New Diseqc Motor - different dish bracket angle problem

[realdannys]

Hi guys,

After 8 years my Dark Motor gave up the goose the other day so i bought a new TM2600m3 from WOS.

i was hoping it would be an easy swap over, but unfortunately the dish angles different on the two motors - on the dark motor it was 27.5 and it's 5 degree different on the TM2600 making it 22.5. I had it set closer to 30 previously to be honest as it was as far as it would go - unfortunately it's still as far as it will go as the bracket on the dish at the top is pushed up against the motor bracket and without cutting a large chunk away (which i'd already done for the previous motor) it would tilt back to 22.5 degrees.

Presumably there's no way around this and i'm going to have to cut up the bracket a bit more? I'm just a bit worried about how rigid it'll be at the end of it.

[adm]

Hi guys,

After 8 years my Dark Motor gave up the goose the other day so i bought a new TM2600m3 from WOS.

i was hoping it would be an easy swap over, but unfortunately the dish angles different on the two motors - on the dark motor it was 27.5 and it's 5 degree different on the TM2600 making it 22.5. I had it set closer to 30 previously to be honest as it was as far as it would go - unfortunately it's still as far as it will go as the bracket on the dish at the top is pushed up against the motor bracket and without cutting a large chunk away (which i'd already done for the previous motor) it would tilt back to 22.5 degrees.

Presumably there's no way around this and i'm going to have to cut up the bracket a bit more? I'm just a bit worried about how rigid it'll be at the end of it.

Spacers between dish and bracket. for instance if there are 4 fixings 2 spacers on the lower fixings would change the vertical angle of the dish. You may find that a couple of washers or nuts as spacers may provide enough adjustment without effecting rigidity. If the problem is still the dish fouling the motor then equal spacers on all fixing would give you more clearance

[realdannys]

Thanks Adm! Yes spaces would work good idea. Fortunately i've just realised it needs tilting in the opposite direction where I do believe i've got some space to do it.

Which could bring me to my next question - when setting the satellite angle, where are we supposed to line up to? There's no arrows on it like the motor. If I want it at 22.5 degrees am I just drawing a straight line through the middle of the heads of all the bolts and trying to get that imaginary line to line up with 22 at the top?

60640

[realdannys]

Also can I just add to this - I forget how I did it years ago. If when tuning the dish I find it needs to be lifted up to get a stronger signal on the sat, am I best to do this on the motor or on the dish?

[abu baniaz]

Once you set angle on motor, that's it. All further adjustments are on dish.

[realdannys]

Thanks Abu, that's the confirmation I needed - so the Motor is right, my latitude is 52 so it's set to that (38 elevation on the other side) - (strangely my Dark Motor was set to 55, not sure how...maybe it had moved over the years but it always tracked perfectly) - and i've set the dish to the declination angle assuming straight through the bolts it's where it's point, so now I just move the dish up and down when trying to tune (unfortunately not getting anything yet so it appears i've had to start from the beginning again when changing the motor over)

[abu baniaz]

Have a look at other threads if required

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?18087-Fruitballs-Motorised-Installtion-Guide

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?62673-Unable-to-receive-Thor-0-8W

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?60651-Set-up-help-for-new-GB-E2-box-motorised-dish

[realdannys]

Perfect some good reminders there - I got everything perfect 9 years ago but a lot of it has escaped my memory. I do remember now adjusting the dish and not the motor tilt which is probably how the dish ended up closer to 32 rather than the 28 it was recommended to be on.

I ended up with LNB just bob on centre in the end as I didn't find skewing it made any positive difference and may have decreased things on some of the edge satellites. Also misplaced all my sat finders so have another one coming tomorrow!

[Joe_90]

You normally set the LNB vertical in the holder if you're using a motor. The motor tilts the whole dish and lnb as it rotates. Once you get your initial satellite optimised (which may involve slightly skewing the LNB or moving it in or out in its bracket), you leave the LNB alone.

[realdannys]

Right so i'm back in business. I'm mostly tracking the arc now.

I tweaked for Astra 2 to begin with just because I knew it was easy to initially latch onto. Then Astra 1 - all was working well. Got 0.8w and 7w to scan in some channels. So I went far west to Hipasat and did a manual scan only picking up two channels. Decided to tweak here and bit and managed to rescan and get 550 channels and 98% SNR, great I thought. Went back to Astra 1 and i'd lost my signal, same with most things in between. I had to take the motor itself up just a nats hair to get to latch onto hipasat, i'm talking a tiny tiny amount as neither dish nor angle were doing it.

So i returned Astra 1 and i'm 90%+ SNR there, Astra 2 is of course fine, getting most channels as I scan across but now Hipasat is back to being poor only getting 8 channels. What could I be doing wrong where i'm having either Hipasat or Astra 2 tune properly, I assume that means my arc is off slightly but how and why? I don't remember having this problem before and now I feel like i'm playing wack-a-mole a bit.

[ronand]

Dont adjust at the end of the arc. Use your reference sat - usually 0.8W in the UK or one close to it

[realdannys]

Dont adjust at the end of the arc. Use your reference sat - usually 0.8W in the UK or one close to it

Yes - if I try to fine tune on 0.8w now, if I step west 3 times it does increase the SNR to 75%. So I guess I could tweak more on 0.8w, maybe that'd bring Hipasat back into focus and still keep my good signal for Astra 2 and others on east.

[realdannys]

I might add I can scan in 1040 channels currently on 0.8w so it's pretty well tuned in - but hopefully if I get it a bit better it might fix what's going on with Hipasat...maybe.

[realdannys]

Ah I found the issue - i'd taken the arm off the motor to adjust the maximum movement (which turned out was fine by default) and had struggled to get it back on properly (a hex bolt and a locking nut which goes inside?! It was strange) it was giving the entire dish some movement, so i've tightened up the hex bolt as much as I can and seems more stable now and I can get all the channels I scanned in on Hipasat, 0.8w and Astra 2 plus everything in between now.

I can do four fine movements west on the dish when on most places to get a stronger signal, but it's only one-two movements west on Hipasat so it's not really something worth doing as I don't think it'll get me anymore channels anyway so i'd just be chasing unnecessary signal strength when the channels appear to play perfectly anyway.

[ronand]

If it receives ok when its raining leave it alone.

[realdannys]

If it receives ok when its raining leave it alone.

Won't be long before I can test it in the rain!

[realdannys]

One further question - if I wanted to just adjust the entire disk 1 or 2 fine notches West, is there a way I could do this with the USALs data rather than moving the entire dish that direction?

[abu baniaz]

Adjust the co-ordinates slightly.

[realdannys]

Which ones though Abu? Which co-ordinate would make it go two fine ticks West? How far is a West a fine movement west on a VU+ box? Should I be adjusting the latitude? Which way? etc...

My current USALS is Longitude: 003.062
Latitude 052.967

If I wanted to tweak that to two fine tune movements west, what would it be?

[abu baniaz]

Longitude defines east/west. Positive is East. Negative is West.
Latitude defines north/south. Positive is North. Negative is South.

If you are having to move your dish west a bit, you need to move your co-ordinates west a bit too.

[Joe_90]

I'll butt in here (apologies). If you need the motor to "nudge" a little West, then you need to move your location a little East in longitude (reason is that the box calculates the angular difference between the set location and (say) 30 West and tells the motor to move x degrees West). So, if you set your location eg 0.4 degrees East, then the box will tell the motor to move x + 0.4 degrees West.

edit - location longitude looks wrong. +3.062 puts you in the North Sea. -3.062 would locate you in North Wales. Assuming that to be the case, then ensure the box setting says 3.062 West or has the value as -3.062. The "tweak" would then be to set 2.662 West in order to nudge the dish a little further West.

[abu baniaz]

Thanks for the correction.

[Joe_90]

No problem abu - see my edit also as the longitude may be wrong.

[realdannys]

I'll butt in here (apologies). If you need the motor to "nudge" a little West, then you need to move your location a little East in longitude (reason is that the box calculates the angular difference between the set location and (say) 30 West and tells the motor to move x degrees West). So, if you set your location eg 0.4 degrees East, then the box will tell the motor to move x + 0.4 degrees West.

edit - location longitude looks wrong. +3.062 puts you in the North Sea. -3.062 would locate you in North Wales. Assuming that to be the case, then ensure the box setting says 3.062 West or has the value as -3.062. The "tweak" would then be to set 2.662 West in order to nudge the dish a little further West.

Ah you're right yes -3.062, it is set to West on the box though. So it'd be -3.062 to -2.662? - are we saying each "fine nudge" in the VU+ settings are a single degree?

[Joe_90]

Ah you're right yes -3.062, it is set to West on the box though. So it'd be -3.062 to -2.662? - are we saying each "fine nudge" in the VU+ settings are a single degree?

The "nudges" potentially are 0.3 degrees by default (though you can specify 0.1) which is how much the motor moves when you are running the option to optimise the motor position. I've found 0.3 to be about optimal on a smaller (< 1m) dish as the focus is not that critical. You could try various values of longitude to see the effect. You do need to change the channel(transponder) on the satellite for any change to take effect as the tuning process will re-calculate the motor angle. Most motors will only move 0.1 degree as the smallest increment in any case. My latitude and longitude settings in the box are only to the nearest 0.1 degree in any case - so 6.1 W for me.

[Blackeye]

'Nudging' might improve reception at the centre (highest point) of the arc, but it will be increasingly inaccurate at the extremes. If you're located at 3°W, I'd suggest you line up the dish, centered on zero, LNB without any skew and without any stored nudges, on ABS 3A (TV Uno, Odeon 24) for peak signal before trying anything else. If you're at 3°E, there is a bird called Eutelsat 3B (AIC) there for the lineup.

And a tip from experience: once you're happy with reception right across the arc, paint a 3mm bright yellow dash across the join of any parts that can move out of alignment, and on top of that paint a 1mm red stripe. Then after the first Autumn storm, you can quickly get things back to where they're supposed to be.

[Joe_90]

@Blackeye - Are you sure ABS3A is receivable in the UK on the Ku band? GB users normally try to set up on Thor at 0.8W. As you say, it's probably better to get your initial satellite line-up done correctly on the top of the arc with your actual lat and long configured in the box.