JM99
Member
- My Satellite Setup
- Technomate TM-5400D+
Orbital 80cm Dish
Moteck DiSEqC 1.2 Motor
- My Location
- Surrey
OK, slowly losing the plot.
Wife decides she would like to access TV from 'back home' (or possibly make contact with former KGB handlers)...
I have bought a kit from Sateuropa - Technomate TM-5400, 80cm dish, Moteck diseqc 1.2 motor - seems good value, and straightforward.
The previous owners had Sky (with a dish mounted at the back of the house) - we moved on to cable when we arrived, so never needed the sky setup, and most of our neighbours have sky (or at least the dishes), and all pointing roughly the same way... and of course means the cable is already in situ and runs round to the front terminating neaqr our TV in the front room - all good.
Checked out dishpointer online - worked out where true S was, and discovered that Thor at 1W was just about spot on for us - we live west of london just off the M25, so about 51.5N, 0.5W.
Removed weedy Sky dish, stuck up new bracket (about as plumbed as I can get it - I admit it might not be 100% - the bracket supplied sticks out from the wall and is kind of S shaped making it difficult to be totally sure - but it has to be close - like 98-99%).
Stuck up motor, set elevation (well latitude) to 51, set dish angle to 22-and-a-tiny-bit (the scale is not that accurate, at least not down to 0.1s) , aligned it manually to true S, plugged in cables etc, turned on receiver, did the USALS quick setup - input co-ords as above, looked for Thor 1W.
On the 'motorised setup' screen on the receiver I get Level 97%, Quality 21%. The quality jiggles around between 19% and 22%.
I use the fine adjust on the motor to go a little bit W and the E. Nothing. Nada. Level 97%, Quality 21%.
I try to point at hotbird 13E, and half a dozen in between. no change. 97/21%. sometimes 97% jiggles around a bit - 87 - 90 - 97. sometimes as it swings around the quality rises to 23% or drops to 19% - never higher, never lower.
OK, I think, maybe I've screwed up on the elevation and somehow I'm way out - maybe I've missread the scale on the motor or the dish bracket - or may be the chart in the motor guide is way off. This morning I pointed it back at Thor 1W, and sat outside whilst the wife watched the screen. I moved the angle by 1-2degrees, up, down - I started at the bottow and worked my way up, so at one point the dish was pointing at the ground, and at the end pointing at the moon - no change 97%/21%.
Ahh, maybe the cables (possibly the old cables from the previous sky system), or maybe the new extension cables I'd picked up in Homebase to go from the living room to the receiver or from the motor to the LNB. Of course the cables must be sort of OK, since the motor works - but maybe the motor is less sensitive to cable faults. or maybe the motor is the problem.
I tried another cable dangled across the living room, dining room and out via the patio doors - and direct into the LNB, bypassing the motor.
With no cable at all, I get Level 10-20%, quality 21%. With the new cable and no motor? yup. level 97%, quality 21%.
I put all the cables back the way they were. I'm back on Thor - I've swept as W as I can go, and E out to 19E. The screen says 97/21%. It appears to be able to scan for channels, and on Thor it came back with a list doing a scan, but obviously I can't actually watch anything because it then says Bad or No Signal.
What is going wrong? Am I stupid? Have I missed something? Is my LNB or receiver broken? Surely even if I was way out on direction, you would expect that as I swung the dish around the signal quality would vary - even if that was downwards (to like 1%) or upwards (to 30+) - it doesnt seem to matter where it points - it just comes up with 21.
I'm assuming Level just means reception quality between the LNB and the receiver? Whats going wrong!!!???
Help would be most appreciated!
Wife decides she would like to access TV from 'back home' (or possibly make contact with former KGB handlers)...
I have bought a kit from Sateuropa - Technomate TM-5400, 80cm dish, Moteck diseqc 1.2 motor - seems good value, and straightforward.
The previous owners had Sky (with a dish mounted at the back of the house) - we moved on to cable when we arrived, so never needed the sky setup, and most of our neighbours have sky (or at least the dishes), and all pointing roughly the same way... and of course means the cable is already in situ and runs round to the front terminating neaqr our TV in the front room - all good.
Checked out dishpointer online - worked out where true S was, and discovered that Thor at 1W was just about spot on for us - we live west of london just off the M25, so about 51.5N, 0.5W.
Removed weedy Sky dish, stuck up new bracket (about as plumbed as I can get it - I admit it might not be 100% - the bracket supplied sticks out from the wall and is kind of S shaped making it difficult to be totally sure - but it has to be close - like 98-99%).
Stuck up motor, set elevation (well latitude) to 51, set dish angle to 22-and-a-tiny-bit (the scale is not that accurate, at least not down to 0.1s) , aligned it manually to true S, plugged in cables etc, turned on receiver, did the USALS quick setup - input co-ords as above, looked for Thor 1W.
On the 'motorised setup' screen on the receiver I get Level 97%, Quality 21%. The quality jiggles around between 19% and 22%.
I use the fine adjust on the motor to go a little bit W and the E. Nothing. Nada. Level 97%, Quality 21%.
I try to point at hotbird 13E, and half a dozen in between. no change. 97/21%. sometimes 97% jiggles around a bit - 87 - 90 - 97. sometimes as it swings around the quality rises to 23% or drops to 19% - never higher, never lower.
OK, I think, maybe I've screwed up on the elevation and somehow I'm way out - maybe I've missread the scale on the motor or the dish bracket - or may be the chart in the motor guide is way off. This morning I pointed it back at Thor 1W, and sat outside whilst the wife watched the screen. I moved the angle by 1-2degrees, up, down - I started at the bottow and worked my way up, so at one point the dish was pointing at the ground, and at the end pointing at the moon - no change 97%/21%.
Ahh, maybe the cables (possibly the old cables from the previous sky system), or maybe the new extension cables I'd picked up in Homebase to go from the living room to the receiver or from the motor to the LNB. Of course the cables must be sort of OK, since the motor works - but maybe the motor is less sensitive to cable faults. or maybe the motor is the problem.
I tried another cable dangled across the living room, dining room and out via the patio doors - and direct into the LNB, bypassing the motor.
With no cable at all, I get Level 10-20%, quality 21%. With the new cable and no motor? yup. level 97%, quality 21%.
I put all the cables back the way they were. I'm back on Thor - I've swept as W as I can go, and E out to 19E. The screen says 97/21%. It appears to be able to scan for channels, and on Thor it came back with a list doing a scan, but obviously I can't actually watch anything because it then says Bad or No Signal.
What is going wrong? Am I stupid? Have I missed something? Is my LNB or receiver broken? Surely even if I was way out on direction, you would expect that as I swung the dish around the signal quality would vary - even if that was downwards (to like 1%) or upwards (to 30+) - it doesnt seem to matter where it points - it just comes up with 21.
I'm assuming Level just means reception quality between the LNB and the receiver? Whats going wrong!!!???
Help would be most appreciated!
