After the system was installed last month I just looked at it VERY quickly and everything looked fine. I went out yesterday to move the old dish to the side of the house, being that they just sort of left it laying on the lawn, and I decided to look really closely at the installation to make sure everything was peachy keen. It wasn't.
I found four bolts loose, three of which were VERY important. The first nut/bolt was, when looking at it from the back of the dish, on the right, and one of the ones that keeps the dish tilted to the correct elevation. The left one was tight, but the right one was loose. I tightened that up, of course. The second thing I found was the long bolt coming out of the back and going through a hole in the bracket, having a nut behind and in front of the bracket. This is also used to hold the elevation in place. The one on the outside of the bracket was tight to the bracket, as it had tension on it (it pulls back on the top of the dish), but the one on the inside that locks it down was not, so I tightened that up, as well. Three things hold the elevation correct, and only one was tight (the long bolt was holding the tension, too, but it wasn't locked into place). Sheesh. The third thing I found was that the ground wire was just hanging loosely on the small bolt it is attached to. The nut was on the end of the bolt, but just turned on a few threads. I tightened that down as well. The ground wire is definitely important when it's needed.
The fourth (and fifth, sort of) bolt was the one that was really fun. It was a bolt that holds the dish from turning left and right. I went to tighten it down, and low and behold, when I put my hand on the dish as I got down on my knees, it turned. I mean it turned a lot. My satellite receive strength dropped to nothing. I mean a big fat zero. Luckily, that was all that moved, so after working at it for about twenty minutes, I was able to swivel the dish back to where it originally was. I had to keep running back in the house and checking the strength. Getting it to the general area was the most fun. Once I got it there, I was able to fine tune it pretty easily. It turns out that the bolt that WAS holding it in place wasn't exactly tight, though it appeared that way. Anyway, now EVERYTHING is tight on it. Very tight. I checked it out, every inch, then proceeded to push and pull that thing from every direction and it is quite solid now. No movement whatsoever. They also installed it on the pole that I had my original Hughesnet dish on, and that sucker is in there, that's for sure. It's not going anywhere.
We've had a few windy days here, and how it didn't turn a little in one of those strong gusts is beyond me. But, as I said, it's all good now.
Ryzen 5 3400G | MSI B450M Pro-M2 MAX | 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3000 | XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB NVMe | Windows 10 Pro
