finding the arc

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
i picked up astra yesterday but still trying to get the dish positioned on the arc.
its a wall mount, how vertical must it be? exactly plum? if just out slightly would it still work?
im using a jeager g90 motor and a triax dish that numbers on one side in increments up to 60 i think and other numbers on the other side. heeelllllllllllllppppppppppp :-(
i live in glasgow 55 degrees north
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
There are 2 reeeeeeeallly important things to make sure of

(1) the pole must be utterly vertical
(2) you must accurately find true South (not magnetic South).

If you want full instructions, here are some good links:
http://www.geocities.com/~saltillocib/sizepgs/tuningp2.html

how to correct for magnetic deviation...
http://www.geocities.com/~saltillocib/sizepgs/magmapsp.html

and here's a handy prog for calculating the elevation/etc of a sat from your location
http://www.smw.se/smwlink.htm

2old
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
my brother put the wall stand up but we have a rough cast wall
and he said he couldnt get it any more vertical but the spirit level bubble instead of being centre is off to the right.
he says he cant remove the roughcast to get it perfectly plum as this would contravene the local councils rules etc etc( this is his opinion without checking first i should add) we live in a council house (not owned) any ideas?
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
My walls are nowhere near plum.
I compensated by placing wooden padding (hardwood blocks) behind two of the three mounting plates. A thick piece at the top, a thinner piece in the middle, and none at the bottom. In my case this resulted in the pole being mounted further away from the wall at the to than it was at the bottom. This straightened the pole to vertical even though it was securely bolted to a non-vertical wall.
If your wall leans the other way, of course, you would use the thickest padding at the bottom not at the top.

2old
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
:-hmmm i dont think my brother will like it if i suggest this to him but i shall consider it :-)
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
i am 55.61 degrees with a declination of 7.11 were i live.
briefly how using a jeager g90 motor and a triax dish do i align
them both.
is it
1. set dish at 0 position (straight ahead)
2. adjust motor to 55.61.
to find true south by using satellite (tv norge?)
(im using digital not analogue)
3. after finding satellite adjust slightly to east to get the 1 degree thus being true south.

is the declination of 7 deducted from the 55 degrees? to get 48.
if so what do i do with the 48?

4. am i talking rubbish :-)
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
why would your brother not like it?
I presume the pole is already attached to the wall in some way, and if not how is it secured?
You don't need to drill any more holes in the wall, You just need to detatch the existing mounting brackets/plates, put some suitable blocks behind it (ie between the wall and the bracket) - with holes drilled to accept the fixing bolts - and then reattach the mounting brackets/plates using the same holes. The fixing bolts may need to be longer (since they now have to pass through the blocks of wood as well as the bracket & wall) but nothing else changes.
Or am I missing something?
2old
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Yes you are talking rubbish ;-)

I also suspect you haven't yet read the info at the links I posted earlier... please do, since it gives a step-by-step account of how to set up a motorized dish.
There's also a detailed account in the annual 1999 review of What Satellite that you may be able still to get in the UK shops.

Normally there are instructions provided with a motor, on how to align the dish. Did you not get any instructions with your Jaeger?

In any event, there are several ways of doing it. Here's my method:

(1) set elevation & declination of the dish as accurately as possible.
See here: http://www.geocities.com/~saltillocib/sizepgs/tuningp4.html#anchor797917

(2) align dish to point due South (use a compass and make a correction for magnetic deviation. The more accurate the better. Next to a non-vertical pole, failure to align on geographic due south is the single biggest cause of failure to track accurately across the full arc.

(3) secure the dish/motor on the mounting pole at that point.

(4) use the motor to then find the satellite which is nearest the highest point of the arc. The highest point of the arc depends on your geographical location (I live at longitude 5 degrees east approximately, and so for me the highest point of the arc is at 5 east. This corresponds almost exactly with Sirius, so I use Sirius as my target. But if you are in the UK, Thor may be closer to the high point.)

(5) you will probably need to re-adjust the elevation/declination of the dish now to find the satellite. Use that SMW program to calculate the elevation of the target satellite from your location. Elevation of the dish should be that minus the declination value which corresponds to your latitude. I gave the link to the SMW program in a previous post in this thread.

NB: you may have to iterate the last two steps to find the target satellite, but do not (yet) re-adjust for the South alignment of the whole assembly.

(6) with the terget sat located, it is now a question of moving progressively further down both sides of the arc, locating other satellites. If you are very lucky, you will have everything. More likely, you will get the first few, then you will get nothing more. This would indicate that the arc your dish is tracking is not exactly aligned with the Clarke belt (arc of satellites).
The most usual cause is that the South alignment is out.
One easy technique is as follows:
When you just fail to find the next satellite at the expected position, use gentle pressure on the dish to deflect it up and down. If when bending up the sat comes into view, it means your dish is too low at that point. And assuming for the moment that the curvature of the dish's arc was ok, this would mean that the whole arc was displaced to the right (ie, as seen from the northern hemisphere: to far to the west) of the position it should be tracing. Then you need to loosen the motor clamp, and swing the whole assembly a fraction to the left (ie to the east). Just a fraction! A millimeter or two! Vice-versa if the sat was found by deflecting the dish downwards. What you are actually doing here is refining your alignment on true geographic south.

(7) of course, the curvature of the dish's arc might have been too sharp or too wide. So the adjustment left/right of the mounting may still not actually bring in the whole arc. The actual curvature of the arc traced by the dish is dependent on the elevation/declination of the dish. So you could tweak those too. But only do that after the south-alignment has failed to provide any more improvement (ie only when you have got as much of the arc as possible using the left/right motor+dish realigment).

Phew, that's it.
It will take several hours unless you have a good signal meter or are able to pick up analogue signals on each sat.

2old
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
my brothers being trying to align the dish in the apex position but says he cant as the pole/motor is getting in the way.
I did say to him i thought the dish was slightly bigger than what i ordered though i think this is just due to his lack of knowledge on the subject (including mine) I now have the dish fixed on hotbird (temp)
ive been using a thing called satbleeper which gives out a pitch change when near a satellite but the signal on the pentavision card was weak so i said to him to leave it for the day as we were trying to find 707 at 1west to get true south. we tried various things including setting the dish at 55 and the motor angle at 48. We are still very much confused however about the procedure no matter how much people talk about declinations etc. Unless i can actually see an example using the jeager g90 motor and a triax dish this alignment may take a year :-(
when i tuned in the weak signal at hotbird as this looked like the obvious satellite based on the position of the one next door to my surprise i picked up all the channels and the signal got quite good but never as good as i think it should be to my location. picture & sound excellent though.
I did try your links 2old but again it was relating to a different motor etc so i usually end up just as confused even if the procedure is the same underneath. They are describing the motor but not (my motor)
My brother aint too happy about having to adjust his hard work as he sees it though i said at the start he may have to if its not perfectly aligned. So obviously the thought of having to change it about etc isnt too warming for him :-)
Thanks again for all your help. :-)
 
J

jdhz

Guest
I installed a Triax 88 dish with polar mount and actuator a couple of weeks ago and the best guide I found was www.tracsat.co.uk/motorise.htm. Maybe I was lucky but it only took about two hours to line it up. I was very particlular about getting the pole ABSOLUTELY vertical and then finding due south and it worked for me.

I think you should take the time to read this guide and start again, there is no short cut.

The other thing you might try are the videos produced by www.vision-avs.co.uk/msv.htm which look good but I have not actually seen. I might buy volume two soon to learn how to check alignment. They are £14.95 each.

The words of wisdom earlier in this thread from the venerable 2old seem very sensible as well.

Good Luck
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
believe it or not i have bought volume 1 and 2 of the videos you mention. I found volume 1 useful from my own experience i should add. I didnt know how to fit an f connector (very easy indeed)
but this video showed me but volume 2 for me was a complete waste of money. Its full of interviews with people but very little hands on tech stuff. some of it was interesting but not practically useful to me at this time. It talks about c band, spectrum analyzers etc or should i say, interviews people about them from various companys. which is nice if you have 3000 to 5000 pounds to buy one of the models shown from them. The motorised alignment section was useful however, though brief. basically using the east and west satellites to align the arc more precisely. It showed an uplink to a satellite etc but again if you are looking for basic tech stuff then i have to say vol 1 was better. The problem for me is that i am using an horizon to horizon motor but the vol 1 and 2 videos and all the literature i find on the net talks of actuator motors. incidently i used avs to buy my triax dish and jeager G90 motor etc and i think they are a great little company. The man dave who runs the shop is a very helpful person who certainly is a satellite enthusiast and i think he knows what hes talking about. When my pace 200 positioner broke down i had a replacement in 2 days. I can praise their online website as i have had good fast delivery with no problems ordering from them. :-)
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
perhaps someone can enlighten me where i am going wrong in aligning the arc.
I am using a triax 88 cm dish which can be seen at this link at very bottom of page (last pic)
http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/dishes-motors.htm
the dish has settings on it not visible in picture. on one side it goes from 0 to 60 in increments of 5,,,,10,,,,15,,,,20 etc
and similar on the other but not the same i think (ill have to go up ladder to confirm and its dark as i write this)

The dish connects to an H to H motor, in my case the Jeager G90 (not the U 90)
in order for the dish to attach to my motor, the motor has to inclide backwards so as to fit the dish. On the motor it has 1 setting. the top of the motor looking down is showing the arms position when it mover from 90 east to 90 west. this is not settable merely for your observation. obviously i should have the arm set to the middle ie 0 position so it is straight ahead. The other setting is at the side of the motor and goes from 0 to 90 in increments 0,,,,5,,,,10,,,,15 etc
this i believe is for the latitude that i set for my area, correct? i am at latitude 55.52 north and 4.17 west.
the instructions that came with the motor tell me that the latitude of 55 corresponds to an elevation of 55.61 and a declination of 7.11. what do i set the motor too? is it 55? i have an inclinometer. do i deduct the 7 inclination from the 55 latitude on the motor? or is it 26.1 degrees as 2olds link to the smwlink software said when looking for 1 degree w satellite intelsat 707 ??? is the 26.1 degrees set atall? is it set on the dish when aligned true south to find the satellite with the motor at my latitude of 55? or is the dish set to 55 and the motor then the 7 declination taken off the motor or the dish?
My main confusion is how is the dish set at the very beginning. what exactly isthe azimuth of the dish? the instructions with the motor say it should be set to 0 is that straight up/down vertical to the ground. is the motor also straight at this point as the dish will not fit if it is.

my instructions say:
the rotating axis is factory preset to 0 so the azimuth of the dish must also be 0
(0 as in what number on the dish from 0 to 60?)
and of the motor?

it says:
place an inclinometer on the body of the mount and set this angle as follows.
angle of mount=(elevation angle) (which is?)

place a inclinometer on the back of the antenna plate and set this angle as follows:

angle of dish=(elevation angle)
minus - (offset angle of the dish) (what is the offset angle?)
minus - (declination angle)

help help help :-(

thankyou
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
You are getting confused witn terms like latitude and elevation.

Here's what you should do, since it will be easier than trying to sort it out in this forum:

go to your library or magazine retailer and get hold of a copy of this publication (magazine format):
"Satellite Tests 2000 (from the pages of What Satellite TV)"
It is actually a compilation of articles that appeared in WotSat through 1999.
It contains a detailed description of how to set up a motorized dish, including offsets, declinations and the lot. See pp 162-165.

2old
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
Spoke to the man from the shop. He told me to ignore the settings on the dish and concentrate on getting it in the apex position and treating it as a fixed dish setup first by finding satellite 707 for true south then doing the adjustments. He thought i should set the motor to 35 degrees. My dish is an offset. I thought 55 for my latitude, he said i could try it.
mmmh :-) :-( :-) we shall see
 
J

jdhz

Guest
You really need to read instructions first. The idea of setting up on a 1degW satellite with the mount at its highest (apex) point is included in many of the instruction sets you have been advised to look at. Isn't is also in the videos?

The reason Dave is saying use a 1degW satellite is because that is the nearest satellite to due south for most locations in the UK. If your longitude is say 3degW then you will need to move the whole assembly a little west. All of this is in the various instructions.

Good luck (with the reading).

Regards

PS 2old - you must live in mainland europe?
 
S

SPR

Guest
Nothing wrong with the Netherlands.
I have to say that your post's here are very good and informative.
Keep it up. Like a breath of fresh air.
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
I found intelsat 707 today :-)
i also found the arc. i have very little western sky due to my house being south easterly though i have a good view of the east and southish. i managed to pick up telstar 12 about 15 west to i think at the moment turksat 1b at 31 east. the dish is looking mega strange at this point looking very low and downwards but its working apart from one or two problems that need further investigation.

The reason i had so many problems finding intelsat 707 was because i was relying on the pc software for my pentavision ci card being accurate when in fact it was completely wrong. The transponder settings were all out of date even though i just downloaded the latest drivers. I undated the whole database manually using what satellite magazine and low and behold their was the satellite which i have to say i had been fixed on about 3 times in the last week but couldnt figure out why i was not getting a picture. Im relatively new to all this so it wasnt that obvious to me as i didnt even know until last week what a transponder was :-) not that unusual i think.

That problems solved but im getting a funny delay about half a second with the sound and picture syncing. any ideas why? is this normal for digital? how do i fix it?

also some of the transponders are very weak signals, tried to adjust dish with little success. some transponders have very few tv channels coming through atall while others on the same satellite are ok. The signal bar goes from red (bad signal) to green (average?) to blue (best signal) i have never had it in the blue mostly in the green. if i get it in the green i usuall always get a picture but nothing if in red which is what is happening with the transponders with no picture received.
strangely enough i picked up something which what sat magazine said i needed a 150cm dish in the north for (ie edinburgh) i live in glasgow which is further south but i got a good picture which is unusual as i have had no picture on what only required a 90cm dish (according to what sat) and ideas???

i thought hallmark was in the clear on 707 but i cant get it and have poor signal on present transponder but others fine. why?
I know 2old mentioned signal strength etc previously to me but how does this explain me picking up bigger dish channels and not picking up channels on smaller recommended dishes?
incidently im getting nothing on nilesat at 7 west as apparently it needs a 180cm to 300cm dish so this part atleast makes sense.
 

2old4this

Honorary Admin
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My Location
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Sound being out-of-synch can be due to a few things. If your pc-card is not very fast, it can happen. But it's also possible that the PCR-PID is wrong....
Most people are aware of Video-PIDs and Audio-PIDs (PID=Packet Identifier) which need to be correct to get picture and sound at all. But many people don't know what the PCR-PID is.
In fact, PCR=Program Clock Reference. It is used to synchronise the video and audio signals. Many receivers allow this to be auto-selected. If yours doesn't, try values a little less or a little more than the value that's there by default. But note: most channels embed the audio in the video bit stream, so the PCR PID is not normally needed.
More likely is that the poor synchronisation is due to a poor quality signal - either because of mis-salignment of the dish/LNB, or because the equipment is not capable of providing a stronger signal (eg dish is too small, or the LNB noise-rating is too high). With a poor signal, more error-correction is needed, increasing processing time.

Don't pay too much attention to the recommended dish sizes in magazine transponder listings. They are very approximate, and can not take account for example of the different types of dish (is it 150cm mesh dish, solid dish, Cassegrain, Gregorian, what?? - all have different characteristics).

Double-check your tranponder frequency settings, the FEC & symbol-rates, and the local-oscillator (LO) settings for your LNB. If these are wrong or badly-out for some channels, that explains why you can get some weak ones and not some strong ones.

Hallmark used to be FTA on Intel707, but no longer. Check out Lyngsat and Satcodx sites for up to date info on transponder settings and encryption. What Satellite is notoriously out-of-date...

Nilesat 7W Vertically-polarised signals are strong across most of Europe, but the Horizontal ones are very weak. I can just receive them from my location in mid-Netherlands using a 1.20x1.35m Gregorian (equivalent to a 1.50m standard offset dish). The Showtime package (most westerners'interest on Nilesat) are on the Horizontal transponders. But note part of the Showtime package transmits at 68.5East (PanAmSat) on a strong transponder that can be picked up (at least from my location) using an 80cm standard dish)

2old
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

Regular Member
Joined
May 1, 1999
Messages
524
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
55
My Location
scotland
Thanks very much 2old4this for your on going help :-)
I see what you mean about what sat magazine being out of date though still a good mag.
The sites you suggested for transponder listings i have tried yesterday infact but could not get them to work.
my card does auto pid? so all i need to do is type in

(example)
10.959H - Tp19 - 3000 - 3/4
which i input to the software like this below
10959.00 , 3.000 ,3/4 , Tp19 or whatever i want to call it
The 3/4 can be set to auto - though one channel needed the exact figure before i got a picture)

the transponder info from the sites you suggested i cannot get to work. The first figure has something like 4506 L or something like that and when mouse is placed over this figure on webpage a frequency can be soon bottom left of browser like 1050mhz etc
How do I read this information correctly?
 
Top