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Bad Signal or No Signal Messages     List of Categories

  1. Should I take my receiver and a small tv out to the dish to do the aiming?

  2. Will one of the satellite meters help me?

  3. I can't locate T5, there must be something wrong with my receiver, all it says is Bad Signal or No Signal !

  4. At certain times of the year, for a few minutes, my signal will go away.

  5. While I am out aiming my dish, how do I position my LNB on the dish (LNBF and offset dish)?

  6. Should I call one of those little dish folks to install my system?




  1. Should I take my receiver and a small tv out to the dish to do the aiming?

    Yes, by all means. This is the easist and best way to aim your dish.

    This beats running in and out of the house to see if you got the signal. Be sure to do it as the sun starts going down to make it easier to see the screen.

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  2. Will one of the satellite meters help me?

    Well, yes and no. There are so many satellites up there, it will indicate a signal, but you will not know what satellite. Where the meter really comes in handy is when you have aimed the dish and you want to peak it without taking the receiver out to the dish.

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  3. I can't locate T5, there must be something wrong with my receiver, all it says is Bad Signal or No Signal !

    Take a break and relax a bit. We hear this quite frequently from persons installing their first FTA system. There is nothing more frustrating at times than aiming the dish on these and not getting anything. I have been aiming dishes for about 20 year or more now, and sometimes one just has to take a break and come back to it later. But that is not what you asked, was it.

    Bad signal or no signal in the majority of the cases means you are not getting the correct data stram or symbol rate from the satellite. That can be due to a number of reasons, the main one being the dish is not really aimed at the satellite you think it is. You can also have bad coax or a bad LNB, or even, gulp, a bad receiver. Since we test each receiver before we ship it, we have very few bad units go out to customers.

    The secret to aiming the satellite dish is to first determine the elevation ( how high the dish faces up ) and the azimuth ( the direction the dish faces ) that you need to point the dish. There is no substitute for either accurately doing this, or having a lot of patience if you don't. If you don't know where to point the dish, you can spend weeks moving it all over the sky.

    I would suggest that you try to figure out, either through us or someone you know, or via the net, what direction you need to aim the dish and make sure that you have a clear line of sight to the satellite.

    Once you get the dish mounted and know the general direction, aim the dish VERY slowly. If you move too fast you may go right over the correct signal and never see the picture or on screen meters indicate anything. With Ku, 1/4 inch off is all it takes to loose a signal. So, move your dish about 1/4 inch and wait for a second or two. Then move it again. Go left to right, if you don't get it, move the elevation a tad and repeat the process.

    One thing that can really get you when you are aiming the dish. Some of the MPEG-2 symbol rates are the same on different satellites, some of these satellites are side by side. You won't be the first person, myself included, to see a nice and strong signal and get no picture. You may be on the wrong satellite, it is a easy mistake.

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  4. At certain times of the year, for a few minutes, my signal will go away.

    There are certain times when the sun is located directly behind the satellite you are aimed at. When this occurs, you will loose the signal for a brief time. It will return as the sun passes by.

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  5. While I am out aiming my dish, how do I position my LNB on the dish (LNBF and offset dish)?

    Position you LNBF with the coax connector at or about the 5 O'Clock position on the dish when you are facing it. Once you get the dish aimed correctly, you can adjust the position of the feed for maximum signal.

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  6. Should I call one of those little dish folks to install my system?

    It has been our experience that, while there are some really good DSS installers, most of them do not know much about your type of system. They know how to aim the DSS stuff using their standard methods and assume your system is the same. It isn't, and you probably won't get much for your money.

    Aiming of these FTA dishes is different from the little 18 inch dishes. The 18 inch dish does not require a lot of careful aim and the DSS satellites are more powerful than the FTA satellites. But then you pay monthly for all that stuff, right?

    Thanks to those installers that can do this !

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