sat dish

[ratkins]

hi everybody

i have moved my motorised sat dish to a more accessible meter and fitted a new motor! this is where my problems start i have fixed the elevation on my dish and if i go to 1deg get a picture but move to 19.2 no picture i have to adjust the disk elevation have i missed something on the original setup???? any ideas would be appreciated.

[TK4|2|1]

Why did you alter the elevation settings? If you just moved the setup to a different height, the elevation and dish angle will still be the same as they where. Can you see any marks on the brackets from the old settings? Put them back as they where.


Sent from my iThing using sorcery and the magic interweb

[Maxwell]

Providing you didnt change the dish declination it should be easy to put right, my guess is that you are not pointing the dish at true south.

1. make sure your mount is absolutely vertical
2. drive your motor to the 0 position using Goto 0 and loosen the bolts that hold the dish to the motor and make sure the dish is central on the motor then lock into position (what I mean is if you imagine a vertical line down back of the dish (¦) this would be inline with the middle of the motor vertically)
3. try to find 0.8 w by rotating the motor on the mount left/right a little bit at a time
4. Once you have a signal from 0.8 w select that satellite on the receiver and the dish should move slightly to the right if you are behind the dish
5. rotate the motor on the mount slightly to the left and tweak until you have the strongest possible signal
6. now tweak the elevation up/down until you have the strongest possible signal
7. lock up all mounting bolts and keep an eye on the signal strength
8. select another satellite such as 30w or 42e , once there check your signal strength by gently pushing the dish up and down, the signal strength should drop slightly if you are correctly aligned if not your true south position is still out so make adjustments as needed you can also give very fine tweaks to the elevation if you want and by fine I mean very fine.

All this assumes that the declination is correct, if its not you will need to go back to 0 and set the latitude and declination for your location, once declination is set do not touch it again.

You should now be good right across the arc

[ratkins]

thanks for the response guys
i will try again this weekend as im working away.
one thing where do i get my declination from?

[basilyoung]

thanks for the response guys
i will try again this weekend as im working away.
one thing where do i get my declination from?


http://www.dishpointer.com/

have a look here ( satpointer.com )

[blamers81]

Great advice from Maxwell! In the past when setting up a motorised dish I've always found that after ensuring the dish is completely lined up centrally on the motor arm (not the pole attached to the wall) drive the motor to Thor 0.8w as this is the closest to south for us here. Once you've done this set your tuner so that it's on the BBC World transponder (11862H, 28000) and use this as the basis for tuning/aligning. In the past I've been able to get almost 100% quality on this transponder although that was on a Protek box. Assuming you get Thor at the best possible reading the motor will do the rest and track the arc!

[ratkins]

cheers blamers81. as maxwell said i will need to check dish is lined up centrally on motor arm, sound like this is the problem..
i got signal on thor but nothing when i move it so i will start back at the beginning and update .
thanks for all the input everyone

[ratkins]

hi
thanks for all the advice, it was out of alignment just a tad. all running now thanks again

[Daytona]

Great advice from Maxwell! In the past when setting up a motorised dish I've always found that after ensuring the dish is completely lined up centrally on the motor arm (not the pole attached to the wall) drive the motor to Thor 0.8w as this is the closest to south for us here. Once you've done this set your tuner so that it's on the BBC World transponder (11862H, 28000) and use this as the basis for tuning/aligning. In the past I've been able to get almost 100% quality on this transponder although that was on a Protek box. Assuming you get Thor at the best possible reading the motor will do the rest and track the arc!

Blamer everyone talks of Thor 0.8W being the arc center for UK but what will it be for me living in France with co-ordinates 1.3 east 43.6 North ?

Do I follow all the well clear instructions on the forum but instead of using 0.8W do I choose the nearest sat to south of my position and does this then in effect become the zero motor setting ?

Thanks for any help because Saturday was lost up and down the ladder tweaking and I get 13E, 15E,17E but do not get 28.2!

[Stanman]

Daytona, the way I set it up was to put the pole plumb and than send the dish to Zero, via the positioner settings in the image, once there, send it to your nearest dish, which for UK was 0.8W, once their its a question of adjusting the dish until you get the strongest signal you can.

Use the website dishpointer to find your south and use satellite view to line it up and than send it to selected sat.

[Maxwell]

The positions of the satellites are the geostationary orbital position in space above the equator and are consequently in the same position wherever you are based, the only thing that will change is the transmission footprint.
You would setup your dish using 0.8w as per the normal instructions

[Daytona]

Thanks stanman and maxwell for your advice.
My co-ordinates are input and when I set-up, after adjusting everything south, I sent to 13E using the STB and as per the STAB HH120 motor instructions moved the "dish-motor locked together" on the vertical mounting pole slightly to get a stonger signal.
I think I am outside the footprint of 0.8W so chose 13E to do the adjustment. When I use search satellite to 28.2 I realised the dish has travelled too far east so trimmed back west on the box until I received a signal. It is now static in that position until I find the courage for another attempt :)
To note on my previous fixed 70 cm dish I had SNR of 90% but now with a 1m dish only achieve 60%. As far as I can tell with a spirit level the pole is vertical but I will probably invest in a digital level before the weekend.

Just for clarity (and for my sanity) would you kindly confirm that when the dish is sent to the nearest satellite that when adjusting for the strongest signal the complete assy (dish + motor) is rotated on the vertical mounting pole ?
Another concern is it critical to find the nearest satellite and do you think me using 13E will achieve the desired result ?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Stanman]

I don't know know how other people do it but yes when i did it I adjusted the dish and motor to get a strong signal on the sat I had sent the dish to.

I would persevere mate, it really is not that hard to do. I had help in putting the dish up but afterwards the winds knocked it out and I was able to re position.

[Daytona]

Hi Stanman,

Many thanks for your confirmation and reassurance !
I will be continuing this weekend and will report progress but is it important which satellite is used for the adjustment or just one nearest to south within the footprint ?
Hopefully just one last question:
I have seen on other posts satellite config as one fixed on 28.2 with Tuner A and motorised on Tuner B.

This really interests me as a perfect config for as the majority of my viewing/recording is on 28.2 but I am keen to explore other satellites.
But the big question is with this config do you lose HD capability or am I thinking from my sly days where you need two cables to the LNB ?

I asume whith such a config 1 cable goes from tuner A to fixed dish LNB and 1 cable from tuner B to motorised LNB.

Apoogie if this is such a simple question and thanks again in advance.
Kind regards,

[Daytona]

Correction to the above I refer also to recording capability. Will it still be possible to receive HD and watch a channel while recording another channel with fixed dish on 28.2 with one cable to Tuner A and a motorised dish with one cable to Tuner B ?

Thanks and sorry for my confusing message.

[Stanman]

You can record and watch from the same transponder without the motor but if its on a different transponder than the dish will move to 28.2E.

I have fixed on A, Motor on B and USB fixed on C and works fine. A & C are used when recording of 28.2E and B is only used when the other two are in use.

[Daytona]

That's great and thanks very much for the advice Stanman.
I will go for fixed on A and motor on B and maybe the USB tuner is something for the future for my ideal setup
As I understand with this config if watching a channel on the fixed at 28.2 and a recording starts on a different transponder the motor will move to 28.2 and the recording will be on tuner B without disruption to the viewing ?

[Stanman]

Thats how it works for me mate.