friend a "new newbie" needs help

nopfusch

A friend of mine prurchased
a Metabox CA3
a dish, offset one meter,
a universal LNB with H and V via supply voltages
a motor for positioning the dish.

Now as he has never worked with any satellite equipment and the manuals on motor and receiver are really (according to him) bad, I want to ask here the experts to have clarity on the "offset rules".
What is suspect nevertheless, I can't find any manual for the metabox on the web.
Motor type: he couldn't say.

1...Is that Metabox DiSEqC and/or USUAL full compatible?
2...Where is usually the change over from Northern to Southern Hemisphaere? in the Motor (or its S/W ? if accessible) or Receiver S/W?
3...The skew of the LNB: does it change in the southern Hemisphaere?
4...The declination angle is also a compulsary adjustment for an offset dish?
5...And the starting point is true North and appropriate elevation, as per data in the Dishpointer program.
6...Any practical experience wit a Metabox?


I have installed 3 of 3.6m dishes but with central focus (obviously) and manual drive control unit (no USALS etc.), but never an offset dish.
And before I go there, I want to have an idea about my above questions.
Thanks.

Robbo71

Hi nopfusch, welcome to the forum,

I will try to answer a couple of your questions.

To find out whether the receiver is USALS/Diseqc1.2 compatible, you will need to read the manual, or look it up on the manufactures website.

For USALS, you enter your latitude and longitude into the receiver, so it will know whether it is located north and south by the latitude figure entered.

For Diseqc 1.2, it doesn't matter, as you store the positions yourself.

For any motorised setup the LNB skew is set to zero, so the skew is not applicable. But for a fixed dish , the skew is the opposite in the southern hemisphere to what it is in the north. Look at dishpointer.com it gives you the figures anyway.

Yes the dish declination angle would need to be set appropiately for the installation latitude, the motor manual normally gives the correct setting, or it can be set by finding the maximum signal on your nearest due north(southern hemisphere)/south(northern hemisphere) satellite.

If you are in the southern hemisphere then yes, the starting point for setting up a motorised dish is the satellite closest to you due north, as it will be at the top of your arc. Also the elevation/latitude of the motor needs to be correctly set for your latitude.

Have a look at this excellent guide, (swap Souths for Norths, and possibly easts for wests and it will be applicable)

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellit...or-others.html

Robbo