the torment of setting up a motorized situation

[fintannl]

so its been one of those days. purchased a motor some time back so the dish and bracket arrived today. so one would think happy times. 30 minutes and all would be sorted. hours and hours later my life suddenly knows no meaning. now i have read up how to set up the system and in truth vix does move the dish when asked from one position to another. my problem is that i seem to be missing the initial step ie. where to point the dish for starters. now it has always been somewhat difficult to align a dish to 28.2 but after a bit of messing around i usually can manage that. when i tell the dish to go to 0 it does go to a position and when i tell it to go to hotbird it does swivel to a new position. obviously my reference point is wrong. my latitude is 53.4 degrees and my longitude is grand also so following the booklet i can work out the angles. however the 0 position is killing me. any suggestions would be so appreciated.

just one other thing. i have tunerb set up on usals. when i try to do a satfind i get a green screen on the latest vix image

[hifial]

Im not an expert but this is the advice i got and it works!You want to put the motor to zero and move the dish so that its centred on the motor make sure you lat and long are entered into the usals setting on you receiver. Move the motor mount on the pole so that the dish is facing south on your box select a channel on 5w when your motor moves to it move the motor mount on the pole until you get 5w signal this will be a good start, you can then move to other sats you want and tweak the dish

[basilyoung]

first of all, you need to get the motor set to zero, this can be seen on the motor itself
you need to make sure your mount pole is absolutely perpendicular (left/right, front and back )
set the motor to 53,4 latitude and get the motor body pointing to true south ( the motor leg should be nearly parallel with the wall )
then put your dish onto the motor, and with your unit on 1 west BBC WORLD ( switch off the unit first ) connect the coax directly to the lnb, NOT THE MOTOR
THE DISH LNB ARM, should be in a straight line with your motor body
with the motor clamps slighty loose to allow sideways movement, and the dish elivation bolts slightly loose as well gently lift the dish ( it should be slightly pointing upwards from its parallel position ) ( a cheap sat beeper should be used if possible )untill you get a signal/beep ( also if needs be, move the motor assembly left / right, tighten the dish bolts..and see if you have BBC World, If so, adjust the dish to get max signal, and lock up the motor

then turn off the unit, connect the lnb to its motor connection, and coax from the reciever to the other motor connection

switch on the unit, and making sure your USAL settings are correct, see if the dish finds 28 east ( bbc )

the assembly should get ( dependant on dish size ...say 1 mtr ) 95/100% on 1 west and high 90%,s on bbc on 28 east

if lower on 28 east,...gently press the dish left / right up/down to see if the signal improves
if so...you may need to lower the motor slightly, and the dish will need to be raised as well or vise versa

baz

[Conaxthewarrior]

I have has my triax motor for a year with no probs. I have gone through the process you describe problem free setting the 0 position slightly to the right of the 13e satellite, so that at 0, the parabol points to no mans land ie no signal. If I set 0 to exactly where 13e is, then I get a problem, the motor for some reason, rotates to and fro trying to find 13e not knowing it was there from the start! Have you checked the mouning is exactly perpendicular? I have had total lost of signal after the mounting was offset by 1 deg from the perpendicular axis, so it dosnt take much. Use a digital protractor, the accuracy of mine saved me many times and it's a good idea to check the dish angle, my dish moved out of line by a hairs bredth last resulting in a 5% signal loss.
Hope some of this is useful.

[basilyoung]

In the UK, the Centre piont of the available arc, is 1 WEST, therefore any uk motor set up, should be at the centre of the arc, in other countrys, this rule of thumb is still the case, but the centre of there arc, is different

[martyd]

This is the way i do it, i also struggled with all the mixed messages out there, 1) mount has got to be bang on no it will do here is your level any good lots are crap,
2)fit motor according to instr then fit dish etc now point south use compass iphone whatever
3) now i set up the box image etc then i ftp the bouquets etc, then select a good fta channel on say 13e you should fingers crossed get something fine tune dish by moving i use meter at this point jobs done hope it helps

[fintannl]

all, thanks a million for the help. still in the process of doing this (in between the rain showers). some excellent advice. God but have I being doing this all wrong. First I attached the motor to the dish. then i got up on the step ladder that was on top of the coffee table and tried to hoist the contraption onto the wall bracket. death was a distinct possibility so I stopped at this point and got help from my nephew. so I go the dish on the supporting arm, connected it to the vu+ and started to play. was at a loss to understand as the dish moved it was nearly sideways by the time i got to hotbird. this was mainly due o the fact that
1/ i hadn't made sure that the motor was dead level on the arm
2/ i hadn't made sure that the dish was dead level on the motor
3/ i hadn't made sure that the feed arm on the dish was in a direct line with where the motor was pointing.
so all of this has been corrected. i may have to play a bit in finding true south but i have a very good idea from google earth. so next is to connect the dish directly to the vu+ and find bbc world on 1W. will keep you updated. its been a learning experience and wouldn't have had a chance of success without your excellent advice

[fintannl]

thanks again, once i had everything in line, a quick swivel of the dish and there was bbc world. refined the inclination angle of the dish and got the best percentage for bbc world possible 93%. So then all the other channels including HD came in fine with no glitching. So thats great. So next for the big test. Selected a channel on hotbird and the dish did swivel but no signal. However most worrying was that then I decided to select a channel on 1W again but the dish did not fully swivel back to its original position. Now what I had done (with the advice above) was set the 0 reference point using the Vu+, then i disconnected the motor and directly cnnected the vu+ to the dish, then i manually swivelled the dish until I got 1W in line. Now I reconnected the motor to the Vu+. In effect the Vu+ should think the 0 degrees is in fact 1W? So two questions. Firstly do I need to manually tune in all the satellites. Secondly, when the dish is facing 1W it is perfectly centred on the motor, when I move it to hotbird the dish is slightly arced to the side. Is this normal or should the dish always look centred as you move from one end of the arc to the other end. thanks again. off on holidays for the week so won't be at this again til next weekend but i will check in to pick any advice given. thanks again

[basilyoung]

the dish on 13 east should have a slight twist as it were. if you are not finding 13 east, its likely your motor needs raising slightly ( if your USAL settings are correct ) and dish lowering slightly, this is best done on 1 west, ( make sure you are on bbbc world ) then send the dish to 13 east...if its
still missing 13 east, go back to 1 west,
and lower the motor/raise the dish and repeat
if you are getting a signal on 13 east, gently put pressure on the dish, left and right, see if the sig improves...if it does..adjust your east/west setting by +/- 1 degree ie; if set to 003.789 west try 002.789
if the signal on 13 east is still weak, put pressure on the top/bottom of the dish, if sig improves, ie; top pressure improves, raise the motor slightly, and lower the dish ( on 1 west bbc world ) and the opposite if lower pressere improves sig strenght

[Conaxthewarrior]

Great. One thing of possible help, try using a digital compass, I got one for a few quid, dirt cheap but finds S exactly every time but can go off center in strong stray magnetic fields (so can ordinary compasses, come to think of it!)
Ps Basilyoung mentioned 1W being the center satellite over the Uk and so reference for south, sorry mate, I stand to be corrected, totally forgot that different locations around the globe have different S reference satellites. Here in denmark, its 13e , the 1w is like at the 3 or 4 o´clock.

[Conaxthewarrior]

Hi Basilyoung,
You got me wondering now. I live in east denmark where 13e is at exactly S but didnt expect so much of a shift to S such that the 1w would be in that position over the uk (or have I got it wrong?). Theres only a few hundred miles from here to the uk coast , in an easterly line from approxamatly Newcastle, so I would have thought the 13e satellite would be due south for the UK as well, based on the reasoning that the angle these two positions make with respect to the satellites wouldn't make much of a south positional shift at least not to move through all the sats between 13e & 1w.
On holiday in the canary islands, I noticed that dish angles were steeper than here and that there was almost a 180 deg turn from different dishes meaning that there was possible reception from left horizon to right (lucky buggers). This was no big surprise as the islands have nothing to block the sat signals, there being only sea around.
Anyhow, do you or anyone else reading this know where the south satellite is at any position around the world? There must be a web page somewhere to calulate it.

[bassethound]

The best site for this is dishpointer type in your post code or location pick a sat you would like and it gives you all the info you need


http://www.dishpointer.com/

[Conaxthewarrior]

Many thankyous, Bassethound, I'm quite surprised this site is so exact, now going through 53E to 43W satellites and some just out of this range checking if reception is afterall possible when I thought it wasnt!!
Conax

[fintannl]

quick question before i start playing with this again. can anyone explain why when I am on 1W I have perfect signal, when I go to 13E I get nothing (this I will work on with the advise supplied) but why is it that the dish does not return to 1W when I select a 1W channel. I'm just wondering why the dish does not return to the exact position it was in at the start?

[fintannl]

also is it correct in using the zero reference point as being 1W. Will dishpointer tell me what my reference point should be. I can't find this information when I check the website

[basilyoung]

also is it correct in using the zero reference point as being 1W. Will dishpointer tell me what my reference point should be. I can't find this information when I check the website

dish pointer will ( once you input your location ) give you the settings required ie: longitude/latitude if in liverpool it will be approx 003.140 west 053.233 north ( just a guess as i do not live in liverpool ) the motor would need the north setting, elivation of the dish is then adjusted to suit your location, this really needs to be done on 1 west, which is the centre point of the sat ark for the uk

regards to the motor not going back to 1 west, after moving, could be that the USAL,s info is not correct, ( tuner setup ) or a dodgy coax cable to the motor, or dodgy motor, or the channel you are trying to watch, ie, BBC World was scanned in from say 13 east ( also free to air ) so the motor is confused, in that it thinks 13 east is 1 west

[Alec]

quick question before i start playing with this again. can anyone explain why when I am on 1W I have perfect signal, when I go to 13E I get nothing (this I will work on with the advise supplied) but why is it that the dish does not return to 1W when I select a 1W channel. I'm just wondering why the dish does not return to the exact position it was in at the start?
Your arc is incorrect. the main pole needs to be 90 degrees, Set you lat on the moving motor. Most people use 1 west and tune to Thor on USUALS, but you could tune the receiver to 28.2. The motor moves to the East and stops, and then maually move the motor assemble left or right until it picks up this sat. If there is setting on the motor it should move from 0 to around 30 E. Once you have the best signal left and right moment, adjust the elevation of the dish for best signal.

[fintannl]

sorted guys. used the iphone to correct the 0 reference and all is perfect. thanks a million for all the excellent advice in this thread. i wouldn't have had a hope without all the input given

[Sicilian]

sorted guys. used the iphone to correct the 0 reference and all is perfect. thanks a million for all the excellent advice in this thread. i wouldn't have had a hope without all the input given

Well done for sticking with it m8ty, I would have called in an installer lol!