Grounding: Necessary or Not

[westom]

please ask your engineers if grounding is important (critical) to the function of satellite internet.

Satellite dish does not need grounding to perform a signal reception. Reasons for grounding are well proven by generations of experience. Therefore those requirements are clearly defined in codes - for safety.

[anonanimal]

At the risk of getting off-topic at this point (OP here), my install was finally completed today and for various reasons, none of which were technical or site-specific (I'll cite them if necessary, but they have nothing to do with the topic to be quite honest), the dish was aligned and modem provisioned without grounding of any sort as far as I'm aware.

I have been testing my speed on various sites (testmy, speedtest, bandwidth, speakeasy) throughout the day since ~9EST this morning and have not been able to achieve greater than 5.4Mbps down (I've been lax on up testing).

While I am well content with the service thus far and will continue to test (I understand "up to" speeds and actual speeds will always vary), I can't help but wonder how some folks are averaging closer to 15-17Mbps down speeds.

Everything looks fair to slightly above average on the modem page as far as I can tell from the great information on these forums:
~42dBm Rx Power
~1.0Ohms Resistance
~7.2-8dB SNR
6.8-7.8dB Cable Attenuation
Tria
Tx IF Power: -25.7dBm
Tx RF Power: 31.8dBm.

My follow-up questions are as follows:

1. Do any of these readings seem abnormal, and what is considered "normal" for these ranges? Opinions seem to vary dramatically. (I have all green on the page so I get that everything is looking good, but the speed could/should be better from what I've read...not complaining, I just want to be sure my system is correctly configured before the grace period ends.)

2. Would any of these observations prove abnormal due to lack of grounding (I understand from the great discussion in this thread that this is almost subjective in nature, but I'm sure it has to have some affect on SNR and transmit values in some concrete way)?

3. As grounding seemed superfluous to the tech, would it be safe to assume skew was even more so, and if so, is there an easy way to check this with common tools/household items (just started reading about skew and trying to understand its effects, though it seems as subjective as proper grounding)?

Thanks for any and all replies, and I apologize for the questions but there are some things I have not been able to find answers to via the search function.

Cheers

[MarkTwain]

These readings are typical. As long as everything is in the green you’re fine.

Grounding has zero effect on performance. Grounding or lack thereof won't affect those readings in any way.

Skew is important but not critical. It only takes a few seconds to set the skew which is on the work order. Probably the installer didn’t skip it. It’s easy enough to check. Search this forum for details. There are even some nice photos.

Continuing with the hijacked thread, there’s no way a WildBlue employee speaking publicly or in any official capacity would ever say grounding is unnecessary. One, code requires it and two, the potential liability for damages would be in the millions.

With my dish ungrounded and a dubiously grounded coax my speed is often over 25 Mbps and my jitter under 2 ms with zero packet loss on many test sites. How much would this performance be enhanced with a code-grounded system?

I attribute my higher than average results to my location close to dead center of the beam (accident) and close to dead center dish alignment (installer skill) and not to an ungrounded system. Those on the fringes of a beam will never get the speed of those in the center (in my opinion). Also maybe not a lot of difference but my OS (Linux in RAM) and browsers (Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror, Dillo, Iceweasel) are far faster than Windows/Apple products.

[jimcoe]

If the installer failed to ground or set skew, he likely missed some other things as well. ie. Did he use solid copper cable? You should insist on your installation meeting all WB requirements to avoid the potential of problems down the road. If you wait too long, you may have to pay for service call.

[wm4bama]

3. As grounding seemed superfluous to the tech, would it be safe to assume skew was even more so, and if so, is there an easy way to check this with common tools/household items (just started reading about skew and trying to understand its effects, though it seems as subjective as proper grounding)?

If you look at the back of your dish you will see the pointer and degree indicators engraved on the metal...if yours is set to 90° then it's not skewed for your location...90° is the way it ships from the supplier and means the Tria assembly arm is aligned straight ahead of the dish with no "twist" of the dish clockwise or counterclockwise.

I'm one of those customers that has a "no-skew" alignment and also one with speeds that are averaging 18-20mbs during the day...around 10-14mbs during the peak evening hours..

As you said, you will find various opinions here on the forum about the benefit, or lack of, skewing the dish...everyone tends to agree that it mostly effects upload speeds and maybe the ability for the modem to stay locked to the satellite slightly better during severe weather conditions.

Personally, I have no problems with my un-skewed installation, but where you are geographically located in your spot-beam may also make a difference...I am dead-center of my spot-beam and may be why I have better than average speed results. Customers located on the fringe areas of their spot-beam may have different results.

So, bottom line is, one answer does not fit all customers..

[Phainein]

If you look at the back of your dish you will see the pointer and degree indicators engraved on the metal...if yours is set to 90° then it's not skewed for your location..

[Phainein]

Beam 326; SAT (Sanderson, TX) Gateway; Seattle AcceleNet Ground Station

Trivial - Beam 326 would have Gateway in Sanderson, Tx, but I doubt if AcceleNet server is located in Seattle.

Do a tracet like this:

tracert 24.25.224.142

and on about sixth hop, one should see a city name there...what is it?

[R_K]

I am going to go out on a limb here--regardless of the many fine people posting--and say that anyone who accepts an ungrounded system is a ...um... very unwise. WB/Exede et al. should pull those installers' certifications who fail to completely ground any system.

[anonanimal]

Thanks for the info on finding the skew angle - as suspected, it was not skewed. And R_K, I had hoped to supervise the install but the tech arrived without a phone call and caught me and the gf at unawares so I was unable to. Furthermore, I do not feel it is the customer's burden to know anything about grounding, skew or other ViaSat regulations (I'm sure most customers don't, and a large proportion of complaints on these forums are seemingly due to installers not doing their job - not saying most techs are incompetent, just that some obviously are) and to supervise the install - the tech should be doing it correctly in the first place.

Also, Phainein, that is in fact what I get when preforming a tracert...I didn't simply make that up. :P

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I still can't get over 5.3-5.4 Mbps down after further testing throughout the day yesterday and this morning.

[Phainein]

that is in fact what I get when preforming a tracert..
Beam 326, SAT (Sanderson, TX) Gateway, Seattle AcceleNet Ground Station

I'd say one is on Beam 318, out of Bozeman, MT.

I believe the map cited in your sig was drawn up before bird was launched.