Newbie Q: Fortec Star 90cm dish elevation?

dieselnutjob

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Maplin motorised dish kit (Fortec Star). 90cm dish.
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I'm trying to set up a Maplin motorised kit (SD) and not having any luck so far. Part of the problem might be that I'm trying to use the receiver itself as a strength meter, it might well be that I've been trying to tune to a signal that isn't there... Anyway I'll explain.

Luckily I have a house with a south facing rear wall, and a single story extension with a flat roof. Therefore I can easily mess about with the thing standing on the flat roof having climbed out of a bedroom window.
It also means that I can put the receiver box and a small LCD screen on the roof too and look at the picture etc as I tweak the dish. So far I've got nothing.

I live in London, so my proceedure was.
Get bracket perfectly vertical (it is).
Bolt motor pointing true south (1.5 deg clockwise of mag south).
Set motor bolts to 51.5 deg latitude.
Attach dish and set to 31 deg elevation (I mean absolute elevation, so down a bit compared with motor tube).
Confirm using google maps that dish points to corner of house over the road which is due south according to google.
Hook up receiver and configure to point at convenient satellite that's near south, like Thor. (also configured lat/long in receiver)
Observer that dish moves a bit on motor.
Try tweaking dish a bit in desparate attempt to get some signal :confused

There is one thing that confuses me on this. The dish documentation appears to be saying that when the L bracket that goes from the back of the dish to the LNB is exactly vertical, that this will be 30 degrees elevation. Have I understood this correctly? So I have been setting the dish with the back of the L bracket leaning back 1 degree.

Things I've read today
1. I need to try some frequencies that are known to work, such as Intelsat 10-02 1 deg west on 12687H.

2. The skew on my fortec star LNB might not be correct with cable exiting vertical.

But if someone can confirm that a vertical L bracket means 30 degree inclination on a Fortec Star 90cm dish then that would be much appreciated.

And anything else I'm doing wrong...

thanks
 

Huevos

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Try the "Poker Channel". 12418V S/R 28000. Should be able to pick that up on a 50cm from there.
 

Topper

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Welcome to the forum dieselnutjob

Without being disrespectful this is a self help forum and since Maplin started selling this kit there have been thousands of posts about setting them up but you have to read them, people haven't time to guide each individual through the process. There are many helpful guides to setting up in this section.
There is even a thread about the unusual lnb's supplied
http://www.satellites.co.uk/satelli...tar-lnb-fckuvn-icecrypt-0-1db-single-lnb.html
 

Huevos

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Personally I have never set one up without a decent meter and would imagine it to be a torture.

First thing, enter your lat/long in the receiver and then using USALS drive the dish to Thor. If you don't do this you will be off on every satellite.
If you are confused how 31º elevation should look mount the dish directly on the mast without the motor and set it to 31º. Now replace the motor and set it to that angle.
 

dieselnutjob

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My Satellite Setup
Maplin motorised dish kit (Fortec Star). 90cm dish.
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I have spent the last two days reading stuff about setting up these systems, and I did a search on this forum for "fortec star elevation".

I can't find any specific post that answers my question, which is, how do you know when a fortec star 90cm dish is at 31 deg elevation?

therefore i think it's reasonable to post the question

The rest of the stuff in my post is background info so that people can see what I'm doing. As I'm a newbie I might well be doing something else stupid.

thanks for any help
and sorry for any annoyance caused....
 

dieselnutjob

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Huevos said:
If you are confused how 31º elevation should look mount the dish directly on the mast without the motor and set it to 31º. Now replace the motor and set it to that angle.

That's kind of how I came to the conclusion that it's at 30 deg elevation when the back of the bracket is at absolute vertical.

Sounds like I was right.

I will try and borrow a signal meter I think.

thanks
 

Huevos

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dieselnutjob said:
I will try and borrow a signal meter I think.
thanks
I lived in Ruislip for over 30 years, but I'm living in the Sun now so I can't help you out.
 

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dieselnutjob said:
That's kind of how I came to the conclusion that it's at 30 deg elevation when the back of the bracket is at absolute vertical.

Sounds like I was right.

I will try and borrow a signal meter I think.

thanks

Hi,

You are getting a little bogged down regarding the dish elevation, it is unessary to worry about the numbers.

Follow rolfw's guide. Get the latitude marking on the Motor correct, get the pole vertical. Connect up to the receiver and send the motor to 0.8W Thor using USALS.
adjust the azumith by swing the motor round the pole, tilt the dish until you get a good signal on 11325H.

I have fitted quite a few of those Maplin kits with the very same dish, and not once have I even paid attention to what the atual elevation scale on the dish reads.

But for an initial setting you could try about 22.5 deg (on the scale) that will be about right.

( I normally just set the dish face so that its about vertical and then wiggle it about a bit)

Also a meter is not necessary, you can use the receiver, the sig quality readings from the receiver are adequate.

Just to add, the LNB supplied is not up to much, I have a system I'm setting up this week, and swapping the LNB for a different one (in this case I had a Inverto Silvertech lying around) and it gave much better results on the weaker satellites ( difference between reception and not for the MBC's on 26E).
 

dieselnutjob

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Maplin motorised dish kit (Fortec Star). 90cm dish.
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I got it all working on Thursday night. A colleague at work lent me a power meter.
To answer the original question, the dish seemed to need pointing a little higher then the markings would indicate, with the bracket that joins the LNB to the back of the dish being about 1/2 inch further out from vertical at the bottom compared with top. That's for London of course.
I didn't have to tweak the latitude setting on the motor as once I set up one satellite I seem to get a good signal for all of them.
I'm getting signal intensity of 90% and signal quality of about 75-80% at pretty much everything I point it at.

thanks for all the advice.
 

dieselnutjob

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My Satellite Setup
Maplin motorised dish kit (Fortec Star). 90cm dish.
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I had to go up on the roof again because I couldn't get any channels.
Turns out that a bit of lead stuff had slipped off the roof and was binding with the dish on one extreme of movement. I guess it had thrown it out a bit.
Anyway I moved the lead and took a bit more care to calibrate it this time (moved the dish into a place that the signal quality drops if I slightly push it in any direction). I now get a solid 90% strength and 70 to 74% quality depending on the satellite.
Also I took some pictures whilst I was up there as I though it might help anyone else that wants to put up one of these Fortec Star motorised 90cm dishes. Obviously my settings are only valid for London latitude I suppose.
You can see from the first pic that the dish has to be angled down a bit compared with the motor output shaft which looks a bit odd to me but that's what seems to work.
 

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