My new "portable" satellite dish.. How flippin' big?!

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Oct 8, 2006
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Lets have a bit of clarification.
The Sky dishes were known as Zones1 and 2 with the switchover being roughly the England/Scotland border. Zone 1 would work in places in Scotland, but some parts of northern England benefitted from a Zone 2.
In terms of comparison with an ovoid dish, Zone 1 was the equivalent of about a 43cm, and Zone 2 was roughly equal to a 55cm. Therefore if you bought a 60cm ovoid dish would be a good compromise anywhere plus they are neither too big or too heavy. Since the tight UK beam on Astra 2F/2G was introduced, in theory a Zone 1 Sky dish should work anywhere in the UK.
In terms of alignment, most people that buy a dish don't realise that there is a built-in offset. If the dish is mounted or standing on a tripod exactly vertical then the LNB (the electronic bit on the end of the stalk) would be looking at a signal reflected by the dish that is 25deg above horizontal. That means that in northern Scotland the dish might actually need to be tilted slightly downwards to find the signal, whereas on the south east coast of England it may need to be tilted slightly upwards. The OP says he managed to get a signal by pointing between two houses: in practice unless they were within about 20m and more than 10m high a dish at ground level would be looking well above the roofline at a satellite at 25deg elevation. For the record, the Astra cluster sits roughly where the sun is at around 3pm on the 15th October for most
 

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