Angle of Declination?

[Licinius]

I have my system assembled on the floor ready to mount today, the only bit which I'm confused about is the angle of declination. According to the instruction manual on my motor (Technomate TM-2100A) it needs to be 22.4 (I understand that bit).

The problem is when I come to set my dish bracket. The only mark I have on the bracket is in the bottom right hand corner, if I use this to set the angle then the dish is pointing below paralell !

Should I set the dish to approx 22' elevation? I have a meter anyway so can fine tune as I'm fitting the dish but I'd rather have it set as close as possible before starting.

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[rolfw]

If you set it roughly, so that the dish face is just leaning back from the vertical, then you won't have too far to move it when you punt around for 1W your reference satellite.

 

[Licinius]

Imagine my joy at turning my receiver on (Technomate TM1500CI) for the first time to see the BBC world service on Thor 1'W At that stage quality was reading 78%

All of a sudden though I have lost quality in my satellite setup. Level is 90% but quality hovers between 3-9%. I've checked the dish again which is 'reasonably' tight & has a good signal on my analogue meter.

Any advice on where to start looking please guys?

 

[Licinius]

Cheers Rolfw, took your advice & worked a dream! Now I just gotta work out why I've lost the bloody signal!

 

[Licinius]

I have manually inserted my longitude/latitude in the motorised settings. When I press 'go to reference' in 'motor control' I have 70% quality. When I try to save these settings................... I lose it :-bash

All advice greatly appreciated guys.

 

[Licinius]

I fitted my dish AFTER fitting the motor so don't think they're lined up as good as they could be, anyone know if this is likely to be my problem?

I'll take it down again tomorrow anyway & fit the dish to the motor BEFORE mounting it back on to the wall.

For the record, I have a right angle pole which I'm not impressed with. I think a straight pole with 2 brackets will be far easier to aline properly.

 

[satellite eye]

i have had fun and games with my motorised which is off the wall again soon as i cannot get hispasat because of the wall and have to move it back further away,tried at side of the house but a neighbour went berserk and i took it off the wall,people cannot mind there own bussiness got so nasty with the lunatic the police were nearly called after HE threatned to take it down,what i do is hook an analogue box up scan for eurosport on astra clear the picture,switch to digital box and improve then to 1 degree west and take it from there,once one comes in the rest arnt far behind.

 

[Licinius]

Ok day 2 & the same problem. After picking up a good strong signal (85% on 5W Atlantic Bird) the signal meter on my receiver suddenly drops off. This is exactly what happened yesterday, I pick up a satellite, get a good picture/signal & then suddenly without touching it, it goes !

I bought a complete system (Technomate 1500CI with TM 2100A motor) which came complete with coax. I'm wondering if the supplied cable is cheap/nasty stuff & is the root of my problem. Wad you reckon?

 

[rolfw]

Could well be that the motor is moving off satellite.

 

[Licinius]

Can you explain that m8 or point me to another thread which does?

 

[rolfw]

If you send the motor back to zero, does the Thor 1W signal come back?

 

[Licinius]

I'd not moved the motor m8, the signal just went both times.

 

[satellite eye]

i think these diy meters are a problem,i have the standard small arm analogue meter but as you say the signal was all over the place up and down the scale,on my sky dish it worked perfect.i think the size of the dish is over powerful for the signal and this distorts the meter reading,you might need to use the inbuilt signal/quality in the technomate to start and fine tune at a satellite toward the edge of your arc sight.

 

[Licinius]

Cheers for the help guys, you need the patience of a saint to offer help & advice here.

Not really sure what I've done but its starting to fall into place. Still missing most of the satellites so my install is not as good as I first thought, I have a neighbours house which I think is causing a problem so I'll buy new brackets & a pole to get a bit more height once I've composed myself again

 

[rolfw]

OK, so you need to check the connections and cable again, try connection straight to the LNB, taking the motor out of circuit.

 

[Licinius]

Pretty sure I haven't got enough clearance over next doors house m8, as soon as a black cloud comes over I lose everything. I'll take a piccie from over the road so you can see.

 

[Licinius]

Heres the view from over the road. To the untrained eye (me) it looks borderline at best so I'll get myself a pole & raise the dish above my roofline.

 

[rolfw]

Yes, is that a chimeny opposite on the rear corner?

 

[Licinius]

It is indeed m8, surprisingly though that doesn't seem to be causing much of a problem, black clouds however are a major prob 'O'-red

 

[rolfw]

Well difficult to say from the view, but it could be partially obstructing the view to 1W.