Motorised dish problems

[Boydy]

Hi all

I am having hell with my motorised dish. I recently moved home and doing so got an installer (guy I always use) to transfer my dish etc to my new property.

Turned out the old motor I had - TM2600 - was no longer driving the dish so I bought a new one about a month ago. The installer came out and hooked it up and it was ok - or it seemed to be. The only thing he couldn't get going correctly was locking 30 West. I played around with that and managed to bring it in (probably by good fortune opposed to knowledge).

Anyway, it seems a bit of a mess now. I have only been able to lock on 30 West and nothing else, meaning I can get nothing else east or west.

Today I got a ladder and sent the dish to zero and reset the motor. I then unplugged the power from the box and disconnected the cable to the dish. When I turned it on I was able to get 0.8 W, 13.0 E, 28.2 E etc. Then when I tried to go to 30 W I couldn't bring it in so tried to go back to 0.8 - 0.8 then didn't come in.

Before I moved I was using a VU+ Zero but it is white and my other hardware is black so I purchased a Mutant HD box to get everything looking decent. I have been skipping between the 2 boxes to see if either of them will work - I know, I know.

My USALS setup is:

Single tuner

configuration - simple

Long - 6.693

Lat - 55.140

We have had some storms lately and my dish is 1.1 metres but it's perforated and doesn't seem to have moved - my viewing experience is flawless (when available).

I'm at my wits end with this now and don't really want to be paying out again to correct this. The only problem with that is I haven't a clue about manually positioning the dish or anything. All I really know is via the box.

Any help here would be like manna from heaven. I am ready to volley this down the road.

Thanks

[CRUMBLIN]

First, make sure that the pole that the dish is mounted on is perfectly vertical. Secondly, check that the elevation is set correctly, this should be marked on the side of the motor bracket and the correct setting for your Latitude can be found in the manual that came with the motor.
It looks to me that the dish is not following the arc correctly hence the missing of satellites. Motors are sometimes marked with Elevation on one side of the bracket and Declination on the opposite side. Setting up on a strong Satellite will help and once you have done the previous mentioned, you can fine tweak by placing your finger on the top lip of the dish and lightly pull back or push forward observing if the signal increases or decreases, then repeat this on the side edge of the dish. good luck.

[Joe_90]

I'll echo what @crumblin said - ensure the dish pole is perfectly vertical, both side to side and front to back, otherwise the dish won't track the arc properly. The installer should have verified all this if he is familiar with motorised dish installs, though. At 55N, your motor elevation should be set at 35 degrees (though if the scale is marked for latitude check it's set at 55 - my motor has latitude on one side and elevation on the other). 30West is easy to get on an 80cm dish at my location at 53N and 6W. I assume your location is 55N and 6W, which would locate you near Coleraine. Make sure your settings are for -6 longitude (or 6W) as the settings default to positive (East) values, which would place you in the North Sea!

A 1.1m dish is much more difficult to get to track accurately as its beamwidth is much narrower than an 80cm, so the motor, pole and elevation settings are critical in order to track the arc properly. A big dish (relatively speaking) is a serious wind obstacle. The perforations on the dish are to reduce weight (and manufacture cost), not to reduce wind loading. I changed from a 1.1 to an 80cm dish a couple of years ago as I was having such an issue with dish movement after storms. I can't receive the low power transponders at the end of the arc (53E) any more but everything from 45E to 30W is ok on the smaller dish. I'm not into feedhunting any more so access to the usual commercial transmissions works for me on the smaller dish.

[Boydy]

Hi guys

Just getting around to replying to you both.

In the end I was getting no power to the motor via the Linux boxes. I had an old Openbox in the cupboard so I hooked it up and confirmed power to the motor. I reset the Linux boxes (again) and sent the dish to 0. Then I installed the sats using Disecq 1.2 and all was good.

I am never touching it again.

Appreciate the feedback, guys. Cheers.

Boydy.

[Joe_90]

I found DisecQ 1.2 a lot more fiddly to set up than USALS (which usually only needs an accurate initial south-pointing dish and proper location details), but if it is working for you then enjoy your viewing!