Argghh - my dish fell over and is not quite the same anymore

[NoviceSat]

I have a Technomate 80cm mesh dish mounted on a tripod for part-time use to find the best location for various satellites. Unfortunately the wind blew my dish over and I didn't hear it - I then sent commands to my USALS motor to find other satellites and began to wonder why I wasn't receiving anything. I later realised it was dragging the dish over the car-park's concrete floor

The dish itself looks OK - a few scrapes on the edges but it doesn't look out of alignment. However it no longer receives any signal. I have tried different co-ax cables and another sat meter. I have also tried bypassing the USALS motor (direct LNB to receiver), but that doesn't help. I have checked the receiver works by plugging it into a Sky dish and receiving channels on 28.2E

I have purchased a cheap second LNB to discover this doesn't fix the problem. If I spin the dish around the sky I do hear the sat meter change pitch - but not by much.

I am running out of ideas! Help!

 

[Mickha]

What kind of sat meter are you using?
If it's one of the basic ones, with a scale of 1-10, turn the control knob until it reads 5 then move the dish, gently until it goes to 9/10, once done turn the sat meter knob again to move it down to 5, then move the dish again until it moves to 9/10. Keep doing this until you get the strongest signal possible. You need to manouever the dish lef/right, and adjust the elevation, to get the strongest signal, once you have check your receiver to see which satellite you've found.

 

[Analoguesat]

Check & re-terminate the cable from the motor to the lnb - if its been jolted free you wont get anything.

This all assumes the dish elevation hasnt changed of course. You may need to reinstall from scratch

Try hanging a bucket of water off the middle of the tripod - it wont fall over so easily as the centre of gravity will be lowered ;)

 

[NoviceSat]

As the only thing I have been unable to verify as working is the dish I decided to take it apart again. I have discovered it is the arm that is at fault It looks OK to the eye, but when I put it down on the table sideways-on it doesn't lie flat. I've also noticed a slight bulge at the base of the arm (which is where the manufacturers bend the pipe). I have bent the arm (which required a lot of force so I'm surprised it managed to bend itself in the first place), and I get a signal again :-righton

Mickha - I did originally use one of those Vu-style sat meters with the rotary dials. Unfortunately they are very loud and I'm sure the neighbours weren't enjoying it so I purchased a small FM-radio style sat meter. You just plug in the headphones and listen to the pitch of the beep - I think they are great. The only problem I have is that I end up tuning to transponders that are "V" rather than "H" (the old meter was unusable with "H" transponders). I have seen some notes about the super-high gain LNBs causing these sort of issues.

Analoguesat - Good idea about counterbalancing. I have discovered by accident that if I push the centre pole of the tripod all the way up I end up with the legs being far apart and it is quite stable. The picture on the box seems to indicate you push the centre pole up enough so it touches the ground along with the three legs.

Unfortunately the signal is not as strong as it was - 30.0W was a signal quality of 98% for me before, but now comes in the low 80s. I would guess this means that the arm is not exactly as it was. Is there any technique I can use to align the arm to the dish? Or do I chalk this one up to experience and get another dish, but this time with a folding arm?