly out of line would be my first guess / best guess so you also might want to have someone watch the signal and try gently twisting the LNB to see if 99 appears.

Did as you suggested the other night. Tried tweaking the arm etc and the only improvement was moving it on rotation a bit.

Great info Jeff.

Since Bill confirmed there is a bit of looseness I will take some measurements as he suggested. If that measure correctly I will loosten the head first and try to tweak that. Looking at the paint on the bolts there is no indication that the arm has moved. Someone start singing now. Up on the roof.

I see no physical slippage on the arm either, but you can visually see they are not true.

Speaking of the roof.... Is anyone having problems with paint peeling on the Travler?

Paint? Pretty sure it's all powder coat but I can't be sure.
Where are you seeing this?

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Paint? Pretty sure it's all powder coat but I can't be sure.
Where are you seeing this?

Probably is powder coat, but it's still a paint. Either way, it's thin enough that the salt air got through it.

Interesting. I have never seen that before. Even one of the screws in the base there is different that what I have seen. How old is your antenna?

OK,, With the information from Bill about what is normal I have proceeded with "brute strength and ignorance".

Time to upgrade my sat meter for sure because that would have made it a breeze versus the wife on the phone hands free calling out the numbers.

Gently lifting the lnb arm showed marked improvement. I tried to get as much adjustement as the bolts would allow. Some improvement but not enough.

Moving the arm left and right with brute force gained a bit but still not enough.

So the issue was the lnb arm needed to bend up a bit. Of course the arm will not bend so I pressed forward on the top of the dish reflector and held the base of the lnb. OOPs. A little too much as a little dimple formed at the base of the reflector dish. Signal gone.

Too much brute force and ignorance.

Ok, a bit less brute force and the same ignorance to tweak it back a bit and like magic here are the numbers. I have cycled the system on and off a couple of times and the number come back each time.

99C 95
99S 0
101 97
103S 55 takes ten seconds to show
110 97
119 100
103CA 94
103CB 97

OCT 2013

Thanks Bill.

Now for the paint peeling question. I just noticed some peeling on the edge of the turret. Cannot blame mine on salt water.

Installed in Nov 2012

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Interesting. I have never seen that before. Even one of the screws in the base there is different that what I have seen. How old is your antenna?

The antenna is probably 3 years old now. The screw in the picture has a rubber washer on it to keep moisture out of the threads and causing other issues.


YC1: If you already have a meter, THIS cute little frequency splitter will allow you to use your existing meter for multi-satellite alignment.

Big Katuna wrote:
But unless you camp in the desert, you often can't get a signal if there are trees. We prefer state parks which are typically heavily treed and I rarely can use my roof sat. I carry a tripod and 100' of cable and can set it up in a few minutes.

2x that we had one on our first MH and only got use of it 50% of the time due to interference.