Astra 2D in Sicily?..not yet.... :( but Im not giving up!!!

[dave branson]

Hope you do it,good luck

 

[Likvid]

Dave and the other guys,
they came yesterday;
We checked everything nad it seems that the problem is on the dish.
It is probably not very well assamblated.
The guy walked on the dish, and we could see the signal from BBC.
So now we need to do this other try.

Ciao for now

Tony

I nearly though the dish wasn't assembled right, didn't you assemble it yourself?

You should always work in a circle clockwise and move out when you are tightening the bolts on those reflectors and then do the wire trick at 2,8 and 10,4.

 

[simonskyman]

Why dont you take a photo of your dish from a side view and we can see if it is twisted or deformed?

 

[denis1501]

Dave and the other guys,
they came yesterday;
We checked everything nad it seems that the problem is on the dish.
It is probably not very well assamblated.
The guy walked on the dish, and we could see the signal from BBC.
So now we need to do this other try.

Ciao for now

Tony

Well if you could see the BBC signal then you're almost there!! It at least proves that your project will have a happy ending.......and gives hope to the rest of us here in Italy, south of Rome.
The very best of luck to you,
regards
D.

 

[ynot62]

Simon,
I ll post some pictures about the dish in the next days.
Today I have put two wires to check if the dish is distorted; I didnt touch the azimut cause I need someone to help me out but I just wanted to check if the dish is distorted.
Actually it seems that the dish is ok cause the two wires they meet each other in the proper way.
The mistery is getting deeper and deeper
Do you think I should put the azimut of the dish down to 0° degrees to really be sure if it is distorted or not? Or what I already did could be enough?
What it has happened about the BBC signal, is that the installer I got from Rome got up on the dish and with a smooth pression of his foot next to the central point of the dish, we could see the signal on the analyzer jumping up for about 12 DB.
This dish is a Patriot petalized 16 pieces and it is quite easy to install as the bolts holes match perfect and it should be not margin of errors.
Unfortunally my problem is that there is no one here who really knows about big sized dish so every time i need to wait for the guy who comes from Rome.
It would be great if I could do some work by myself.
Could you give me some advices while I wait for him t ocome down again?
I hope I have been able to explane everything.
Thanks for your help
Ciao for now
Tony

Why dont you take a photo of your dish from a side view and we can see if it is twisted or deformed?

 

[Likvid]

Simon,
I ll post some pictures about the dish in the next days.
Today I have put two wires to check if the dish is distorted; I didnt touch the azimut cause I need someone to help me out but I just wanted to check if the dish is distorted.
Actually it seems that the dish is ok cause the two wires they meet each other in the proper way.
The mistery is getting deeper and deeper
Do you think I should put the azimut of the dish down to 0° degrees to really be sure if it is distorted or not? Or what I already did could be enough?
What it has happened about the BBC signal, is that the installer I got from Rome got up on the dish and with a smooth pression of his foot next to the central point of the dish, we could see the signal on the analyzer jumping up for about 12 DB.
This dish is a Patriot petalized 16 pieces and it is quite easy to install as the bolts holes match perfect and it should be not margin of errors.
Unfortunally my problem is that there is no one here who really knows about big sized dish so every time i need to wait for the guy who comes from Rome.
It would be great if I could do some work by myself.
Could you give me some advices while I wait for him t ocome down again?
I hope I have been able to explane everything.
Thanks for your help
Ciao for now
Tony

I beleive you should talk to one of the Aussie guys who are familiar with the Patriot dishes, he says they give so many problems that he freaks out and he works with large dishes all day long....

I PM his email address.

This is the dish you have right?

 

[ynot62]

Hi Likvid,
I dont have my digital camera at the moment but the dish I have is like the one in the picture.
I would appreciate your help regarding the Aussie guy, I am really frustrated now.
I have been working on this bloody dish for over 18 months now.
Thanks everybody for your help.
Ciao
Tony

I beleive you should talk to one of the Aussie guys who are familiar with the Patriot dishes, he says they give so many problems that he freaks out and he works with large dishes all day long....

I PM his email address.

This is the dish you have right?

 

[aldac12]

Hello,
I just read your problem and I am personnally convinced your problem has something to do with the feedhorn. Since you are using a prime focus dish, first thing i would advice is to use a prime focus lnb. You can find very good and yet affordable ones in the market. Once you acquire that, work on the focal point since that can drastically influence your signal strenght >.3db .
I am located in west Africa (Ghana), and most of satellites of interests are out of the footprint, yet i get hotbird, arabsat2D, nilesat and astra(analog only)....so using the appropriate equipment is key to success!
Good Luck!

 

[Zorba]

What it has happened about the BBC signal, is that the installer I got from Rome got up on the dish and with a smooth pression of his foot next to the central point of the dish, we could see the signal on the analyzer jumping up for about 12 DB.

Well,I think that when he stepped in to the centre of the dish he increased the distance from dish to feedhorn,which might mean that your focal distance is too short.I know its not easy for you to adjust your lnb but tell your technician if he can supply an alternative feedhorn bracket that allows you to slide it up and down a bit and check the signal on his meter at the same time.

 

[dave branson]

Well,I think that when he stepped in to the centre of the dish he increased the distance from dish to feedhorn,which might mean that your focal distance is too short.I know its not easy for you to adjust your lnb but tell your technician if he can supply an alternative feedhorn bracket that allows you to slide it up and down a bit and check the signal on his meter at the same time.

The feedhorn/LNB must be the reason,this was discussed earlier in the thread
the focus point distance is of course critical.
The manufacturer of my 1.8 dish states 72 cms,when installed at this figure i had no signal,when i moved it to 67 cmsCalculated from the sat calc formula
supplied by Likvid.the picture was ok.

 

[Likvid]

I have asked the Aussie guy with Patriot experience to come and write in this thread.

 

[dave branson]

I have asked the Aussie guy with Patriot experience to come and write in this thread.

That will be very interesting.

 

[ynot62]

I really dont know what else I can do,
We tried everything.
It seems that my dish settings have all the strangest misteries...
For instance, when the technician stepped into the centre of the dish, only on certain point of the petals we could get the signal, he just walked very slowly to find the only point that with a pressure of the foot could give us the signal.
Because of that, we thought the dish was distorted but then I put 2 wires crossing eachother and the dish seems ok,
We calculated the F/D with the famous formula and it is perfect.
At this stage the only thing we still didnt do is to change the feedhorn.
I am getting very frustrated now.
I hope that the aussie guys can help me out.
Ciao for now
Tony

Well,I think that when he stepped in to the centre of the dish he increased the distance from dish to feedhorn,which might mean that your focal distance is too short.I know its not easy for you to adjust your lnb but tell your technician if he can supply an alternative feedhorn bracket that allows you to slide it up and down a bit and check the signal on his meter at the same time.

 

[simonskyman]

Sometimes two strings are not enough,you might miss a twist in the dish in between ,for example,12 oclock and 3 oclock.thats why you have to have a visual check looking from the side and also from the bottom towards the top.

 

[iceman]

Sometimes two strings are not enough,.

Agreed...I always use four strings....

 

[trash]

Hi guys, likvid asked me to come and have a look at this thread.
Patriots.... you have my sympathy, they can be rather difficult antennas to work with. I had a quick skim back through some of the posts.

A picture says a thousand words. A picture of the antenna from front, side and back would be a good start. Looks like most people have suggested the same things I would suggest checking myself. I find 2 strings are enough, but changing their positions has the same effect as more string lines. They should just be touching, there should not be a large gap between them or they should not be pulling against each other.

The pictures will help, and if there is something obvious, I think we'll all spot the problem. Measure the diameter accurately and the distance from the center of the dish to the feed horn. (post both of these values). If it's casigrain, some pictures of the feed horn and waveguides would be helpful.


Patriot generally didn't think through some of their designs, and things like the elevation screws are very coarse. A single turn of a nut can move a dish considerabley. Their azimuth screws aren't much worse than other antennas.

A bigger dish of course requires more precission, in the case of patriots, it becomes extreemly annoying when you don't have good control over where the antenna is pointing.

The method I have used succesfully for patriots in the past is:

1> Set the azimuth first.
If you have another antenna, you could use it, else you just want to be as precise as possible with your azimuth elements. Use your compass or dish and pick an object as far away as possible as a reference. a tree or TV antenna on a house or anything ... I sometimes use clouds if they are not moving quickly.

From the king post, the lowest part of the dish represents the azimuth. Hanging a plum bob from it helps with precission. When you think you have got the azimuth correct. then try elevation.

2> Elevation.
Set the elevation lower than where you expect to find the satellite and slowly raise it by turning the nut. When you are sure you are too high, then lower it back to where you started. A marking pen helps you keep within the window.
A slight adjustment of the azimuth and you try again.

Try not to make any sudden movements, keep them all as small as possible, it's these large movements that cause problems because they move the antenna in almost unpredictable ways.

Try and get the polarisation correct to start with, but don't be too fussed about it.

I'm not sure if you have access to something like a spectrum analyser or something like a chart recorder connected to a signal strength meter.
You can use this slow response (narrow bandwidth) signal strength to see accurately what is going on in the sky as you pan.

You must remember the #1 rule. The background radiation of the universe (the big bang) is uniform everywhere you look in the sky. The only place that this noise is higher is where the sun, moon, radiostars and satellites are.

You can practise by pointing your dish at the sun or the moon when it close to where you want to point your dish at the satellite. Using your signal meter you should be able to easily peak up on the sun or moon, and then watch it drift out as the earth rotates.

This is an example of what the signal meter will do as the sun or moon passes through the beam of the dish. It's a "pattern cut"
http://www.vetrun.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3813&page=2&highlight=side+lobe

You can see the main lobe in the center with the side lobes.

If you get this kind of response as the sun/moon pass through, then you know all is good. If the pattern isn't symetrical, then you may find that your feed horn is not alligned and/or focused correctly.

I don't log into this forum often, but I will try and read this thread more often. If you don't get a response from me.... likvid or somebody else and ping me and wake me up :-)

 

[dave branson]

Very interesting,i feel sorry for Tony,buying an expensive Patriot dish which does not work at the moment.

 

[Old Satellite]

I would like to add from personnel experience that Patriot dishes are of good quality for the purchase cost.- there are better (and more expensive and certainly far worst.

It is and always will be time consuming in the installation in "any" large dish, the petals normally take about a day to align correctly for best performance.

The 3.8 mtr should be capible of the task at the location, also please do not forget as Tony has identified it is difficult to install the dish of this size if you have not done so before.

Many readers will have seen/ and read from my own Patriot the acheivements on that of my own system.


Tony Please could you Pm me your email address and I will send you an overview of setting up your dish - it might help you further, and gain 2D
Kind Reagrds

Ols satellite

 

[trash]

Any photo's yet ?
A picture is the next best thing to actually being there.

You might find that is is something so simple you never considered it.
I had a job where they installed a dish in a very remote location. I gave instructions that I was sure were going to work. To test the theory I had a hand picked village idiot follow the instructions from scratch and it wasn't long before he had the satellite.
But the remote location, the tech's couldn't find the satellite or any satellite.
I smelt a rat, so I was eventually persuaded to do the trip.
After a couple of minutes of panning the sky and finding nothing but the tiniest lump in the background radiation, I decided to replace the LNC. It looked like it had some massive attenuation (maybe a broken FET). Upon pulling it off the feed support, I discovered the problem.
The mounting plate was solid metal and they had just bolted the feed horn on one side and the LNC on the other with a wall of metal blocking the waveguide. I drill out a hole and put it all back together (while trying not to laugh). The tiny lump that I was seeing was actually the satellite despite the waveguide being blocked.

You can see the importance of actually having a variation in background noise as you move the antenna across the sky. (or the sky moves across it).

 

[ynot62]

Hi Trash,
here are the photos you requested.
I hope they can help us to sort out the problem I have.
Thanks for your help.
Ciao
Tony

Any photo's yet ?
A picture is the next best thing to actually being there.

You might find that is is something so simple you never considered it.
I had a job where they installed a dish in a very remote location. I gave instructions that I was sure were going to work. To test the theory I had a hand picked village idiot follow the instructions from scratch and it wasn't long before he had the satellite.
But the remote location, the tech's couldn't find the satellite or any satellite.
I smelt a rat, so I was eventually persuaded to do the trip.
After a couple of minutes of panning the sky and finding nothing but the tiniest lump in the background radiation, I decided to replace the LNC. It looked like it had some massive attenuation (maybe a broken FET). Upon pulling it off the feed support, I discovered the problem.
The mounting plate was solid metal and they had just bolted the feed horn on one side and the LNC on the other with a wall of metal blocking the waveguide. I drill out a hole and put it all back together (while trying not to laugh). The tiny lump that I was seeing was actually the satellite despite the waveguide being blocked.

You can see the importance of actually having a variation in background noise as you move the antenna across the sky. (or the sky moves across it).