Motorised dish / GB Quad

[Shadow81]

A bit of help please? At my recommendation, my dad replaced a dead humax hd receiver with the wonderful GB Quad..

When his humax died, dish was pointing nicely at Hotbird (13).

I set up his GB Quad and scanned this Sat initially.. Worked a treat.

ownloaded Cateyes and ran a full scan

and somehow all sats have vanished.. Cant seem to get a lock or signal on any - help/guide/advice please?

[Shadow81]

for the record, I dont yet have a sat meter, and have only fiddled in positioner settings to try get a signal (as well as numerous autoscans etc..)

[abu baniaz]

You only need sat meter for fine tuning the dish. I presume it was tracking the arc correctly, so no need for meter.

How have you configured your tuners?

[Shadow81]

Hi, thanks for reply.. I have tried a few configs, but latest is

A - USALS
B - second cable of motorised dish (or whatever it is)
C - not configured
D - not configured

Im supposed to set c and d to equal to b I believe, but equal to only gives me tuner A in the options.

I managed to lock onto a signal earlier (pure luck) for the first time since losing sats, and GB Quad thought it was Hotbird 13 - but scanning only returned 200 odd channels which research showed were on Eutelsat 9.. First scan of Hotbird before any config returned over 2000.. So I knew it wasnt right.. Also, fine tuning, the best I could get (SNR?) was 46%

I cant seem to get a lock on anything and after re-installing catseye I lost all sats again...

Setup is quite a few years old and hasnt really moved off Hotbird for at least 5 yrs before now...

I have factory rest GB a few times but it doesnt seem to remove the Catseye - coz after fresh setup I go to download and its not in list, and if I choose a new one, it warns me of the one already installed.

The dish setup.was fitted by an actual installer, not a DIY.. But last time we changed receiver he moaned at my dad for trying to use USALS and fiddled with the humax - so I dont know if he had to manually tune it or not (as in arc is off or not).

sorry if this is jumbled and confusing - im still learning this stuff lol.

[abu baniaz]

The golden rule is software config must match hardware.

I should have really asked what the hardware in terms of what dish/cabling/diseqc switch etc. Is the lnb a single one?

[Shadow81]

Sorry, I shoulda said - 90cm triax dish with a single lnb, but have bought an inverto ultra quad lnb to upgrade it to.

I have no idea what the motor is unfortunately. Currently the original single lnb is still installed. No switch on this setup.

is this helpful?

[abu baniaz]

Ok, so you only have one cable from motor to your receiver.

My personal opinon is start at simplest level (you can add loopthrough later). Set all tuners that have nothing connected as "not configured". You should set the one with the motor cable as you have now.

See this post to tune and focus you motor. You should be fine after that.
http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?31919-Motorised-Dish-on-VU-Duo-Available-Satellites&p=240506&viewfull=1#post240506

[Shadow81]

Awesome, ill give that a go tomorrow :) thanks..

[Shadow81]

Strange behaviour today - I cant seem to get any channels from anywhere, and am getting 'warning, no lnb; using factory default'

Cable is definitely in correct and I have seen dish in various different positions during an automatic scan.. But the dish/lnb/cable have not been touched :/

[Shadow81]

Sorry, I missed a bit out - I get that lnb warning message when I go into positioner...

[abu baniaz]

Don't scan, just transfer a chanenl list. Are your coordinates inputted correctly?

[Shadow81]

My long/lat are precise on the quad.. I cant vouch for long and elevation of dish setup but can only assume these right because it has always worked until now (even tho it was manually set up as USALS didnt seem to work on humax either).

Ive downloaded catseye but guide shows up totally blank and it wont zap through channels..

[Shadow81]

Catseye was downloaded through plugins if that matters...?

[abu baniaz]

Sorry, I am stuck. If USALs did not work but it tracked the arc, the whole assembly will need moving slightly. You can compensate though by altering your co-ordinates.

All I can suggest is USB flash from scratch, dont restore settings. There is a guide for setting up a motor without USALS.

http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?30415-Motorised-dish-setup&p=229688&viewfull=1#post229688

[Shadow81]

Thanks again.. Got it sorta set up again.. Except across the widest spectrum I can make it scan, it returns 900'ish channels.

On Hotbird single satellite.scan, it only finds 132 channels, and none on the specific transponder I want...

Using position menu, if I use Autofocus, SNR improves majorly when it says "move west 5" up until about "move west 10" - SNR is 55% at this point, as opposed to the 30% - 35% it is on its own selection..

I am not sure how to amend long/lat to compensate for this..

My long/lat is 052.200 / 000.100 (or is it the other way round?)

So any advice on why way up/down I should be tweaking?

thanks

[Shadow81]

Oh, and autofocus also fails every time, saying 'cannot determine west limit, aborting'

[abu baniaz]

If you are only getting 50% on hotbird, your dish is out of alignment significantly. Best to focus on the pole/motor/dish (no pun intended).

You are sure east/west not mixed up. If dishpointer gives you a neagtive value, that is west.

[Shadow81]

Dishpointer? Do you mean east/west of my location or on the box somewhere? I am in Cambridge which is north/east 52.2xxxx / 0.133xxxx

What should I be getting on Hotbird SNR wise?

The channels I do manage to pull through Work (the couple of clear ones and the handful of radios).. Even with 30%

[Shadow81]

Ok, Im not sure how I it, but I fiddled a bit, turned off USALS and did a scan and somehow pulled down most of the Hotbird channels. Upon further investigation it seems the channels I was getting were off Eutelsat 9.

SNR now 71%.

Have stored current position in position menu as 1.

Thing is, during the same scan, I set it to scan for Hotbird 13 and Astra 28.2 - but the channels it thinks are from 28.2 seem to actually be from 19.2..

My dad wants a specific channel on Hotbird and finally has it - how can I scan remaining without losing what we have managed to get now? Dont want to break it all over again :/

[abu baniaz]

Don't mix up scanning for chanenls on a satellite with with storing position of sattellites.

Some channels appear on more than 1 satellite. This is why I suggested that you transfer a list instead of scanning. Vhannibals lists, are updated very regularly. There is also the satfinder applet within the service searching menu. 71% is too low for hotbird, it is a very strong satellite, you should be aiming for 90s. I am getting this on my DIY install with the top part of a building slightly in the way.

Treat the task as motor/dish alignment issue instead of just looking for hotbird. End result will be be better.

[Shadow81]

Thanks. Yeah, I know channels can appear across several, which is what threw me initially. When I compared channels being picked up, by pure chance every one I happened to check was also available on Hotbird, but then I did finally find some exclusive to Eutelsat 9, which is when it clicked.

Same with 19.2 instead of 28.2. What my dad wants is to get the dish properly (professionally) aligned so USALS is spot on, but there oddly seems to be a lack of satellite installers in Cambridge.

Also, his Sat hardware is now quite old. The cable doesnt look like it was high quality, and lnb is probably cheapest of cheap.

He has a spool of CAI certified WF100, and a quad inverto ultra quad lnb waiting to replace his setup. Im also trying to get him to upgrade to an Alsat Dark Motor Supreme. Im sure these will all make a positive difference alone..

I do see it as alignment issue, but the priority (for my dad) was getting his main channel back until we can the dish aligned properly I guess.

[abu baniaz]

You too can do it properly. There are plenty of guides on aligning a motorised dish. Pole has be plumb as the foundation.

Agreed about using good quality cable. However, dont replace motor just because it is old. Do so if it is faulty.

[Alec]

Sorry, I shoulda said - 90cm triax dish with a single lnb, but have bought an inverto ultra quad lnb to upgrade it to.

I have no idea what the motor is unfortunately. Currently the original single lnb is still installed. No switch on this setup.

is this helpful?
Don't forget if you change the LNB to different makes, that might need altering for best position.

[Shadow81]

Hey, thanks. Yeah, I am happy to give it a go and have read several guides on how to do it, it is just finding the time and getting access (requires a roof-ladder as there is a single storey extension below it which was built after dish was mounted).

The idea behind switching motors was so I can be familiar with makes/models/specs etc... I know nothing about the motor that is currently there :/

And yeah, the LNB thats on there currently is tiny compared to the Inverto lol - does skew matter on a motorised setup, or does the dish tilting accomodate for this?

Cheers