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How to Motorize a Satellite Dish

By: Koral Wilkins Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Satellite systems are for many of us the way to watch analogue and digital TV. There are subscriptions and viewing cards for packages from all around the world, you probably have one as well and are getting the channels with a satellite dish. Most likely you have a small dish but that's often all that's required to watch the channels from your country because the footprint is strongest near its targeted location. The interesting thing is that if you tried turning the dish you might be able to scan in channels from another satellite, like from a different country. The sky is full of satellites and FTA (Free to All channels) that does not require a huge dish.

The main satellites in Europe are 13E and 19E which carries lots of FTA channels in different languages, such as Spanish, French and Arabic. It may not sound interesting to tune in to the foreign channels. Now lets say you would like to watch a football match that is not broadcasted on the viewing package you have but the match is on a free on another satellite, wouldn't it be great to watch it? Or maybe something else, there is a lot to watch. In the end its not that much enjoyment of having to go out and manually turn the dish each time between satellites.

This is where motors come into play. There are different types available, such as DiSEqC, 36v Horizon to Horizon and actuators. DiSEqC are the most talked about and they are just fine for dishes up to 1 meter in size. With this setup it uses your satellite receiver as power that runs on 12v and 17v. Receivers have limited power for the motor as it shares it with the LNB, this tends to make them slow and not as powerful as compared to H to H motors. Still its a convenient upgrade because it uses your existing coax cable that already connects to the LNB on the dish. 36v actuators and H to H motors are better, can cope with higher wind loads and power larger dishes and these use their own power source from the receivers built-in 36v positioner. Most receivers don't have a positioner built-in but don't worry, in this case you could use a device called V-Box.

The advantage of the V-Box is the positions are stored in it rather than in the receivers software. All the motors are made to do the same thing, tracking the geostationary satellite arc within 180 degrees. It is not possible to go further as all the other satellites are below the horizon, meaning they are out of sight. Its a good preparation to plan where to put the dish so fences or buildings are not obstructing view to the satellites you want to catch. When everything is setup and aligned correctly the dish will turn to the desired location as you hop channel. This opens up to a whole new dimension of viewing as you can catch channels from many countries around the world. The only limit now is the dish size. On Lyngsat you can find out which dish diameter is required from your location for any targeted satellite. So the bigger dish you have, the more channels you would be able to view.

On satellites there exists different types of bands, each operating in their own frequencies. C-Band is low frequency and generally needs large dishes. Ku-Band which is used throughout Europe, works at higher range of frequencies. Both these bands have Vertical and Horizontal (Linear), Left and Right (Circular) polarization. A LNB type is either Circular or Linear, you can still install two on the dish if you mount the two LNB's next to one another. When you do this you can use a 2/1 DiSEqC switch, this will automatically inform the receiver which LNB to select for each type of signal.

There are many choices of dishes, motors and receivers but don't give up its not as complicated as you might think. The horizon is full of satellites and frequencies that everyone can watch with the hardware that's currently available on the market. Happy viewing!

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About The Author: Article written by Koral Wilkins. To find more information on this topic. Visit my site about motorized satellite systems.