How to align satellite dish

After some unsuccessful tries to align a satellite dish do you think it's rocket science? Well, the calculations are difficult but the practical thing isn't. Despite what many believe, it is easy to align a satellite dish as long as you know the parameters than can easily be calculated online these days. Of course you are looking towards the sky, but you must be looking towards the satellite. This is not the usual practical guide to satellite dish installation. For that there are plenty of resources and video clips on YouTube. I'm gonna explain all the steps required to successfully receive signal from a satellite and explain why you do that and that. Everything from mounting the dish, connecting the LNB and receiver and looking for signal on the right frequency.

Make a multifeed LNB bracket for your satellite dish

Although a satellite dish is designed to receive signal coming from a single direction, by placing additional LNBs near the main one you will be able to receive more than one orbital position. Thus, each LNB will receive signal from a different satellite. You can receive in this way signal from satellites placed at near orbital positions. Having multiple LNBs fitted to a dish is called multifeed and it comes with advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage over a motorized dish is the fact that it is a fixed installation and you can change channels instantly without waiting for the antenna to move. However, the additional LNBs that are not placed in the middle focal point will receive lower quality signal than the main one.

Brackets for multiple LNBs are commercially available, but I found them rather... rigid. Most of them are for 2 or 4 LNBs and don't allow too much fiddling to get the best signal quality. Let's try to make that bracket. It must keep a constant focal distance and should follow the inverted reflection of Clarke orbit. The focal distance depends on antenna and orbit reflection depends on dish size, receiving location and satellite positions. The distance between LNBs is proportional with dish diameter. You will learn how these parameters affect the LNB bracket shape and size and how you can calculate distance between LNBs.

Photo courtesy of Paul Lucas on Flickr

Connect multiple satellite receivers to a single LNB

A TV satellite receiving installation is usually made up of a dish, LNB and receiver. A single LNB is designed to feed one receiver. Yet in some circumstances, depending on received transponders properties, a LNB with a single output can feed multiple receivers, although the number of received transponders will lower. The best solution is a multiple output LNB.