Dish alignment

csp1000

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
60
Hi,
I am new to satellite and like many newbies here fed up with terrestrial TV or Murdoch TV. I have just tried setting up a dish at the back of my garden, dish is on a pole 35 metres from the reciever. I used a sat meter which showed strong reading when aimed at Astra 19 east, but reciever showed no signal. On the auto search it had about 75 % strength of signal but only 10% quality, the strength varied when the dish was moved, quality didn't. I concluded that it must be one of two things, either the house 45 metres away was blocking the signal (although i think an elevation of 28 degrees should have cleared it) or a cable length of 40 metres means the signal quality becomes to poor, is this possible? I live in East Anglia, and have a Technomate 5500 DACI. One other question, i presume this reciever should be picking up analogue and digital? also the signal on the sat meter is stronger at 22 kHz Mode. I find the instructions with the reciever quite poor in explaining things and any help would be greatfully recieved.

Thanks
 
G

guest user

Guest
csp1000 said:
Hi,
I am new to satellite and like many newbies here fed up with terrestrial TV or Murdoch TV. I have just tried setting up a dish at the back of my garden, dish is on a pole 35 metres from the reciever. I used a sat meter which showed strong reading when aimed at Astra 19 east, but reciever showed no signal. On the auto search it had about 75 % strength of signal but only 10% quality, the strength varied when the dish was moved, quality didn't. I concluded that it must be one of two things, either the house 45 metres away was blocking the signal (although i think an elevation of 28 degrees should have cleared it) or a cable length of 40 metres means the signal quality becomes to poor, is this possible? I live in East Anglia, and have a Technomate 5500 DACI. One other question, i presume this reciever should be picking up analogue and digital? also the signal on the sat meter is stronger at 22 kHz Mode. I find the instructions with the reciever quite poor in explaining things and any help would be greatfully recieved.


Thanks

What reciever are you using? i think the 22tone thingy doesnt have to be on if your only using on dish with 1 lnb oh, also if you aligning using digital to 19.2 tune your reciver into tango tv thats a very strong signal you can't miss that!
 

rolfw

Believe it when I see it Admin.
Staff member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
38,292
Reaction score
1,615
Points
113
My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
The receiver should be capable of receiving both Digital and Analogue channels, initial setup is crucial, so you need to make sure that the LNb is set to universal and 22Khz is set to off or Auto.

What size dish are you using, what LNb and what meter? Are you definitely on Astra 19.2?

35 metres of cable is long, but shouldn't be a problem if your dish is big enough, if you are using a minidish, then it may be a problem as the attennuation could be as much as 10db at the higher frequencies and more if you are not using good cable.

Always best to give complete details of everything in the installation.
 

csp1000

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
60
Thanks for the advice, the dish (78 cm Triax) and LNB are new so i presume the LNB is a universal (it is an MTI Blue line but doesn't give anymore details, not even if it is 0.3 dB or 0.6). Didn't know you had to set the LNB to universal. What confuses me is thta the sat meter that is conected between the reciever and LNB shows strong signal and the reciever when on autosearch also shows strong signal strength but low quality of signal and i get no signal message showing on the reciever. Maybe i need to raise the dish up higher to make sure the house 45 metres away isn't interupting the signal, but surely if it was the sat meter would show no signal?
The sat meter is a Digisat III LCD satfinder and i presume i was on Astra 19.2 as i used a compass to go 19 degrees east of South and then back 5 degrees west to account for magnetic north and meter showed strong signal there and poor signal either side. I might have to stick the eyesore on the front of the house afterall. I also don't find the technomate manual that clear.

Thanks for the help
 

rolfw

Believe it when I see it Admin.
Staff member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
38,292
Reaction score
1,615
Points
113
My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
If the house is 45 metres away, then it would have to be 20+ metres high to be in the way, it is more likely that you are not on Astra 19.2, try the receiver with Astra28.2E or Hotbird 13E.
 

csp1000

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
60
Thanks for the quick reply, will try the other satellites, the reson i started with the Astra 19.2 was because it is higher than the 28.2. What is the difference on the reciever between signal strength and signal quality? The manual doesn't explain, but the quality is at it lowest as i think 10% is the default value.

Cheers Rolf
 

rolfw

Believe it when I see it Admin.
Staff member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
38,292
Reaction score
1,615
Points
113
My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
Quality is the difference between noise and signal, so the better the quality, the bigger the difference and the better the reception. Total lack of quality can also mean that the receiver is expecting to read certain information and the incoming signal is not providing it, this would normally indicate that you are on the wrong satellite.

With Astra 28.2 the dish face on an offset dish will normally be pretty close to vertical.
 
Top