setting up motorised dish positions

gando

My dm 800 is driving me mad with the motorised dish satellite positions. I have a technomate TM2200 positioner and am using Gemini 3.9 image with cccam2.09 also installed.
I have the options of setting up the tuner in either advanced or simple mode, using usals or not .
I have the options of using Satfinder in Manual transponder tuning mode or predefined transponder mde
I also have the positioner setup mode which I can tune manual or predefined transponder modes for the various satellites
I have played with lots of combinations with these settings and cannot find any consistency in the results:
The motor positions are way out from what they should be
Sometimes the motor moves when in manual mode but not in predefined mode
Sometimes cannot move motor manually with positioner movement in positioner setup

I now have the motor plugged in to the back of the dreambox in my living room as I got fed up of climbing onto the garage roof to see what was going on.
Can anyone tell me in simple terms what I have to do to get the motor to move to the correct location for each satellite picked (I feel that once I get it back outside and find the first satellite the rest should be in approximately the right position needing only a small tweak)
Thanks

tomthebomb1968

Once you have your motor correctly alligned do the following
1 Go into Setup and Select Start Wizard
2 Use Wizard to set up Basic Features/ hit OK
3 Configuration Mode/ toggle the left and right buttons until Simple appears
4 Mode/ toggle this until is shows Positioner
5 Put in you Longitude
6 Put in you Latitude and then exit the Wizard

7 Watch Multi Sat TV

You must set up your motor on your nearest due south satellite. In my case it is 5west but yours is probably 1west.
And stick the New Nabilo Blackhole 07 image with built in Sky UK & Sky Italy EPG Auto Download

gando

Thanks tomthebomb1968 for that I will try it on Wednesday when I get back home. The only thing is what is the significance of using Nabilo 07 image?
Also do I use USALS or not?

tomthebomb1968

No real signifigance except I think the Nabilo images are the best. I have tried Gemini/PLi Jade/LT and Blackhole gives me the least trouble and the sky uk epg works well.

Re USALS forget about it. If you do what I said in the previous reply you dont even go into that Sub Menu. That option is only available in Advanced Configuration and we stay in Simple. If your dish motor is correctly set up and your coordinates correct then all the satellites will give good strong signals

gando

Have the motor next to the Dreambox - set the motor to 0 - pressed reset and sent the motor to various satellites with the following results:

sent to 13degrees W motor went to 15 degrees W
sent to 19.2 E motor went to 23 E
sent to 28.2 E motor went to 33 E
sent to 40 E motor went to 45 E
sent to 0.9W motor went to o.5E
sent to 11 W motor went to 10 W
sent to 22 W motor went to 23 W
sent to 30 W motor went to 31 W
sent to 45 W motor went to 47 W

Any ideas as to why I'm getting these discrepacies? I can drive the motor both ways and get the same results so its not backlash in the motor.
I have installed Blackhole .07 and cant decide whether I prefer Gemini better or not

techmob

i didn't use usals, as they never work for me but this is what i did

if your motor is setup with another dreambox for example, mine was setup with a dm500 and i noted down my motor positions

for example

1 - 28.2e
2-19.2e

etc

plugged the dm800 in and went to setup each satellite, so chose 28.2e put it as 001 location, then went to positioner setup and chose an active tp and told it to save in position 1

and got an instant signal when i changed to the channel on 28.2e, all my sats were setup that way without the pain of tuning them in as the motor already had the location/position saved

i did the same for 19.2e, 16e, 13e and 1w, they all matched up

so basically save your positions to match your old box if you can, for me it gave me instant signal when changing channels on sats without any tuning

hope that made sense

gando

I apprecite your way of setting the dish up techmob but I am a new starter to the satellite world and this is my first receiver and dish . Yes I can put in all of the satellites I want by moving the dish somewhere near - climbing on the garage roof to get to the dish - insert a meter and fine tune all the positions in.
I just thought in this day and age with all the technology available that I would be able to get the motor to drive automatically to the required satellites after setting the dish up properly on Thor (0.8W) but in my case this does not seem to be the case.

techmob

mate i know how you feel, so i have just got used to doing it my own way and thats lining dish upto 1w getting good signal, tighten up the bolts on motor not to tight so i can swing dish to 30w, get signal.. once i have 1w and 30w i seem to hit the arc nicely

then i just find the right sat on the satellite receiver and move to the next sat..

if you want usals to work, i think you will need to have your motor long and lat to your location on the motor itself, make sure you are bang on 1W and hitting the arc, then goto usals and input info in receiver, make sure you have a channel list with the latest tp's so the motor can actually see activte tp's and give a signal to scan sats in.

but as i said before that is not the way i have set mine up, as i find manually tuning more consistent....

this is how i would do it

set motor to 1w with your signal reader and get it so you think you will get the arc

you should be setting your motor up to 1w, pref bbc world which is a strong signal, look on lyngsat for the tp

so goto your dm800 , and enable the satellite 1w
(main menu , set up , service searching then go to tuner configuration > tuner A and hit ok )

configuration mode advanced
satellite astra/eurobitd (1w)
voltage mode polarization
tone mode band
lnb ok push this once to the right then you get more options
set usals to no
lnb set to 1
diseqc mode 1.2
give it a location/position like 001

then click ok, then exit to positioner menu, then tune by clicking red

then chose 1w, and change manual to define tp, and chose the bbc world signal

then see if you have a signal, fine move to get a signal if you havn't

once you have a signal save position

then you can do this for each sat, work nearest to each one like 5e or 4.8e which wont be far from 1w, so once you have one sat setup it is easy aslong as you are hitting the arc to tune the rest in

just make sure you have a strong active tp you are trying to find as explained above, configure your individual satellites in the tuner configuration, matching the details i gave you above and then goto tune and predifine the tp on that sat to a strong tp, and you can then simply click move east or scan east from the positioner menu and it should stop at a signal this shoulfd be 4.8e if you are following this example

some of the above might not be spot on, not got my dreambox near me to give exact details

hope that helps

angusc

I'm having similar nightmares to you guys by reading your posts. I also thought that the DM800 would have been easier to set up with USALS but it does not seem to be the case. I'm in Asia so looking at 146E, 138E throught to 75E. When i originally set up my H-H mount I found that the arc was slightly off and was High on the East side and low on the West side of the Arc....obviously this is because I have not got my motor and dish alighed correctly. I found a guide that suggested the answer was to move the motor on the mounting pole by a little to correct the high and low elevations at either end of the ARC. It worked for me and using my X-Sat reciever i was able to compensate the satellite orbital degrees settings by the equivelant amount (avg 3 Degrees). However I can not find a similare settings file in the DM800 to be able to "correct" the USALS settings for each of my satellites....Does anyone know if this is possible in the DM800?

So what has worked for me so far is similare to what Techmob has written. I have detailed my method below in steps to try to clarify the procedure:

1) Install the Satellites.xml file with the satellites that you want to be able to recieve. (In Gemini Image this can be downloded via the BLUE button and then addons, I think). In Nabilo immage I can not find how to DL these satellites file so I FTP the file across using DCC software. RESTART the DM800 to load the Satellites file.

2) Go to the Services and Tuner menu and select "Expert" option, then scroll thruogh each of the satellites that should now be present from the above file. Select "NO" for USALS and then give each satellite a position number (I follow the arc of my satellites in order).

Ensure to select LNB (for a motor and single LNB it is the same LNB setting (LNB1) make sure that you set the LNB details at the bottom of the menu list "Universal" or "User defined" and LF and HF etc.

3) OK out from that menu and then select EXIT to get back to the SEARCH menu. Next go to the POSITIONER SET UP menu.

4) Select "Tune" option and then hit the RED key to set the channel frequency of the required satellite, set the Symbol rate for that frequency and check for V or H. Use the Remote controller up and down buttons select the "Positioner Movement" option. Now you can press the colour keys on the remote to either move East or West without searching for the channel, or East or West while searching for the channel frequency that you entered in at the TUNE option. Just double check that your required channel frequency that you entered in the "TUNE" menu is shown in the Positioner Movement menu window. If so then the dish should now move until it hits a spot where the channel frequency is recieved. The dish will stop turning and the colour boxes in the current screen will change back to "Searcg East" or "seach west". You should also have seen the signal strength meter come up with a reading. Now select the "Positioner FINE Movement" option.

5) Now use the green (West) or Yellow (East) buttons to step the motor to obtain the strongest signal. One press of the button is one step of the motor so a very fine adjustment can be made.

6) Once you have the strongest signal, then select the "Positioner Storage" option. MAKE SURE that you change the POSITION NUMBER to what you set up in STEP 2 above. Then press the GREEN button to store the position. (I usually press it a couple of times just to be sure!).

7) Now you can start the process again from step 4 above and make sure that you set the next satellite channel frequency, Symbol rate, V or H. (I guess that you need to study the satellite frequencies of adjacent satellites to ensure there are no similar frequencies on both as this may lead you to stop the motor on the wrong satellite.

8) Once set up you then need to go to the "MANUAL SCAN" option, select the satellite required and then enter the channel frequency for that satellite then hit the OK button to scan the Satellite. Provided the dish moves to the correct postion settings then the scan should start and all satellite transponders should be received.

This is how I have been doing it, BUT if one of the Gurus knows a better way then please let me know. One thing I'm unsure about is whether I need to set up the LAT & LONG option as I'm NOT using USALS but setting up the motor positions manually? If anyone has more info on this aspect then please advise.

What I do know is that if I try to edit the Satellites.xml file in FTP mode then I have to start over again with locating the individual satellite positions as they seem to revert back to the USALS settings, however this may be something to do with me entering in the LAT & LONG settings.....? So maybe I do not need those settings and the manual positioner settings will prevail?

tomthebomb1968

Have you looked at the tutorial on here for setting up a motor. Follow it and you will not be on the garage too often.
Set the motor up,do not fully tighten the bolts on the motor send the dish to 1west, check a frre to air channel on that satellite for signal strength and quality/goto dish and swing the motor round the pole until you have best quality, tighten it all up and you should have all the sats

gando

Tried tomthebomb1968 method and it more or less worked After setting up the dish onThor I eventually did it by using usals to drive the dish to somewhere near and then fine tuned and saved as a number- I nowhave the 3 main satellites I wanted set up and tuned (Astra 1,2 and Hotbird)The rest will follow as necessary.
Thanks everyone for all your help

jamabay

Hi all, I'm having pretty much the same problem so I got a guy in to set it up for me. He couldn't set it up either. He wonders if the DM800 is maybe not compatible with a Selfsat H21D2 and Selfsat Rotor HH90. (I think selfsat is called squish in the U.K.) Can anyone tell me if the dreambox 800 is or isn't compatible with a twin LNB squish and HH90 motor. And if it is, could I try the suggestions on this thread to set it up.

I appreciate all and any help as, yes, it's driving me mad as well.

Thanks in advance.

jamabay

Huevos

28.2E is the position of the satellite above the equator and has nothing to do with the number of degrees the motor shaft must turn in order to align it.