Echostar Losing Its Position Tracking

[dsldude]

My system has started to drift off the satellite positions, after a few trips up
and down Arc it will kind of lose exactly where it is, so when I drive to a different satellite
it will stop just off the satellite and become out of line with the dish's true position.

I then have to use the Reallign dish function to move the dish position back into
line with the saved satellite positions, it will then be okey again till it drifts off again.

I wondered if it would likely be the positioner or the H-H motor?, both are about 8-10 years old.

 

[Lazarus]

Probably neither - more likely to be a mechanical misalignment due to wear and tear/bad weather.

(Unless the motor is experiencing ever increasing backlash)

 

[Llew]

There is a possibility of the transient suppressor diode in the positioner's pulse feedback circuit going open circuit, but as mentioned, mechanical factors are the first items to suspect.

 

[dsldude]

I am not quite sure what you mean by mechanical misalignment, but the dish itself seems to be tracking the arc fine,
and I seem to get the right amount of signal levels from 1m dish from 45e-45w.

Its just that ether the motor seems to be "slipping"? or positioner is doing something abnormal for example 9E at the moment is at 1525 on the counter but when it all goes funny it may be at 1505, and I can use the re-align option to match it and all the other saved positions back into line with the tru arc.

 

[dsldude]

Thanks for your advice guys upto now, after a little more playing I have found a new
twist, I went from 30W to 1W sure enough when it stopped at 1w it wasnt locking to a
signal and was just off, so I thought will try 4.8E first and sure enough it locked on it with full signal with
no problem and then I went back to 1W and sure enough it stopped bang on target with full signal.

So I have to of found the work arround of moving to next Sat and then moving back to the one that wasnt
locking on beam before, No idea whats going on here

 

[satelliteman]

Sure enough sounds like motor wear and tear, more noticeable from the limits back to zero.

 

[dsldude]

Yeah I would agree the more I think about it I expect it is the motor, and it was
only after coming back from 30w back into the East range did i first notice it.

I think I installed the Motor in about 2001 and it was given to me then 2nd hand
although hardly used, so to be fair its lasted very well.

I was a Vsat engineer for about 8 years but now I am working in IT, so no longer have
decent ladders or a spectrum analyzer, so I will probably put up with it for abit longer
and get something sorted next spring, I haven't used the setup really for the past couple of
years, it was just buying the Openbox s9 for £60 that reignited my interest to scan the Sky's