Motorised satellite system gone pear-shaped

[fla_independent]

Hello

Until a month ago, we had been receiving all UK free-to-air TV on Astra 2 as well as international channels on Astra 1, but the picture quality started to deteriorate badly, so we tried tweaking the position of the dish, and ended up losing everything.

We have managed to find Astra 1 again (I think the signal must be stronger?) but cannot get any of the UK channels. And now, the dish has started moving itself in a random way, so we might tune it in to Astra 1 today, but next time we turn on the TV, the dish will have shifted in the meantime, and the signal will have gone completely.

Has anyone had experience of motorised dishes behaving in this way? Is it possible to stop the motor, and just use it as a static dish?

Now feeling a lot less ambitious about the channels we'd like to receive - would just love to have the BBC before Wimbledon starts!

If anyone can offer any advice, either on finding the UK channels on Astra 2, or on the erratic behaviour of our satellite dish, I'd be really grateful.

Thanks in advance

Frances (in northern France)

 

[Robbo]

Hi,

The erratic behavior of the dish may be caused by water ingress into the coax, or it has come a little loose. I t would be worth check these. Alternatively, the motor could have become faulty.

What kind of motor is it? Does it have separate wires or is it Diseqc.?

For a temporary fix you could either by-pass the motor or disconnect it, and mount the dish directly on the pole.

Then all you need to do is to go to _www.dishpointer.com to find the azimuth and elevation settings for 28E.

Set the appropriate elevation, and gradually swing the dish from side to side until you get a good quality signal on one of the Astra 2D transponders. Consult lyngsat to pick one. You may have to make a few sweeps adjusting the elevation a bit each time, until you have peaked the dish for the best signal.

Edit: from your profile I see that it is a Diseqc motor,
here is a guide for installing one.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satelli...90916-setup-guide-diseqc-motor-pictorial.html

Are you using Diseqc1.2 or USALs for setting the dish position?

Robbo

 

[fla_independent]

Hi Robbo

Thanks for replying, and so quickly!

I've checked the coaxial, and that seems OK, so I guess it is probably the motor itself - how would we by-pass it? (sounds like a good idea!)

To set the dish position, we just used the positioning guides in the instruction manual, and move the dish around until we pick up a signal. It is pretty haphazard.

We are total newbies at this (used to have a teenage son at home to sort out technical things...), and don't know the difference between Diseqc1.2 and USALs

Thanks also for the link to the installation guide!

 

[Robbo]

If you go to dishpointer, and zoom right into your location on the map, and select the sat you want, it draws a yellow line in the direction of the satellite, so thats the azimuth roughly sorted.
For the elevation, start of with it as per dispointer. Then just use a methodical approach to get a signal. E.g set the elevation, them very slowly swing from one side to the other, if you find nothing, set the elevation a tiny bit higher and repeat until you do. If you still find nothing, you should have gone lower instead.

To bypass the motor just connect the wire that comes from the receiver straight to the LNB. At the moment you will have one wire going to the motor and then a wire coming out that goes to the LNB.


Diseqc 1.2 works by storing a number of satellite positions in the motor, the receiver just picks one of them, but initially you have to go round storing them in the first place. USALS is a bit of software in the receiver that sends a command to the receiver to go toa certain angle instead, based on your longitude and latitude.


What may be an idea, before you do anything is to try resetting the motor. The procedure for varies depending on the motor though, some have buttons, it may be possible to do it from the receiver also. Also you could try using USALS, see if you can get it working with that.