New UE 4K did a strange thing to my USALS motor

[stargateuser]

Hi all,

Firstly thanks to all the info on here that I've learned a lot from :thumbsup:

I bought a UE 4K last week, flashed it with latest OpenVix all perfect. I also found out that installing a Unicable2 lnb on an oval sky dish loses you around half your signal. I now need to replace the mini dish with a round one as it seems the oval dish doesn't work too well with a round LNB. Pretty obvious looking back (hits self on head).

Tuner A = usals dish, B (plus the FBC's) = 28.2E and all working well.

However on Tuesday afternoon my wife was watching NASA tv (13e I think) and the picture went pixelly and then "tune failed". I investigated and we'd lost all reception from tuner A USALS. Now I was a bit miffed as I was looking forwards to the footy that night but nothing I could do would fix it. I suspected a failed LNB. After all I've owned the dish setup since 2005 and never had a single problem.

After around 6 hours of trying all sorts of things I finally got a lock on a bird. I realised that when I set the dish to 28.2e and then did a scan I was getting 19.2e channels. :confused::confused::confused:

Anyway I finally got to the bottom of it yesterday after re-flashing and starting from scratch. My USALS motor (STAB 90 or 120 - I can't remember now) hasn't physically moved (as in moved location, it has been used regularly to watch Euro channels) in 5 years and I checked all the GOTO 0 and GOTO X functions yesterday but if I put my latitude as 2.5454 W it won't lock on anything. I remembered the 19.2 / 28.2 issue and then added 9 degrees to 7.5454 EAST and voila, it locked. In all my years I've never seen this happen. Does anyone have any ideas what has happened? It's definitely the STAB motor that's changed as I've reflashed the box and did not use any back up's. Re-built from scratch.

I'd actually like to put this right as I'm a fair bit OCD and it'd driving me mad :trustme:

On a plus note this box is great, it plays native 4k mkv's over the network that my others struggle to play flawlessly. It's fast and I love the new style remote.

Thanks all

[ronand]

Have you tried resetting the motor (usually its something like holding the 2 buttons for 10 seconds etc)? I'm not sure about your OCD - you added 10 degrees to 2.54W not 9.

[stargateuser]

Thanks for the reply, no I haven't re-set it yet. I'll try that this weekend, I only found out the 2 button re-set this morning. I'm interested as to why it suddenly added 10 degrees to my latitude out of the blue. I've never seen or heard of it happening before.

Maybe my OCD is improving, my maths certainly isn't hahaha :smiley_yup:

[ronand]

Its certainly odd. I doubt its any settings on the box as it was working and then just moved off by itself while watching. Have you a neighbour that doesn't like you that might have moved it????

[stargateuser]

No, both neighbours are good and they'd have to climb on my garage roof and I'd notice them sneaking up the drive way and so would the 4 legged burglar alarm. The mechanical alignment is spot on, I checked last night. I've only had one incident in 5 years where the window cleaner knocked it but he came and told me.

This weekend will be motor reset time, weather depending. I didn't want to do a motor re-set until I'd had wise words from a forum. I've had enough fun with the Unicable LNB losing signals. I'll chase and fix the USALS problem first then remove the sky minidish (zone 1 in a zone 2 area, lazy sky installer from before we bought the house) and put a proper sat dish up after that :D

[Joe_90]

Thanks for the reply, no I haven't re-set it yet. I'll try that this weekend, I only found out the 2 button re-set this morning. I'm interested as to why it suddenly added 10 degrees to my latitude out of the blue. I've never seen or heard of it happening before.

Maybe my OCD is improving, my maths certainly isn't hahaha :smiley_yup:

Are you sure you are meaning your latitude? Your longitude (East/West) is the more significant contributor in the calculation the box does in order to tell the motor to turn x degrees from its central point. You should carefully check that the box has your correct latitude (N/S) and longitude (E/W) and is actually set for USALS and not Disecq 1.2 (which uses the in-built table of satellite positions stored in the motor). Maybe upload a screenshot of your motor config page. It could be that the motor needs a reset to remember its zero point, but unlikely. When you send the motor to zero is it pointing due south?

[stargateuser]

Are you sure you are meaning your latitude? Your longitude (East/West) is the more significant contributor in the calculation the box does in order to tell the motor to turn x degrees from its central point. You should carefully check that the box has your correct latitude (N/S) and longitude (E/W) and is actually set for USALS and not Disecq 1.2 (which uses the in-built table of satellite positions stored in the motor). Maybe upload a screenshot of your motor config page. It could be that the motor needs a reset to remember its zero point, but unlikely. When you send the motor to zero is it pointing due south?


Hi Joe,
I'll get a photo later but the motor and dish have not had to be tweaked or moved in a few years now. It is definitely USALS and the I've had to tweak the longitude to peak the signal on 0.8w. Yes it definitely goes due South, I line up on my neighbours chimney/tv antenna.

Motor is confirmed setup as USALS, I've had to change to 006.545 East. I'm normally 002.545 West. That gives me best signal strength on 0.8W. I can't work out how to upload a screen shot.

Cheers

[Joe_90]

Something has moved your motor clamps(or the dish clamps on the motor) if you have to bodge your true longitude from 2.5W to 6.5E. That's 9 degrees off. How big is the dish? Is it possible that someone/thing has pushed it? I had a HH120 motor when I had a bigger dish. It actually annoyed me how slow it was when compared with my previous motor. Eventually, the HH120 motor packed in and would only move in one direction and then only a few degrees before it stopped. I re-cycled it and bought a new motor and a smaller dish. It's possible your motor has gone faulty, but if you can get all the satellites by using a false but fixed longitude, I would suspect that the motor or dish have physically moved.

[stargateuser]

I think it's 1m, I bought the whole setup in 2005 when I had a DM 7020 so it's had a good run even if it does pack up. I do agree it is bloody slow to turn especially from 30w to 13e when watching footy. I was planning to work on it weekend just gone but the monsoon put paid to that. Once I get a dry day I'll do a re-set and re-align if needed.

I'll report back once I've done it. I've physically tugged the dish and motor mounts and it won't move and there are no fresh shiny scratches, just old rusty marks.

On a slightly different tack Joe, are there any sat dishes 1- 1.5 m that use screw jacks (or threaded rod) to adjust and not these nut & bolts on the side contraptions? They always move/flex once I torque them up. My old VSAT's had screw jacks which made alignment a doddle especially tweaking for that last dB