multi sat dish setup probs

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wotanykey

Member
My Satellite Setup
satellite
My Location
ireland
I have a new technomate tm8000 receiver and tm2600 super motor with a Triax dish on a pole that is dead plumb I have the motor set on 53 lat which is where I am. the dish is following a flatter ark than the satellites ie. If I set it on thor or hotbird as the centre of the ark then as the dish tracks to the satellites 3 or 4 to each side of that then the dish angle goes out by a few degrees. I am using usals and the motor drives the dish to the satellite bang on and if move just the dish angle a little then a signal is found. But then if I go back to the centre of the ark then the middle satellites are above where the dish is pointing. I have the setting for usals on the receiver set to exactly my position i would be please to get any help as im running out of hair to pull out!!:confused:
 
Check you have the correct motor inclination setting, it's very easy to set the Latitude to the wrong markings ie. the Elevation on the reverse of the motor bracket.
 
Also,the centre of the arc is fixed, you can't decide to change it to somewhere else, it is where it is, i.e your longitude, and the satellite closest to it is the highest on the arc. Hotbird will never be at the centre of the arc in the UK or Ireland.
 
i didnt say the centre of the ark was hotbird as near as dam' it thor is and if i set it on thor then swing it to astra 28 say then it is about 3 deg out on the dish above astra..... yes the bracket is up the right way ....... yes it is set to 53 on the little pointer (latitude btw robbo)
 
Depending where you are in Ireland your centre of the arc should be about 8W, Thor is closer to 1W.
Can you please upload some photographs so that the installers might spot the problem.
 
Yes, good idea, as something is obviously amiss, as if the motor is about right and the pole is vertical, it shouldn't be that far out.
 
As Mickha says above, from Ireland Thor will not be the peak of your arc, it will certainly be towards 8 West and because of this your dish will be too low for the Western satellites and too high for the Eastern satellites. There is a diagram illustrating this in the Setup guides section.:)

Once you've adjusted the arc centre to the correct point, everything else should fall into place.
 
Just to add that your due south position is your longitude reading, positive figures = East, negative figures = West.
 
wotanykey said:
ok thanks i will try this and post a pic later today if it does not corect it
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Post some anyway ............... always interested in other people's Installations.
 
spent all day working on it, and think i finally cracked it, but it is only working on discq1.2 but i am getting 17 satellites now instead of 2 or 3 before. i found what was happening was that i was setting the motor to south then asking usals to go to thor then moving the dish and motor as one, round a little on the pole, and get thor, tune the stations which worked fine, but then move the dish via usals to astra and..... you know the rest from the first posting... well what i found today is that the reciever is driving the dish round to about 10W on the motor and not .8W so as i pulled the motor round to get the signal, then every thing was out, apart from a couple of sats each side of that, at the start with usals today i did try setting the disk on the motor manualy to .8w then resetting the recalculation but that didnt seem to work, so i stuck to the setup with D1.2 a bit long winded but its working!! TIVU i did pop out and took a pic but it was nearly dark, the wall mount is a "home brew"
 

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If USALS is not working right nor will DiSEqC 1.2 be, it's just that it is easier to compensate with DiSEqC 1.2 to hide the error. First thing is check your coordinates entered in the receiver menu are correct (53.x, -8.x). Then send the motor to zero with the receiver. Check the motor is really pointing to zero. Now if you send the motor to 0.8ºW using USALS the motor should now be pointing at 8ºE on the motor scale (i.e. 8º to the left if you were standing behind the dish). You can line up on pretty much any satellite as long as you have driven the motor to it first with USALS, but it is much easier to use a satellite in the centre of the arc because the dish is upright rather than raked over.
 
Huevos said:
If USALS is not working right nor will DiSEqC 1.2 be,...
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Not true, I've seen plenty of systems that are too unstable (or deaf) with USALs, but work well with DiSEqC 1.2.
 
im not saying that the usals is not work it was,if u read the first posting, but now i have it working on D1.2 it can stay like it.... the point is and what may help others in the same situation as i had, is not to trust that the reciever is sending the motor to the right place in the first part of setting the system up
 
What did you do when using Diseqc 1.2? Which satellite did you align on initially, and what was the position of the motor on its scale when you did so?

If using USALS sending to Thor, sends the dish to about 10W, then to me it seems that you have either entered your longitude wrong, or the motor doesn't know where its zero is.

If the arc is wrong, neither USALS or Diseqc 1.2 will work, but it seems you are getting 17 satellites so it can't be far out now.
 
Channel Hopper said:
Not true, I've seen plenty of systems that are too unstable (or deaf) with USALs, but work well with DiSEqC 1.2.
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That's exactly what I am saying, D1.2 is just hiding other faults.
 
Robbo said:
If the arc is wrong, neither USALS or Diseqc 1.2 will work, but it seems you are getting 17 satellites so it can't be far out now.
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That's not quite true. The errors will show up much worse on USALS. If, for example you are in London, if you set your southern satellite 2º off centre you will be 2º off centre on every satellite along the arc when using USALS. With D1.2 you just cancel out that error by sending the dish 2º further along the arc. By the time you get to 28ºE that 2º offset will mean you are 0.8º above or below the arc, so with D1.2 you will be able to get within 0.8º of Astra 2 whereas with USALS you can only get within 2º.
 
Not if you frig the satellite positions also.
 
Robbo said:
Not if you frig the satellite positions also.
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Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of USALS?
 
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