no signal on some transponders

lasharratt

Hi, I have just finished installing my satellite system at my new house (after several months of "i'll do it tomorow"). Anyway, it is a 90cm dish on an IRTE omniview motor and a Technomate 1500CI+ sat receiver.

I have got it up and running on most satellites, but on every satellite there are a few transponders with no signal, whereas on others they have quite a strong signal.

I know that it is not the receiver because I have just tested the 28.2 east on the motorised system and my sky digital system that was installed by sky. On my motorised system there were a few transponders without signal, whereas on the sky system all the transponders were active.

I suspect two things that could be the problem:
1. the coax cable
2. the LNB

The coax cable is leftover cable from my aerial installation. It is brown coloured without any markings providing ohms etc. So. I think that it may not be capable of carrying some satellite signals.

The LNB is quite old and this may have an effect on the missing transponders and may need replacing. Or the LNB rotation may have something to do with it. At the moment the LNB is adjusted to get the best signal quality from 30W.

It would be much appreciated if anyone could advise me how to sort it out. Thanks, lasharratt

rolfw

You LNB should not be skewed for a motorised dish, if you are using standard aerial coax without double screening, you will lose a lot of signal and also be affected by outside influences.

How did you setup your due South point for the centre of the motor arc?

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Cupart

lasharratt, you say that you haven't used the setup for months, so it could actually be that some transponders have been removed from the sat's or have been changed to other services other than TV and Radio.

I went to do an update on my parents Technomate (new patch etc) and also did a new scan. There were quite a few transponders that had left and quite a few additions...

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lasharratt

Hi, thanks for your replies.

Rolfw: I have rotated my LNB because I was unable to get some transponders: this improved the signal. But if I replaced the cable, I may not need to rotate the LNB.
First, I found 1W using semi automatic operation with the motor. After entering longitude, latitude and the dish elevation ange, ref. satellite etc. the motor moved the dish to the correct elevaton for 1W. Then I moved the dish from east to west (or west to east) until I stumbled accross a signal. I then found the signal and tewaked the dish to receive the highest signal. I suppose it was just luck that I chose a transponder that seems to work with my setup because that is the only signal I can receive from 1W. I then selected this as the ref. satellite by resetting the azimuth and elevation to zero. Then the motor was ready to use. It correctly finds the positions of other satellites.


Cupart: sorry, I forgot to mention that I bought the technomate just after the system was inatalled. I thought that the frequencies may have been out of date so I updated them through the technomate website. Also, the sat. receiver I had before (a cheap one from Ebay without a make) did the same thing too.


thanks for your help,
lasharratt