Help Required New setup: cant get 0.8w??

pat_mustard

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Hi everyone. My first post on here.

I have decided to dust off my dreambox clone. I have a motorized dish which I installed a couple of years ago. When I initially installed I didn't quite do it right. Consequently I had to manually find the locations for each of the satellites I wanted to view and store there positions.

Today I finally got around to setting up the dish properly. I installed a fresh image on my reviver so that I could use the USALS positioning and not my stored locations before. I got a weak(ish) signal on the sat meter when looking for Thor 0.8w. I was unable though to get my receiver to lock onto any of the Thor Transponders.

However when I moved the dish it went to Astra 1, Astra 2, Hotbird, Hispa sat, the receiver locked on perfectly first time. I am able to view channels on all these sats without any manual tweaking of the motors position.

There is a large, tall tree some 50m(ish) from the dish in the line of sight. Im not sure if thats what is preventing me from getting 0.8w or not giving that I am able to get the other satellites without any manual tweaking of the position.

Is the line of sight from that particular sat lower than for other sats or something??

Thanks.
 

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Welcome to the Forum.


Thor is your South Satellite and is at the top of the Arc as you see it, so line of sight is higher than for any other position.

The fact that you are getting Birds towards both the West and East ends of the Arc means your tracking is pretty good, so there are two possibilities:

1. The Tree is in the way ...............

2. You are looking at a weak Transponder on Thor: There are several Beams, some easier to get than others and some pretty tricky ones.

Known strong Transponder is the one carrying BBC World News and Sky News International ie 11862 H 28000

Also, try editing your "Thor" to 1.0W, not 0.8W
 
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Lazarus

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Oh, I forgot:

3. DM500 (Clones especially) are notorious for struggling to drive a motorised dish reliably.

Yours actually seems not to be suffering, though!
 

Mickha

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Can you please add the size of your dish, to the information provided.
You mention the stronger satellites, 28.2E, 19E., 13E, and 30W but do not provide any information regarding your signal quaity readings, or if you can get 5E, 7E, 9E, 10E, or 16E, you should also be able to get 23.5E, as that is one of the stronger satellites.
 

pat_mustard

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As far as Im aware its 90cm, possibly 80cm....I was given it for free and never thought to measure it :eek:. Thinking about how big it looks Id say its more likely to be 90cm.

I have only tried the satellites mentioned previously so far.....previously I was unable to get any satellites without manually re positioning so I followed the logic that If I have a signal on the sat finder at 0.8w, and I can lock on to Astra 1+2, hisposat and hotbird without having to repositon the motor, the set up should be ok. I accept this logic could well be wrong though!

As for signal readings, on the sat's I can lock onto seem to be high 80's or 90+%.

I tried the BBC world transponder which I found on a list of strongest channel/transponder's for all the satellites.

I have not tried 23.5 yet. Im not at home tonight but will try again tomorrow.
 

Lazarus

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Sounds like the tree is likeliest culprit.

Try 5W ............. that's close to 1W and is super strong: If you have trouble with that, then the Tree needs to be shot!
 

pat_mustard

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Hahaha. The tree has to stay! It belongs to the people at the back :-(.

When you say: 'Also, try editing your "Thor" to 1.0W, not 0.8W', can you elaborate on this? I dont quite understand.

Thanks a lot for the help!
 

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In days of yore, the nominal position for what is now Thor was 0.8W.

These days, it's actually 1.0W (As listed by all reputable sources).

So the relevant "Satellite" stored in your DM may be labelled as 0.8W and that is where USALS will hunt.

If, then, you Edit the"Satellite" details from 0.8W to 1.0W, USALS will hunt then for the correct position.

0.2 degrees difference doesn't sound much, but it could make a difference .............
 

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Have you tried to rescan this bird ? I had the same problem when I had time out and tps had changed ;-)
 

pat_mustard

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In days of yore, the nominal position for what is now Thor was 0.8W.

These days, it's actually 1.0W (As listed by all reputable sources).

So the relevant "Satellite" stored in your DM may be labelled as 0.8W and that is where USALS will hunt.

If, then, you Edit the"Satellite" details from 0.8W to 1.0W, USALS will hunt then for the correct position.

0.2 degrees difference doesn't sound much, but it could make a difference .............
Il ty th
Have you tried to rescan this bird ? I had the same problem when I had time out and tps had changed ;-)

Rescan? I tried a manual transponder scan?? It just went through them all but didn't lock onto any of them so found no channels.
Iv tried moving the dish manually left to right 1 step at a time also to no avail.

Im worried that Iv got the angle of the dish itself wrong. I basically set the motor to my latitude, and then loosened the nuts on the dish elevation arm to allow me to find a strong position for Thor. However if that was the case would USALS be able to find other sats in the arc without manual adjustments?
 

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some birds are an easy hit if your settings are slightly out, I only use a stb to set my dish up and ive been doing ok, try a bigger picture of the arc ie 30W 42E and see if you hitting them as long as your line of sight is ok should give you an idea if your settings are out,
 

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In days of yore, the nominal position for what is now Thor was 0.8W.
These days, it's actually 1.0W (As listed by all reputable sources).
So the relevant "Satellite" stored in your DM may be labelled as 0.8W and that is where USALS will hunt.
If, then, you Edit the"Satellite" details from 0.8W to 1.0W, USALS will hunt then for the correct position.
0.2 degrees difference doesn't sound much, but it could make a difference .............
According to my reading of kingofsat, Thor 5 is at 0.71, Thor 6 at 0.84 and Intelsat at 0.96. Assuming that kingofsat is reputable, would moving it to 1.0W risk making things worse for TPs not on Intelsat? Or have I missed something? :)
 

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Small variations, in satellite positions, don't make much of a difference, you will usually find a few, different satellites, listed at the same location.
When setting up you might not have been pointing at 1W, you could easily been aligned to 5W, or other satellite, and not realized it.
Check dishpointer.com, for your tree problem, you can enter your postcode, select Thor 0.8W, from the drop down satellite box, zoom in on the map, move the green icong, to where you have your dish sited, then check obstacle checker and move the red icon to the tree. This should then give you an idea of the clearance required to get the satellite.
 

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@hairybadger: Interesting. I generally use Flysat and the headline listing is clearly somewhat lazy. Ok, best left at 0.8W.

It's the Tree that's key here, though, I strongly suspect.

But trying the very strong 5W might (or might not!) confirm that.
 

pat_mustard

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Small variations, in satellite positions, don't make much of a difference, you will usually find a few, different satellites, listed at the same location.
When setting up you might not have been pointing at 1W, you could easily been aligned to 5W, or other satellite, and not realized it.
Check dishpointer.com, for your tree problem, you can enter your postcode, select Thor 0.8W, from the drop down satellite box, zoom in on the map, move the green icong, to where you have your dish sited, then check obstacle checker and move the red icon to the tree. This should then give you an idea of the clearance required to get the satellite.[/quote
@hairybadger: Interesting. I generally use Flysat and the headline listing is clearly somewhat lazy. Ok, best left at 0.8W.

It's the Tree that's key here, though, I strongly suspect.

But trying the very strong 5W might (or might not!) confirm that.

Lazy on my part??

Ok anyway here is a screen shot from dishpointer



Bare in mind thought that my dish is mounted to a 7' scaffold pole right at the top of the apex of the house. So its very high up.

If I had got 5w when setting up, as opposed to 0.8w, would I still got the other satellites without altering the USALS positions?
 

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pat_mustard

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Il try and measure the actual hight of the dish tonight after work. I suspect its over 8 meters though, which the site suggests.
 

Lazarus

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Lazy on my part??




Lol, no: Lazy on the part of Flysat (and me, to some extent, for believing them)!

PS: I've tried Uploading the linked Image to our Server (Which we prefer), but have failed miserably: Don't be surprised if another Staff Member has a go.
 
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Lazarus

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If I had got 5w when setting up, as opposed to 0.8w, would I still got the other satellites without altering the USALS positions?


No, and also 5W is really, really strong, which is why I suggested you try it: If you get weak results from there, then the tree is most definitely the issue >> 5W can be got at full bore with a tiny dish, given clear line of sight.
 

Mickha

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The screenshot, from dishpointer, suggests that the tree would need to be 8.1 Metres tall. to affect your signal from 0.8W. Added to that the height of your dish and you sould add another 2 Metres to that figure.
Can you estimate the height of the tree?
 

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There is also the Android app listed on dishpointer which enables you to visualize the sats (have never tried it myself....).
 
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