Dish now up but cannot track any sats

martinw01908

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Technomate 9100 and 90cm dish motorised
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Please help... I have a Triax 90 cm dish painted a nice weatherproof black, on the motor which is a Manhattan 100 Diseqc. The pole is straight with spirit level. I have managed to get 1 degree west with 72% signal (and hotbird too manually) whilst looking for 1 west. The problem is that I can't get any other sats apart from 1 west when I move the rotor. The only thing I can think of is that I have set up the mount wrongly.

I have set the mount to as near to 52 latitude as I can see. (Scale not very clear) The sliding mount on the triax dish reads 25 degrees elevation to get 1 west. Is this correct? My wall is south facing.

1. I am confused about the USALs on the Fortec star reciever, should I be using that or diseq mode? When in disquec mode I select 5 west it moves the motor to 30 degrees!. But USALS appears to move the dish to roughly the right place. But still no signal. I set up by moving the rotor to 1 degree then I moved the dish until I found 1 west so its not that bit which is out. I notice that is disquec mode you can nudge the dish manually but that still doesn't find me any more sats.

2. My latitude is 52.4 N longitude, 0.7 W. I have entered this into the recievers USALS setup screen and it moves the dish to 0.1 west when on 0.8W which by calculations in the setup guides is correct. But if I go to 28.2 it wants to move the dish to 30 something degrees when I thought it should be 28.2 - 0.7 = 27.5. Is this correct>?

Please help I am kind of getting there now!¬
 

Channel Hopper

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Not knowing the type of motor described , there should in any decent manual, be a chart showing the settings that should be used at a particular location, either a list of numbers, or a map (usually of Europe with vertical and horizontal ).These will relate directly to the final positions of the bolts on the back of the motor when tightened, if the post is absolutely vertical.

The other important settings are a true south (as you already have 1W you should check the motor is almost straight on at 0 degrees), the dish is set exactly on the pole at 0 degrees, and the declination of the dish is set correctly to the location (offset of the dish - about 23-25 degrees for a Triax - plus approximately 5.5 degrees)

Has the supplier given any clues ?
 

rolfw

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Berkshire
Also a big factor to consider, is the search transponder for each satellite, very often the factory set transponder is either non-operational, analogue, or not receivable from your location with a small dish.

If the motor is a USALS motor, then you should use USALS in the receiver.
 

phillpayne

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humax 5400z patched to hot 11.1, v box mrk2, 1.1m triax dish, jeager 12" activator .6 lnb, modified pet123 settings
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kent
hi martin,
cannot add much to this but in your calc for 28.2e if you have set 1W as your due south bird then to find 28e it will be nearer 30deg, as you are starting from 0 position on the motor (which is 1W) then 28+1=29deg i know i am only nitpicking, but that explains it.
what i normally say in the humax forums, is to set up on 1W get a good signal there, then work out sat by sat eastwards, (i say this as there are a lot more sats to get a good reading from) this way you will know where you start to lose the sats, and then you get an idea as to what the problem is, go as far as you can to the east then come back and work out to the west, once you have this picture, you will know whats wrong
hope this helps
phil
 

martinw01908

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Hi guys I read what you had put and I had made a mistake. The dish was not aligned dead on zero with the rotor, so I re-did it this morning. I immediately got 1W again ok and seem to have got the curve right first time on USALS with no need for ajustment. I have spent all day storing and scanning the channels!

I have 79% signal stength on the reciever on 37.5E and similar readings all the way over to 43W which is 43%. (37.5E is 62%) There are a few sats which I can't get much on but this may be down to having to program in some more transponders. I can give you a full list later of what I am getting and maybe someone can tell me if the dish will need any more fine tuning? I also have noted down my sat finder meter readings - if that is any interest to anyone let me know.

Cheers to Rolf, Channel Hopper and Phil for your help
 

martinw01908

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Technomate 9100 and 90cm dish motorised
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PS there were a few sats that I should have been able to get with a 90 dish that I couldn't get anything on, and one that I didn't have quite enough signal strength to lock on to a picture. I can give these later ....about to hit the sack here.


Martin
 

phillpayne

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humax 5400z patched to hot 11.1, v box mrk2, 1.1m triax dish, jeager 12" activator .6 lnb, modified pet123 settings
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kent
hi martin,
i know you have a manhattan, but if you want the info, you could find a copy of humbox4.1 or xoak, then download the settings i post here and you could open the file with either of the programs, and pick out all the freqs sats and channels info so that you could use it to search.
anyway, what you can do for another check on dish alighnment is go to 0 position, then lightly stress the dish up and then down, and check if the signal strength goes up or down, then do the same at either end of your arc, this will give you an idea if your declination is out
regards
phil
 
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