Satellite - first trip out !

[JohnI.Stephen]

Some of you will remember the discussion on what I should do having "had enough" of the dreadful lacl of performance with the Omni 315. I bought a (cheap) Maplin's satellite kit. I also bought a maplins electronic compass and satellite finder. My first trip out this weekend and I was up and running in 10 minutes !

Admittedly I hammered the satellite platform into the ground and this made it very secure. I like Garry's idea of mounting it on a pole but securing it into the ground seems possibly the most secure way to mount the dish.

I did notice that most of my fellow caravanners had fancy satellite tripods but mine was certainly secure. The only concern is that the dish is small at 39cm and I was unable to achieve more that 75% signal strength and 40-60% quality. (Why is it that different stations on the same satellite have varying signal and quality strength??)

My thanks to all on ths forum who helped me in my deliberations.

John

 

[JeremyClarksson]

Different transponders on different satellites can give different strengths and the signals may be coming from several satellites on the same bearing like Eurobird or Astra 2a,2b,2c,2d which are all on 28E.

Another factor is the bit rate (please excuse terminology if wrong) which you can think of as your broadband download speed, from memory a strong station would be 27600 with weaker signals being less.

With the same size dish as you I get around 70-75% on both quality and strength so with a bit more practice you will get better quality which is the most important reading.

Glad to hear you are there or getting there.