70% Signal strength but no quality...?

[Labno]

Hello Nice to meet you all,

I have recently got an 1100mm dish with Disecq 1.2 motor, i have mounted as shown in the guides and set up elevation etc and found true south.I bought a Technomate TM-3100D and gone through the steps...my problem is i get the receiver on and it shows the channels and tracks the satellites but the Signal Quality bar remains at 5% wherever it moves whilst the strenght is in the 70's meaning i get the message 'No/Weak Signal'.

What can i do? I have read previous posts but got no joy, does the fact that the motor is tracking the satellites mean that it is either a problem with the receiver or LNB? I realise that the receiver is a cheap model but surely it would not have such a bad quality signal?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Labno

 

[Turok]

maybe this is a data trnnsponder,what freqency and sat postion you try to find?

 

[Labno]

Bear with me im an amatuer lol, i havnt been able to find any yet but the sat im mainly after is astra?

 

[mattybee]

From what I understand, no/low signal quality means you are not on the satellite you have selected.

Have you tried adjusting the motor on your pole to improve the quality?

Mattybee

 

[Labno]

Hello Matty,

I did have a little go before it got dark but would i be right in saying that if it was slightly out it would atleast pick up some satellites and signal quality?

 

[mattybee]

Hello Matty,

I did have a little go before it got dark but would i be right in saying that if it was slightly out it would atleast pick up some satellites and signal quality?

With the expereince I have had (not much) and reading up about it, I have found that you have to be 100% spot on with your alignment, even more so with motorised, as you are tracking an arc, and the slightest bit out and you have missed it.

Mattybee

 

[satelliteman]

Your not on the arc at all by the sound of it, thus not receiving any satellite.

Follow the guides and set up the dish on your reference satellite. Make sure you have an active transponder showing on the receiver if using this method ( Normally Thor 0.8w / 11.325 BBC World)

If the Latitude is set on the motor and the pole is dead straight all should fall into place after alignment.

SM

 

[billkuk]

sounds like the problem I had when I set up my sys a couple of weeks back. I was having strong signal but no quality. For some reason I decided to do a auto scan for the shear hell of it and I started picking up channels. I didn't realize that I should have tried to set to a known transponder as suggested by satman

 

[moojuice]

I found the same when setting up my TD110 the other day, the LNB had incorrect polarisation markings on it and needed a 90deg tweak, then all worked fine. Try adjusting the skew and see what happens

 

[Labno]

Thanks for the replies so far,

Based on my position dishpointer says my Lat=53.3 deg, Longitude= 3 deg, My Dish Elevation= 29 deg,LNB Scew 0.7 deg.

Therefore if i set my motor lat at 53 deg, Dish elevation at 29 deg, turn my LNB 0.7 deg to the right, then point the dish to make the referance of 3 degrees West of True South, should i then be able to find the arc providing the bracket is plumb?

With regards to the transponders do you just check online for the active ones then change accordingly?

 

[bigtee]

I suspect that the "dish elevation" figure is for a fixed set up; for a motorised it will ordinarily be between 22 and 25.

 

[pkay99]

Installed my first motoised system yesterday and had exactly the same problem. For me it was the disk elevation. I could only get a quality signal within a 2-3 degree elevation range.

Ps the latitude longitude you quote puts you smack in the middle of the north sea !

 

[rolfw]

Forget about the dish elevation figure, just mount it so that the dish face is near vertical to start with. Use Dispointer as a rough guide for initial direction only.

LNB skew should be zero on a motorised system.

Send your motor to Thor 1W using USALS.

Then either using a portable TV or a satbeeper meter, swing the whole assembly on the mast and adjust the dish bracket until you get the best signal on Thor. Use the Frequency which has BBC World.

 

[pkay99]

For merseyside your longitude is minus 3 degrees

 

[Labno]

So if using USALS what will the input be,53.3 and ?, on my receiver it only gives the option between 0.01-12 how would i put -3 degrees would it be 0.003?

 

[guest poster]

So if using USALS what will the input be,53.3 and ?, on my receiver it only gives the option between 0.01-12 how would i put -3 degrees would it be 0.003?

-3 means 3 west

 

[mattybee]

Just checking, but have you checked your LNB skew is correct?