AFN in Afghanistan stopped on 1 SEP, at my location

I

Indio

Member
My Satellite Setup
AFN EuroSat
My Location
Afghanistan
I am currently located in Maz-E-Shariff, Afghanistan. I am not a commo guy so I will muddle through the explanation: I am co-located with germans, and I think that AFN and the German system run on the same SAT dish. However, at sometime during the night of 31 AUG, the AFN stopped working. It was set up on the Hotbird and working fine. Now we have no signal. Does anyone know when the switch to the Euro bird actually happened? We just got here a couple of weeks ago and didn't ask to the status of the AFN, since it was working fine.
Receiver: Model D9865-8

Signal Level is 60, but bounces down to 0 every so often, and then back up. However, there is no signal lock.

I called the AFN helpdesk and they told me that it is either the cable or dish. The German satellite receiver still works, so I don't think that it is the cable. We are setup in offices and I don't know of any other americans here in the offices/trailers, who have AFN, so if somebody thinks that it would be the dish, then I'll need to start working with my German friends to figure this out.

Could it be an LNB that just went bad?

Indio
 
AFN has moved from Hotbird 13E to Eurobird 9A at 9E

You will need to have the AFN receive dish realigned.

The new parameters are

12341V 27500 3/4 &
12418V 27500 3/4

-http://www.flysat.com/ebird9a.php
 
Instructions for your receiver to set up for Eurobird 9A can be found here -

_http://www.afneurope.net/EB9/D9865.html
 
hello,
i have a lot of posts here.
please search afn satellite set up in afghanistan.
we need to know dish diamater cable length and type of lnb etc.
please look at some pictures ni posted as well.
i will check again sunday morning and see if it was helpful.
if you where picking up afn before it will still work.
add all the new permaters from their site and stand behind the dish and move it right about one fourth of an inch. level will come up and it will lock
ralph

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/...s/193555-afn-satellite-setup-afghanistan.html

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/...-motorised-systems/192992-afn-setup-iraq.html
 
Of course this will lead to the Germans' losing their channels
 
Dish Size.webp

Afghanistan Help:

This is the look of my dish. Instead of screwing with the German system, I decided to move the AFN box to our tent. I was told that it used to work at the tent, and off of this antenna before. Here's what I've got so far:
LNB (Bought brand new today)
SuperMax DX-700 Plus
Input Freq: 10.7-12.75 GHZ
Output Freq: 950-2150 MHZ
Lo Freq: 9.75/10.60 GHZ

Coax cable is no longer than 10 meters.

Receiver Settings: D 9865
Mod Type: DVB-S
Downlink: 12.34125 GHZ
Symbol Rate: 27.5
NetID: 10
Lo Select: Auto
Lo Freq 1: 9.75
Lo Freq 2: 10.6
Crossover: 11.7
LNB Power: 13-V
DiSeQC: Disable
DiSEqC Switch: Off

From dishpointer.com, based on our location (36deg42'15" / 067deg13'54"), here's what we should be pointing at, for the Euro bird:
Elevation: 16.6
Azimuth (Mag): 246.1
LNB Skew: 48.7 deg

- After all of this, we have nothing on the receiver. The C/N Margin stays on 11, and the signal is on 0. Thanks for any help. It's almost 3 PM here and I have until 4 AM, before the NASCAR race starts here, so I'm trying to figure this out.
 

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The first thing to do is reestablish a known starting point.

Set the dish up again for 13E, and tune in a free channel - something like RTPi on 10723H 29900 3/4

If you have a generic free to air receiver it will probably be easier.

From there tune the receiver to 11940H 27500 3/4 and swing the dish westwards a little at a time - when you get a signal scan and see if you have found CCTV9 Documentary. When you have found that swap the receiver for the AFN box, retune the box for the new parameters and away you go..
 
Analoguesat, I see your help, but it appears chinese to me, in that I don't understand the terminology. I don't understand what this means "10723H 29900 3/4"

I don't understand how to tune to something. I think like a basic rifleman. For the young Wii generation this stuff is easy. For me, it's all majic. We always had to find some local to figure this out before, and that might be the case again. I've seen Iraqis just point the dish at the sky and it locks, after we've been doing the same for hours with no luck.

I don't have a free to air receiver, since I don't know what that is. I do have some German Sat box that works (WISI OR-18 DVB S Receiver), and some other box that the terps use for Indian/Hindu channels. That one doesn't work anymore and we haven't got to that one yet..
 
The "10723H 29900 3/4" are the transmission parameters. Each frequency on the satellite carries several channels on a mini multiplex and the digital signals have 4 main parameters

10723 - the carrier frequency
h - horizontal polarity
29900 - the symbol rate (number of bits per second)
3/4 - the forward error correction

What each individual one means doesn't matter. All you need to know is that you have to have all 4 correct or you get a black screen as the receiver cant resolve the transmission.

Look at this page:

-http://www.flysat.com/ebird9a.php

specifically the second and third columns - it will give you an idea of how the frequencies are set up on a typical satellite. Ignore the "DVB-S/MPEG-2" entries - you dont need them.

(You will see the AFN info towards the bottom of the page).
 
Now the dish has been moved you need to find a satellite - ANY satellite - to give you a known base point to start from.
 
indio,
looking at the pic you posted we need to set somethings up first.
1.the supermax dish behind you who's dish is that and where is it pointing to???
2.your lnb on the front of your dish is set up wrong. twist the lnb thing of the from of the dish untill the cable that screws on is down and not to the left.
your it is not horz or vert.
3. if the supermax dish behind you is pointing to a german satellite astra at 19 east degrees or hot bird13 east that is the same direction your dish must point as well.
then we can set up the receiver and get it running.
if anyone in your camp has afn running look at their dish and see what direction their dish is pointing.
ralph
 
indio,
ps
if you are getting 0 quality and strength 0 you have a brake in the line and the box is not powering up the converter on the dish.
twist the converter on the dish counter clock until the cable is on the botom.
then the box sends 14 v dc up the line to power the converter.
if there is no voltage do to brake in the line all will reed 0 and 0.
ralph
 
That dish behind mine is pointing to some other SAT. That's the one the terps watch the Indian sat channels on. Mine is pointed generally in the correct direction, towards the Hotbird.
Dishpoint says to have a 16 deg angle, but the one that is working on the camp is almost straight and level. I'll work with the cable and LNB. This is the 3rd cable, since the first two we tried had bad kinks. This one doesn't have any kinks but don't have a multi meter to properly check it. If I can't get power to the LNB, then will find new coax.
 
hello indio,
once you get power to the lnb you need to twist it counter clock wise until the part where the cable screws on is pointing down,
it should not be to the left that i saw in the picture.
ralph
 
To all, I appreciate the help. We have success. I brought in an Afghan local and it literally took him 3-4 minutes to get us locked on and running. I don't know how the locals do it, but it seems the best course of action is to bring in the locals and they always get it done right. We had eeverything close, just not good enough. Again, thanks for the help.

Indio
 
Excellent news!
 
good to know,
send us a picture of the new alignment as well as the lnb set up to see the skew of the lnb.
just for info in your area.
how much did the local charge for the trouble call?
if i can ask that question here?
ralph
 
I'll take another photo and post it. The local charge came out to $43 (US). I gave him $45 and told him that I'm going to make him the project manager to have our dishes properly installed on poles, i.e. cemented into the ground. He is going to work on that. Having the dishes on pallets, sitting on gravel, with sand bags for weight, is not a good long term solution.
The embarrassing thing was that we had the coax plugged into the output on the back of the box, and not into the input. I'm retarded but so is my compadre, who hooked that portion up. Goes back to my old commo days; Check Antenna, Check Batteries (power), and Check the Cable and I failed to properly supervise and use my old skills. I'll post a new photo tomorrow, with the direction and elevation, for anybody else in Northern Afghanistan. Indio
 
Indio said:
The embarrassing thing was that we had the coax plugged into the output on the back of the box, and not into the input.
Click to expand...

Classic :-ohcrap
 
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