First motorised setup turned out to be surprisingly simple...

Nelbert · 4 Weeks Ago

After eventually receiving a dish without bends or dents, I got it put up yesterday. I'd read the guide for a motor dish setup and didn't see any major problems.

All was going well until I tried to align on Thor, I'm at 55.0 Lat and 1.5 W. Try as I might there was nothing there. I rechecked the pole (as it's 2.7M pole on 2 Ks with the sat up the pole) , rechecked the motor lat and dish elevation. Using dish pointer was pointing where I expected to find south/thor, and the receiver method for finding the sat but still got nothing

With the dark nights coming earlier I had to give up trying to align and call it a night. I went out and tightened everything up, then cleared away all the ladders.

It had all gone so well, should have known it was too good to be true.

Out of paranoia, in case the winds came up, I used the receiver to set the dish to Astra 28.2 so it would be parallel to the rear wall. Then the signal meter lit up with a quality of 68%. Tried a few sats and got Astra 28.2, Hotbird 13, Sirus 4E and even Hipsat in the west

Turns out I had the dish and motor in almost the right place. With some fine tuning today I got Thor no problem with 85% Signal and Quality. It was the tiniest of movements (less than 1 receiver motor step east and a tiny amount of elevation) This threw all the signal strengths on the other sats upto around 85%.

Even managed to pull some signals from Arabsat/Badr but probably not watchable for the most part.

I'm guessing there is still some tweaking as 80-85% quality on Astra 28.2E seems low for a Penta 85 (or maybe I expect too much) but for now we have some Russian Channels

**rolfw** · 4 Weeks Ago

Well done.

The mistake many make when trying to find 1W, is using a very weak transponder frequency on the receiver, often the first few frequencies in the 1W transponder list are feed frequencies, with no permanent transmissions. I always use 11325H BBC World News.

By the way, what's "the receiver method"?

Nelbert · 4 Weeks Ago

sorry, by "the receiver method" I meant using the receiver and monitor instead to measure signal strength/quality instead of an inline sat finder (meter)

Have a pc monitor with hdmi, so left it and the receiver by a window so I could see the signal strength/quality on it. Actually thought and took the remote with me today to control the receiver. Let me check other sats after finding Thor 1W without having to go back inside

Just need to lower the roof of the house at the end of the garden as it blocks 40E... alternatively I could get someone to move the sat to near the gutter. Will be a pain of a job as there is tile cladding on the top half of the house

***kenny1234*** · 4 Weeks Ago

All you need to do now is to post some pictures on here

***Tivù*** · 4 Weeks Ago

Great result - well done!

**satelliteman** · 4 Weeks Ago

Nice result

geordiejohn · 4 Weeks Ago

I have the same dish in the north east, and yes i can some times get some signals from 26 east, but it has to be a very clear day!

I know they are not that well thought of, but i found one of those cheapo "sqeaky" meters very handy when setting up, at least you can be sure you are pointing at something before you go down the ladders, also useful for fine tuning of the dish.

I will try and post pics of my set up this weekend!

bobbywise · 4 Weeks Ago

Good work Nelbert

I have a Penta 68, and get a few of the stronger Transponders on 26E. I noticed a slight improvement on weak signals with one of these LNBs (recommended by many on this site):

Inverto Black Ultra IDLB-SINL40-ULTRA-OPP Single 40mm LNB 0.2 dB
_https://www.satshop.tv/Inverto-Black-Ultra-IDLB-SINL40-ULTRA-OPP-Single-40mm-LNB-02-dB

Unfortunately for me I have trees blocking 39E and 40E. I'll wait for the leaves to drop.

Looking forward to pictures of your install

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First motorised setup turned out to be surprisingly simple... Information exchange on LNBs, Single satellite, motorised and multi-satellite systems. DiSEqC switches, positioners, motors, actuators, dish-alignment etc.