Inclinometer at Home Depot or Lowes?

May 10, 2007 22 Replies
H

Sigh. The inclination degrees are stamped on the dish clamp. Satellite dishes COME with an itty-bitty compass.

All you "need" is a level for getting the mast perpendicular to the ground. Damn kits may even come with that!

The biggest mistake the home installer makes is believing a satellite dish is like a TV antenna and needs to be mounted on the top of a two-story chimney. The difference between 25,000 miles and 25,000 miles minus thirty-five feet is zip! If you can point the dish, unobstructed, at the southern sky, you're golden.

Mount the sucker on the wall, where you can reach it! If not for alignment, then think snow removal.

Geeze.

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C

According to Oren :

That usually doesn't work very well - the sound level is not very dependent on signal strength. Better to set the satellite receiver to the signal strength setup page, and have someone watch the TV and yell out the numbers.

We used a compass and protractor, and got the signal to register, and from then on tweaked the dish to maximize the signal indicator.

[Parked a small TV and the receiver inside the bathroom window nearest to the dish for adjustment. After the dish was aligned, then we laid the wires for the TV. But you could do the same thing other ways. Eg: CB/FRS radios. Hand signals. Smoke signals ;-)]

Note that Radio Shack (aka The Source) had/may still have a satellite signal strength meter which you can simply plug into the back of the dish and tune that way.

Around $60 CDN I heard. They don't allow returns...

[They should rent the things.]
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