Finding hotbird

M

mulls74

Regular Member
My Satellite Setup
80cm fixed dish
My Location
Lingfield, Surrey
Sorry if this is a newbie question. I have read the threads and still am struggling. I am trying to find Hotbird 13e with a 90cm dish - have set everything up and used Dishpointer for the elevation - all to no avail.

I was just wondering about the elevation - I have recently moved and now live in Lingfield which is almost exactly on the meridian. After adjusting the dish it seems almost exactly straight - should it be facing upwards slightly? I am sure I have it pointing at 13e with no line of sight problems.
Thanks for any help.
 
What are you using to monitor your dish adjustment, a sat meter or the gauge on the receiver?
 
mulls74 said:
I am sure I have it pointing at 13e with no line of sight problems.
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Hmm. Based on what evidence?!

Even on the Meridian, 13E does not represent a Bearing of 167 Degrees, owing to all sorts of magnetic and spatial jiggery pokery.
 
As I said, I'm a newbie so thanks for the quick replies. I am using the meter on the receiver and am being very slow when moving the dish in tiny amounts. The meter always says 80% strength but little or no quality.
Am using a compass but have also moved the dish a few degrees either way in tiny increments with no luck. I also have a sky dish to use as a guide - trying to point mine slightly to the west of it.
 
Well it is just a matter of patience and not getting frustrated to the point of bringing the lump hammer to bear :)

Forgot to say, your Elevation seems rightish - Dish face should appear close to vertical. Not easy to be precise by eye 'cos it depends upon latitude and upon the amount of offset between the LNB arm and Dish.

What Receiver are you using, BTW?
 
The receiver is a very cheap one - a MVISION FCIS 980. It was given to me - didn't want to invest in anything better until I knew I could get the dish set up properly.
 
mulls74 said:
The receiver is a very cheap one - a MVISION FCIS 980. It was given to me - didn't want to invest in anything better until I knew I could get the dish set up properly.
Click to expand...

Not familiar with that one.

But, like cars, they all do much the same thing: So, have you chosen the correct LNB setting (Should be something like Universal, Universal 1, Universal 9750/10600) and have you selected a valid Transponder?

It's just that the pre-stored list might be out of date.

Update to date info here:

_http://www.flysat.com/hotbird.php

Final point: 90cm Dish is overkill for Hotbird, so although the signal will be mighty strong when you find it (!), the largish dish comes with relatively narrow beamwidth - meaning you need to be very precise.
 
Thanks for the info - I have used the strongest transponder from the list provided by this fair site. The LNB is selected as universal 1 - I know the box works as it has been plugged into a Sky dish and found everything.
I thought 90cm was a bit big - ideally I want 16e for the Bulgarian channels but I thought I would try Hotbird first as that is supposed to be very easy - and then nudge the dish over a gnat's tadger!
 
mulls74 said:
Thanks for the info - I have used the strongest transponder from the list provided by this fair site. The LNB is selected as universal 1 - I know the box works as it has been plugged into a Sky dish and found everything.
I thought 90cm was a bit big - ideally I want 16e for the Bulgarian channels but I thought I would try Hotbird first as that is supposed to be very easy - and then nudge the dish over a gnat's tadger!
Click to expand...

Aha! Sound thinking re: ending up at 16E

I'm sure it'll be fine given a little more time.
 
After a couple of hours' messing about, I managed to find 16e! Got there before Hotbird!
Thanks for the help - it turned out that the dish elevation was out - it needed to be tilted up a few degrees more but now have 90% signal quality despite the heavy cloud.
 
mulls74 said:
After a couple of hours' messing about, I managed to find 16e! Got there before Hotbird!
Thanks for the help - it turned out that the dish elevation was out - it needed to be tilted up a few degrees more but now have 90% signal quality despite the heavy cloud.
Click to expand...

Very good indeed!

Patience was a virtue, then ?! :)
 
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