Dish alignment problems and Height of dish above roof

H

howc

Regular Member
My Satellite Setup
Penta 85 Alloy Dish
Moteck SG2100 motor
dm800HD Receiver
DM500s Receiver
also
Gemini 90 Dish
Stab HH120 Motor
Smart Titanium LNB
My Location
Surrey/Hampshire
Hi

Ive been trying to set up my new dish but with limited success.

I have a new Penta 85 with my old Invacom 0.3 lnb on a Strong DM2100 (I did order the Motek but was sent the Strong Im not sure if the are identical or not :mad:) all mounted on T&Ks and scaffold pole.

At the moment I cant get usals to work at all but with diseqc I have found 28E, 19.2E, and 13E deg but I still cant find the like of 1W. 16E etc. Im guessing I have my arc wrong but Im not entirely sure what to do next. Im going to have another go tomorrow after Ive read everything there is to read here :0).

Here's the point.........(eventually)

I decided to move my current set up from its position at eaves level (trees in the way) to around the other side of the house where I can get a easy access via my garage roof. My dish is looking over my roof just above the line of the gutter and this gives me a clear view of the sky. Im lucky (?) to have a 22.5 degree pitch on my roof and looking at everything posted here I had assumed that this would give me sufficient clearance to see all the sats (My latitude is 51 deg N). Could someone confirm (or not) that my assumption is correct? If not I will need to get a longer scaffold pole!

Also are there any tips and tricks to setting up the Penta or are they fairly standard to install?

Many Thanks.
 
is the dish 90 degrees to the roof?

... at that it's 29+ degrees so you should clear it at 1w

try it all out on on your property on dishpointer.com to check the full arc

... are you using up to date live tps to set up the arc?
 
Hi Pedro2000UK

Yes the dish is pretty much at 90 degrees to the roof. at the top of the arc it clears the roof tiles by about 6 inches and at the bottom of the arc its about 3 inches. the distance from my eaves to the ridge is 3.67m horizontal and 1.27 m vertically, looks like a nice clear view to me.

Ive looked at Dishpointer and everything looks like it should work. I will have another look though.

I do have an upto date channel list so TP's that shouldnt be the problem certainly its not on 1 W and 16E Not sure about some of the other sats.

thanks for your help anyway.
 
Basically go back to the beginning, check the pole best plumb both ways, find your true south satellite and an active transponder, setup the lnb in receiver setup, and then fine tune for the best signal don't forget the lnb skew, when you have the best signal there go to farthest east to you then farthest west if your slightly off rotate the whole works around the pipe with very small movements till you get good signal quality, when you have both ends and the middle your done.
 
Thanks Bubby. Will do.
 
howc said:
Hi Pedro2000UK

Yes the dish is pretty much at 90 degrees to the roof. at the top of the arc it clears the roof tiles by about 6 inches and at the bottom of the arc its about 3 inches. the distance from my eaves to the ridge is 3.67m horizontal and 1.27 m vertically, looks like a nice clear view to me.

Ive looked at Dishpointer and everything looks like it should work. I will have another look though.

I do have an upto date channel list so TP's that shouldnt be the problem certainly its not on 1 W and 16E Not sure about some of the other sats.

thanks for your help anyway.
Click to expand...


what tp do you use on 1w

and by 90- degrees I mean faces directly over the roof at 1w
 
Im using 11325 BBC world

Yes the dish faces directly over the roof due South. The ridge runs East to West and the dish is mounted on the North facing wall. Il try and post a picture if I can.
 
If your pole is 100% vertical & you have set the right elevation on your motor for your location then you should not move on until you are in the middle of the BBCWorld TP... the rest will fall in place .....to how far you get east and west.
 
OK......I set the elevation on the motor to 51 degrees (on the latitude scale of course) How critical can this be? I have always got the impression that it doesnt have to be 100% exact.
 
the more accurate the better .. pays in the long run as does 100% vertical ...solid... pole

how solid is the pole...

one thing with going over the roof like that is you need a solid long pole extending above the top T & K to clear the roof... T & Ks can start to show their lateral weaknesses at that point although the 85 isn't the heaviest and that shape might help cutting the wind loading.
 
The pole is an 8ft scaffold tube. Its pretty solid but it does have about 3ft above the top bracket. My concerns over loadings is part of the reason I am trying to keep the dish low to the roof. I thought the Penta might be a better choice than the Gibertini 100 I was planning to use and whilst my Gemini 90 is a good solid dish its not exactly light. Going over the roof will allow me to maintain the dish easily, something I cant do with the other dish on the south wall. I'l have a look at the motor elevation maybe it is the problem....worth a try anyway.


Thanks again Il keep you updated .
 
Well I seam to be going backwards. Been playing around and whilst I am still unable to find 1W Im now unable to find any other sats including 28E.

Oh well. I need to go out now so I will have another go tomorrow.
 
Are you following the procedures in the guides? What is your actual longitude?
 
Hi Guys .............thats for your replies

Rolfw: My Longitude is 0.825 deg west. I am following the guides as best I can. It all looks fairly straight forward in theory. I cant see the TV so Im relying on a Satbeeper. Not that that is the source of the problem I appreciate.

Pedro: No I dont have a chimney although I do have a TV aerial which might cause some issues with 30W.................. but not 1W. I assume youn are refering to any obstructions?
 
If you are using diseqc ... (really you should establish why usals doesn't work)

select 1w in the stb

make sure the motor is at 0* on the motor dial and if not then nudge it to 0* using the motor control and save it. (* actually estimate 0.175w to be exact)

leave it there

now look for 1w only rotating the whole motor/ dish assembly on the main pole and the elevation of the dish on the back of the dish only

don't bother with any other satellites until you have bbcworld and tightened up
 
An update..........I think we are there, well almost.

After accepting the offer from my neighbour to stand in the garden and shout out what was actually happening on the TV I was finally able to line up the dish on 1W but things still looked wrong. Following that I decided to change my old (and clearly faulty) Invacom LNB for my Smart Titanium LNB and everything looked a lot better. I now have BBC world on 1W at 90% SNR and everything else has pretty much fallen into place. I can even follow the arc through 45E to 45 W and find something on pretty much every sat. So thats good.

I currently have a good reception on 1W much better than on my old set up but I am unable to pull in much of 16E which is a shame. Whilst I get 80%SNR and 99%AGC on 11527 (***** TV) Unfortunately the majority of transponders only come in at around 62% SNR and 82% AGC which isnt enough for my DM500 to give a picture. Also 4W is also very weak...........Have I done something wrong? I might look at replacing my Smart LNB with an MTI Highline but beyond that I dont expect any significant improvement beyond some miner dish tweeking when my neighbour is available to assist again!. I Will just have to put it down to the weak tuner in the DM500 and the small dish size. Or am I missing something?

Anyway I'd just like to thank all of you for your help, support and guidance over the past few day (especially Pedro200Uk). Ok so you didnt tell me anything that isnt already posted around here but it the moral support that really helps.......when I was thinking it was going to be one big balls up!(ie no line of sight to the sats). Cheers guys.
 
You may need to nudge the dish slightly East or West to get the best out of 16E.
 
Thanks for the tip Rolfw. Il give that a go but it wont be before next weekend now.

One thing I did notice which I thought a little strange is that the motor has a fair amount of play on the arm. Not East to west, thats rock solid, but up and down. I guess its normal but my old stab motor didnt move in any direction?
 
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