Satellite DIsh Installation Guide :: Point Your Dish Right

To enjoy maximum benefits from your satellite dish, you need to install it right and you need to be doubly sure that your dish is receiving the best signals. For that your dish should be instlalled to point in the right direction. But how do you do that? It is not that difficult to point your dish in the right direction. You will only have to follow a few steps to get the right direction.

The most influencing things for a dish are its, Azimuth and Altitude or elevation and Polarization. Azimuth is the direction from the north to the east (diagonal), it tells you how far left or right the dish should be placed. Altitude gives us the vertical distance, and tells us how far above the horizon it has to go. Polarization or Skew refers to the adjustment needed because of the curvature of the earth.

One need not break his/her head over the choice of the right direction. The satellite TV provider normally has this information. The One Point Dish/Signal option, provided by DISH network, is helpful in adjusting the dish. With your zip code, it is possible to determine the Azimuth, Altitude and Skew.

Points to follow:

1.The Skew has to be set before the dish can be mounted. Using the adjustment number, from your service provider rotate the dish to match the recommended coordinates.

2.With your Azimuth and Altitude numbers and a compass, be at least one feet away, use your compass to get north or zero degrees.

3.Locate the azimuth number on the compass and turn to face that point without moving the compass. East is 90 degrees, south is 180 degrees and west is 270 degrees. If your azimuth number is 240 for example, you would face a direction that fell between South and West on your compass.

After the direction has been found, check the elevation with the ground representing zero, calculate the distance going upwards using the elevation number provided by your provider. Straight up would be 90 degrees.

When this has been done, your dish is ready and your TV viewing is going to reach 'new heights'!!