Satellite Advice (dish position in particular)

[Tivù]

Based on a diagram I've seen I've got around 7mm of coax exposed through the F-connector. Is this normally enough? The second coax I used was pre-made, only 1.5m long but it seems to have the same amount of coax showing as the connections I made.

I'll check the receiver again to check if I can make LNb power on the default setting but on the primary satellite I've been trying to focus on (0.8W Thor) it is specifically set to 'on'.

Pre-formed cables tend to be of poor quality with a very flimsy centre core. In this case, it isn't just the exposed length of core that matters, but also the diameter, which may be inadequate.

There is also a greater risk of displacing the core when attaching the cable to a socket (such that it misses the female receptacle and gets trapped), or even of breaking it.

[dannylaaa]

A further coax cable and another motor later I have no LED on the replacement motor (it's a Maplin H-H motor but is very similar in appearance to the TM2600).

Now the finger of blame is shifted to the receiver (3 coaxes and 2 motors seems pretty convincing). Unless there are any AZBox experts who can offer any further advice it looks like it'll have to go back to the vendor.

Thanks for the input in all cases though.

[dannylaaa]

A bad workman always blames his tools ...

... so 'rocket scientist of the week' award goes to me after all.

Although I had attempted to plug the F-Connector into the socket on the receiver labelled IF INPUT in the past it seems that my brother on the ladder couldn't see the LED illuminated on the motor. I'd given this up and focused on the socket labelled ANT IN. In a eureka moment I decided to plug the new motor into IF INPUT and hey presto a green LED!

I used the original coax back to the motor which his still hanging off my wall and through the darkness could see another green LED. Hanging out of the window nearest I pressed the manual button to move the dish and it stirred into life!!!

So it's goodnight from this gibbon for the timebeing, I'll no doubt be harassing the regulars in the coming months.

Cheers

[Tivù]

Happy days !

Keep us posted ................

[dannylaaa]

We've had some naff weather this past week in the north west so I havent had another chance to play with the dish/receiver until today.

Thought the motor had packed in again - no green LED on the bottom of it! After disconnecting/reconnecting from the receiver/motor I was close to surrender but with my brother up the ladder again I went into the positioning/tuning menu on the receiver and the LED went on ... phew.

I don't know if this is the norm but it's been more than a little frustrating to figure that out. It seems that if you power this receiver off at the mains you need to access this menu in order get the motor to re-engage.

Anyway, I'd like a bit more advice from the resident experts if you are not all away enjoying the bank holiday.

I've finally got a decent signal on 0.8W THOR - strength: 99% and quality: 79 - 81% but I'm not getting much else up there. I've got 13.0E HOTBIRD with 100% strength but that only has a quality of 37 - 39% and the other significant one I've got is 12.5W ATLANTIC BIRD, strength: 88% and quality: 45%.

In the end I settled on my latitude of 53ish on the motor and the elevation looks about 23 degrees if the dish mount is to be trusted.

I'm loathe to go back up that ladder only to wipe out the little that I've grabbed so far. The spirit level tells me that the pole is vertical so I'm at a loss to explain why I haven't got more. Does anyone have any further tips to help the other satellites fall into place - what kind of quality would I need on THOR to make sure the others all get picked up.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Tivù]

Well it isn't far out.

The drop off in quality E/W seems fairly even judging by the results, so at least your Mount isn't off vertical in one plane. ie Looking at it head on, it is not leaning left or right.........

But it might be a tiny bit out fore and aft. It does seems to me that the whole shebang is leaning back (or forward) the tiniest bit: This could be due to incorrectly set Motor Latitude, or might just require a tweak to Dish Elevation.

In the former case, people can be misled by what to line up their Longitude (53 should be fine) to - and also the brackets have an annoying tendency to slip whilst tightening.

So first of all , recheck that the "53" is set against the correct mark.

When satisfied, drive the Dish to one of those other Sats you mentioned and re-peak Dish Elevation. See if you get better results across the piece.

If that doesn't improve matters, go back and optimise on Thor again.

Finally, are you using USALS? If so, check carefully that you've entered the correct Lat and Long. Longitude where you are will be near enough either "3.00W" or "-3.00" depending upon the Receiver.

Edit: Actually, you might do the last bit first - If it is down to "finger trouble" at least you can be spared climbing the ladder again!

[satelliteman]

Don't forget to drive the motor to the calculated position of your reference satellite prior to alignment. This will be either 1W or 5W, also mentioned further up in the thread.

[dannylaaa]

Thanks for the prompt response guys but I was defeated by the rain again.

I'll have another bash at it tomorrow if the weather is clear.

The box let's me set the latitude/longitude reasonably accurately. I am using USALS and I've set my Latitude: 53.4N and my Longitude: 2.9W.

Tivù I'll doublecheck if my motor's setting are on 53 - if I remember correctly I tried to be clever and set it mid 53-54 because I'm at 53.4, it could be the problem.

Of the other 2 satellites I've got some signal on does it matter which one I try to optimise on? Is one harder than the other to get a strong quality signal on?

Cheers.

[satelliteman]

I'll doublecheck if my motor's setting are on 53 - if I remember correctly I tried to be clever and set it mid 53-54 because I'm at 53.4, it could be the problem.

The motor scale will never be spot on so a rough 53 Latitude setting should be ok. Some motors also show an EL scale in addition. To be absolutely sure, an inclinometer would allow an accurate setting but really not necessary.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellit...tml#post846757

[Tivù]

Of the other 2 satellites I've got some signal on does it matter which one I try to optimise on? Is one harder than the other to get a strong quality signal on?

Either would do - It's just to help try home in on the problem.

If, say, you peak Elevation for Hotbird, then check if AB1 has got better as well (which would tend to prove the original diagnosis) or if it gets worse.

Something else you could do before going anywhere near the Dish is to alter your USALS Longitude first to 2.7W and see what results you get on Thor, Hottie and AB1 and then move it to 3.1W and check again.

I'm forever twiddling my Longitude to account for stuff like motor backlash and slight movements in the system after strong winds. Up to a point (perhaps no more than 0.5 deg or so, you can twiddle with USALS as a cosy alternative to climbing the ladder).

But, I repeat, I think you are very close to cracking it.

Afterthought: I see you've quoted 2.9W as your nominal Longitude: But Receivers generally require you to enter 2.90W (in your case): Do check that the Decimal Point is in the right place ....... !

[dannylaaa]

Thanks for the advice so far, particularly satelliteman and Tivù but I'm only edging closer and not getting this arc 'bang on'.

I never had a chance to repeak either of the 2 originals I had other than THOR on Monday. The wind over the past couple of days knocked them out, even THOR lost 15% quality (my fault I had only tighted the wing nuts on the dish past finger tight).

Today the wind and rain has ceased and given me another chance to try and fine tune everything.

After moving the motor to 1.0W (it's the default for THOR on this receiver) and lining everything up again I have been a little more successful in spotting other satellites - here is what I could see:

22.0W NSS7 - 81% strength and 52% quality
18.0W Intelsat 901 - 81% strength and 0 jumping to 36% quality
14.8W Telstar 12 - 95% strength and 66% quality
12.5W Atlantic Bird 1 - 86% strength and 45% quality
4.0W AMOS - 97% strength and 33% quality
1.0W THOR - 96% strength and 80% quality
9.0E Eurobird 9 - 98% strength and 65% quality
13.0E Hotbird 6,7A,8 - 100% strength and 60% quality
19.2E Astra 1F,1G,1H,1K .. - 99% strength and 0 jumping to 34% quality (changes every few seconds but managed to lock and scan channels)

I haven't touched the motors latitude setting yet but I went back up and tried Tivù's suggestion of trying to improve quality on 12.5W or 13.0E by adjusting the dish elevation. The original dish elevation was pretty much bang on 22 degree's and on 12.5W I couldn't improve upon the paltry 45% quality I had originally. I moved to 13.0E and moved the dish elevation to 25 degrees and this improved the quality 88% at this angle.

Leaving the angle here I moved back to 1.0W and the quality had dropped by 5%.

I moved it back east to see if it had helped on any other satellites and it had - I now had 2 new ones in the east:

16.0 Eutelsat W2 at 90% strength and 49% quality
28.2E Astra 2A,B,C,D at 100% strength and 88% quality
19.2E Astra had improved quality to 80%
9.0E Eurobird had improved to 85%

Going back west I had lost everything

After all of my waffling above can anyone give me a nudge in the right direction to optimise everything. Based on me having a 1m dish, are the above what I should expect to see and is the quality I'm picking up similar to others on the forum?

Cheers

[satelliteman]

Hi danny,
Double check the motor inclination for accuracy. Should be set to your Latitude. Make dish elevation adjustments at the top of the arc only ie, your reference satellite. Also check all is plumb with the fixing pole.

[Tivù]

And also check that the Dish is not only mounted correctly in line with the front of the Motor Stub (should be a faint datum somewhere!) but that it hasn't gone out of kilter on the stub a little bit: The clamps have a nasty habit of biting unevenly if you're not very careful.

I think SM and I probably agree that despite your best efforts, something is not as plumb as it should be: Your diligence in trying various things gives results which support an "out of kilter" hypothesis!

[dannylaaa]

I've just gone up once again, I've moved the motor inclination to 53 dead on. I'd say it was closer 54 and a bit when I got up close to it.

I've tried to peak against THOR again and I'm hitting 82% signal quality on this - I've seen it creep to 84% but never higher. This is with the dish elevation at 22 degrees, when I do this I get some reception on my west satellites (lost 12.5W enitrely though):

14.8W Telstar 12 - 92% strength and 60% quality
4.0W AMOS - 95% strength and 33% quality

At this dish elevation I struggle in the east though:

16.0 Eutelsat and 28.2E Astra gone, the others lose about 20% signal quality.

If I set the dish elevation at what looks like 25 degrees I get all of the east coming in clearly but lose the west and suffer on THOR. I've tried somewhere in the middle of this on the dish elevation but the signal quality isn't really acceptable on either side.

The pole is plum - even after me swinging off it for half the day.

It can only be what Tivù suggests - even a thicko like me can work out that it is somehow off balance.

Let's see how I get on tomorrow.

Thanks.

[Tivù]

It can only be what Tivù suggests - even a thicko like me can work out that it is somehow off balance.

Well let's hope it is that because it's fairly easy to resolve.

The reason I bang this particular drum from time to time is 'cos of personal experience!

Owing to Cricket not being FTA, but sometimes Feeds being available, I equipped myself with a 1.1m Dish a couple or three years ago in order to watch Feeds of the World Cup carried on 12.5W and 58W.

It arrived very late so I literally had to "throw it" at my Motor as a replacement for my Orbital 80cm.

Aligned it using 12.5W rather than Thor: I knew already that the pole was plumb, as I'd been using it for years and was using USALS - so fixing any point on the arc should have been perfectly ok.

The problem was, it wasn't ok! When the day's Cricket was over, I tried to get 28E and failed miserably.

Following day, I had a butcher's and discovered that when I had tightened the Dish to Stub clamps, the Dish had slipped into the next "step" on one of the clamps with the consequence that the dish was not hanging vertically on the stub.

Slacken, manoeuvre and re-tighten (Two minutes) and tracking was once more perfect.

But the twist on the Dish was so small I couldn't see it just by looking at the Dish from close by - I had to inspect very carefully in the area logic told me the problem lay.

My excuse was that I had been in a hurry (took me about ten minutes to do the Dish change!), but I have known others encounter the same problem despite greater diligence seemingly having been brought to bear.

So, long story, but possibly a simple remedy

[dannylaaa]

Looks like I'll have to call the experts in after all as I can't improve on the signals I had yesterday. I did find that one of the clamps on the stub was tightened a fair bit more than the others and this 'step' was out compared to the other's as you mentioned Tivù - this might have contributed to a slight skew on the dish all in all. I couldn't find a marker as such on the stub but I did shift the brackets based on what looked like a seam in the metal - it really does appear to be well centred on the stub now.

Despite my best efforts I'll have to call it quits - I can't go another weekend tinkering with the dishes position, at some point I've got to get familiarised with what the receiver is capable of!

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions - as it's helped my understanding no end and I've learnt alot more than if I'd have just called the pro's in straight away.

[Tivù]

Well I get the impression you know pretty much what you're trying to achieve and how to do it - It would be a shame not to finish the job!

Why not sleep on it for a day or three and give it one last shot? The leetle grey cells might have come up with a Eureka! revelation by then.

[satelliteman]

Keep at it, I'm sure your crack it

[dannylaaa]

Eureka!!!

I've got a signal on most of the satellites I was aiming at!

Now for me to admit my mistakes and take the prize of 'rocket scientist of the week' for the 2nd week running.

The receiver that I convinced myself was all-singing/all-dancing was the cause of my problems after all.

Problem 1. - I got no user manual with it.
Problem 2. - I downloaded a PDF version of the manual from the web (minus pages 68-69).
Problem 3. - I'm a cretin and never bothered looking at a setting I should have modified earlier if only for the sake of experimenting.

Last night I sat down with the manual and started wading through it cover to cover. I was following the manual methodically so I was sure there wasn't something I'd overlooked when I found an option within the satellite tuning area called TP Frequency. There was no instruction for this even though it was referenced in the index as being on page 68.

So I clicked it and moved down the list presented, signal quality on THOR went down - I moved to the next one and it went up. I eventually found one which gave me 97% quality!

I moved to 5.0W as until then I'd had nowt on this - I locked on and got a decent signal when I moved through to another frequency.

I could have saved myself a weekend of toil if I'd have seen this earlier ... but at least I've cracked it now.

So kudos to Tivù and satelliteman in particular - I'm glad I didn't jack it in!

[Tivù]

Very well done indeed.

These things are always blindingly obvious in retrospect but really making mistakes, as in many walks of life, is the best way to learn.

I wish you many hours of happy twiddling without even the slightest hint of a divorce

Next job is to update all your Transponder lists by correlating with flysat, lyngsat or kingofsat or (and soooo much easier) by Blind/Auto Scan - If I ever knew what Receiver you were using, I've totally forgotten, so don't know what magic feature sit offers.

[Tivù]

Time to update your User Profile ...............

[satelliteman]

Nice result there

[dannylaaa]

I wish you many hours of happy twiddling without even the slightest hint of a divorce .

Thanks and yes her indoors hasn't been too impressed with my efforts. She'll soon change her tune when she can watch her countrymen blabbing (incessantly) in Spanish

From what I've read a 'blind scan' (as if I know what that does) feature hasn't been developed for the box I've got yet.

Will I need to go and change this transponder information from time? I'll read up on this when I can but at the moment it's all mumbo-jumbo to me.

[Tivù]

Thanks and yes her indoors hasn't been too impressed with my efforts. She'll soon change her tune when she can watch her countrymen blabbing (incessantly) in Spanish

From what I've read a 'blind scan' (as if I know what that does) feature hasn't been developed for the box I've got yet.

Will I need to go and change this transponder information from time? I'll read up on this when I can but at the moment it's all mumbo-jumbo to me.

Blind or Auto scan simply finds every active Transponder for you.

If you are going to depend upon manual data entry, the site I listed earlier are all kept up to date.

Most mainstream Channels don't tend to change parameters, but on rare occasions they do. But there are lots of coming s and goings of new launches, failures, shuffling for technical reasons etc.

Those sites have daily change logs as well as the complete listings.

I think most of us dip into one of them from time to time.

I used to do it daily, but found that ignoring it completely works too!

ie If TVE disappears from your (her!) screen, then look it up and find out where it went!