Am I on the arc??

M

minichris

Member
My Satellite Setup
DM800HD
My Location
West Mids
Hi Guys,

First post here so be gentle!

Ive dipped my toe into the satellite world in the deep end, with an 80cm dish, technomate gold 0.1 lnb, TM2300 motor and a DM800HD.

Ive read the guides and many many forum posts and have got my dish setup to what I think to be "almost right".

I can get these satellites with a fairly good reception and over 5000 channels between them -

eurobird9 9e
eutelsat w2a 10e
hotbird 13e
astra 1h 19.2e
arabsat 2b 20e
afristar1 21e
astra 28.2e
arabsat 5a 30.5e
turksat1c 31e

However, my due south satellite is Thor 1w and despite all the other satellites I pick up I can never find Thor. The dish is mounted on an Easterly facing wall so im aware that my westerly satellites are obstructed but 1w should be well in los.

So, what do you think could be wrong? Could the arc be slightly off but still pick up all these sats?

Thanks

Chris
 
Hello minichris

welcome to the forum,

It would help others to diagnose if they knew what method or which tutorial you have followed. It would apppear you have used USALS, but you have mentioned nothing else for example what is you declination? What other information have you input? The top of the arc (your due south satellite) has to be physically the top of the arc, if the described arc is not correct to start with you will not easily get all the channels on the Eastern arc. You could have a situation as per the diagram below
 

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I added my long and lat in the positioner setup, set the dish motor to 0, lnb to 0 skew and aligned it due south with a compass. Added a custom satelites.xml with a range from 1w to 31e and tried to find 1w. After not finding a thing I sent it to 28.2e and found a signal there, I then adjusted inclination and declination angles to get about 84% snr. I then scanned the other satelites with sat finder to see what gave me signals and came up with the above list.
 
minichris said:
I added my long and lat in the positioner setup, set the dish motor to 0, lnb to 0 skew and aligned it due south with a compass. Added a custom satelites.xml with a range from 1w to 31e and tried to find 1w. After not finding a thing I sent it to 28.2e and found a signal there, I then adjusted inclination and declination angles to get about 84% snr. I then scanned the other satelites with sat finder to see what gave me signals and came up with the above list.
Click to expand...

Using a compass will not help as 'magnetic north' is different to north thus from memory you will be a few degrees off
 
Inclination angle is 38, declination is 7.5, dish 22.5 (from the TM2300 manual)

How do you get true north\south?
 
You shouldn't play with the inclination angle on the motor, unless you have problems at the ends of the arc, you should find a reference sat by adjusting the azimuth and declination only.

If you can't find your Due South satellite, send the motor to something close, 9 East or 13 east which would be better than 28.2, then find that satellite by moving the whole lot around the mast and adjusting the declination of the dish.
 
I've found 28.2e is a lot higher on the arc for some reason. I set up my dish by using USALS to send it to 28.2e and then adjusted. I found that I had to reduce the elevation to get 1W when I motorised over there but it lowers the signal on 28.2e. Lucky that's strong.
 
This is probably way off but this is how its currently set pointing to 28.2e -

View attachment 31197
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What confuses me is the numbering on the dish bracket, would someone explain it a bit better for me please?

Thanks
 

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rolfw said:
If you can't find your Due South satellite, send the motor to something close, 9 East or 13 east which would be better than 28.2, then find that satellite by moving the whole lot around the mast and adjusting the declination of the dish.
Click to expand...

9e gives me 50% snr BER300 - its to late to tinker with it now but if I align it better to 9e the rest should improve?
 
You find true north by a formula of grid to mad add or mag to grid get rid, this may sound a little strange but on all OS maps they have at the bottom the magnetic varriation stated and year of the map. The magnetic variation wil change each year by a small amount and using the formula above you multiply the small amount by number of years from the date of the map to the current year. Army training never leaves you stranded. Just search magnetic variation and it will be explained.

minichris said:
Inclination angle is 38, declination is 7.5, dish 22.5 (from the TM2300 manual)

How do you get true north\south?
Click to expand...
 
minichris said:
I added my long and lat in the positioner setup, set the dish motor to 0, lnb to 0 skew and aligned it due south with a compass.
Click to expand...
Don't send the motor to zero. If you are trying to line up on 1ºW send the motor to 1ºW. Also forget the compass. Pick a frequency you know is active on 1ºW and use that to line up on. I use the Poker channel (12418 V 28000) because it's fairly strong here and FTA.
 
Huevos said:
Don't send the motor to zero. If you are trying to line up on 1ºW send the motor to 1ºW. Also forget the compass. Pick a frequency you know is active on 1ºW and use that to line up on. I use the Poker channel (12418 V 28000) because it's fairly strong here and FTA.
Click to expand...

That's what I have been missing all along, strong transponders on the missing birds!! Almost every satellite on the arc shows up as 60%+ snr and I get a lock!!

So next question, do I just to a multisat manual scan with my tuner set to advanced for every bird and it will scan every transponder on the satellite and find its own lock or is there a better way of doing a multi-satellite scan?

Thanks

Chris
 
minichris said:
9e gives me 50% snr BER300 - its to late to tinker with it now but if I align it better to 9e the rest should improve?
Click to expand...

Yes, but you also need to check your inclination angle on the motor, what is your latitude and longitude?
 
rolfw said:
Yes, but you also need to check your inclination angle on the motor, what is your latitude and longitude?
Click to expand...

Latitude = 52.39, Longitude = -1.94

As per my last post, it seems I am on the arc now, an overnight scan came up with over 8000 channels on the birds from 1w to 30e so I think a spot of fine tuning to get the best out of the signals and I'm all done :D

Thanks guys your help have been invaluable!!
 
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