New town - no signal

T

TheToad

Regular Member
My Satellite Setup
1.5m motorised dish on tripod + C120 LNB -
Primarily used for Amos, Sirius and hotbird - hooked up to minidish for freesat
My Location
Leicester, England
Hi All,
We have moved from Newark-on-Trent to just near Loughborough and we've totally lost signal on Amos 2. We had a strong signal in our previous location and we've only moved about 20km west and 30km south so should have a comparable signal.

No comes the crunch. In the new garden we have a high fence right where we need to aim the dish. I've got the dish sat 6 layers of brick above ground. The bottom rim of the dish would be about 2m below the top of the fence and is 5m away. With an angle of 29 degrees to get the signal I've worked out that the dish is more than far enough away. i also get great signals from 0.1degree West and 4.8 East (ok, that's a strong signal and we're dead in the middle of the footprint).

Is it feasible that we could completely lose signal with a relatively short distance move? I've triple checked all the equipment and setup and even move the receive outside near to the dish to try with only 5m of cable.

Any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated. Failing that, anybody want to buy a 1.6m aluminium motorised dish with V-box II and lots of cable?

thanks in advance
Tony
 
How about 5W? right next door to Amos 2.
 
I'll get the equipment out again when SWMBO gives me some more playtime and I'll try again and get back to you :)
 
OK,
Got it all set up again, I've got 92% quality signal on 5W and 98% on 5E so I'm pretty confident the fence isn't an issue. Looks like we're simply too far out of the foot print :(
 
Which channels are you using for the signal quality/strength readings? Try aligning to some of the weaker transponders.
 
Mickha said:
Which channels are you using for the signal quality/strength readings? Try aligning to some of the weaker transponders.
Click to expand...

I'm trying 10722H, 10759H all on the Europe beam. I've only moved 30 miles SW so not convinced that's far enough to completely lose signal from a previous 80-90%

Try weaker channels? Not sure I follow the logic on that one if I cannot get the strong signals.
 
TheToad said:
I'm trying 10722H, 10759H all on the Europe beam. I've only moved 30 miles SW so not convinced that's far enough to completely lose signal from a previous 80-90%

Try weaker channels? Not sure I follow the logic on that one if I cannot get the strong signals.
Click to expand...

If you go for weaker TPs it`ll aid re-aligning the dish and may get you the lost bird back
 
smoggy07 said:
If you go for weaker TPs it`ll aid re-aligning the dish and may get you the lost bird back
Click to expand...

aha i see. But the problem is that we lost the bird by moving house. I'll try that anyway and see how we go, but if i cannot even get the strong signal more than 9% ... I'll go try ... back soon!
 
If the problem has only occurred since your house move, can I surmise you've altered the lat and long in your receiver and that the mount at your new house is perfectly plumb all round? As you say, it hardly seems possible that a relatively small distance would effect the footprint, however there is nearly half a degree difference in longtitude, ok for stronger sat's perhaps but more than enough to put you out on the weaker ones, especially as you're using a larger dish. Logically, it has to be something to do with the move to another location.
 
Amos 2 & 3 are very awkward to get, the signals seem to vary from hour to hour! First i would go back to 5W, but try locking on to 11059H SR 23700 FEC 3/4, this is on the steerable beam and is much weaker than the others, if you get this then your setup must be working ok. Go back to 4W and try 10806H SR 30000 FEC 3/4, this is a bit stronger than 10722H & 10759H (at least on my setup it is). If you don't get that then maybe that 30 miles or so has made a big difference as the UK is right on the edge of the footprint.
 
Hi all and thanks for all the advice.
I had a really good checking of all sorts of things and it turns out that my dish had got twisted in the move. I had already checked it was level but only on 2 axis not all round. A good twist and a couple of well placed wedges and I've got over 90% quality on Amos 2 (still can't get Amos 3 but then I never could with only a 1.5m dish)
Thanks again to everybody!
Tony
 
Hi TheToad,

TheToad said:
...still can't get Amos 3 but then I never could with only a 1.5m dish
Click to expand...

I have never had any problem getting signals from Amos 3 at 4.0°W

I use a Fibo 1.20m x 1.35m Dual-Offset Gregorian Antenna in conjunction with a TM 5402 HD CI+ Super+

Comparatively speaking... your location should be more advantageous for reception of this satellite as you are further East than me... and you have a larger dish... 1.5m to my 1.2m

I moved my dish to Amos 3 earlier today and I received these TP's...

10.723 V [30000] 2/3 DVB-S2 [8PSK] 58.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]
10.758 V [30000] 2/3 DVB-S2 [8PSK] 58.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]
10.806 V [30000] 2/3 DVB-S2 [8PSK] 58.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]
10.842 V [30000] 2/3 DVB-S2 [8PSK] 58.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]
10.889 V [30000] 2/3 DVB-S2 [8PSK] 58.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]
11.258 H [27500] 5/6 DVB-S [QPSK] 42.2 Mbps [Europe Beam]
11.304 H [13333] 3/4 DVB-S [QPSK] 18.4 Mbps [Europe Beam]
11.336 H [27500] 5/6 DVB-S [QPSK] 42.2 Mbps [Europe Beam]
11.389 H [27500] 3/4 DVB-S [QPSK] 33.1 Mbps [Europe Beam]

I find that early mornings (6.00am to 9.00am) is the best time for elevated signals on these satellites... and I also find that I have to tweak my dish position slightly between TP's on Amos 2 and Amos 3 to obtain optimum Signal Strength/Signal Quality on either satellite...

I have attached a few pictures below... they were taken earlier today...

Best Wishes,
Zorch
 

Attachments

  • #1 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #1 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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  • #2 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #2 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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  • #3 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #3 11.258H [27500] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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  • #4 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #4 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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  • #5 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #5 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    59.4 KB · Views: 70
  • #6 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #6 10.806V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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  • #7 10.889V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
    #7 10.889V [30000] Amos 3 at 4.0°W.webp
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Nice. Amos 2/3 have always been very flaky for me. 10722 and 10759 have been relatively stable for me. Could only just about get a hint of unlockable signal on 11389H on my 1.2m Channel Master.. but then I am much further west than either of you.
 
I can get the vertical channels of Amos 3 easily, but the horizontals are a different story, can just about get a lockable signal on 11304H and thats about it!
 
Thank you to all for the additional advice on getting Amos 3. I suspect that our dish is not perfect in fact I'm pretty sure that it's a bit warped and the LNB is most likely not particularly well focused at the centre of the dish. But, a replacement is prohibitively expensive. Our LNB is the Invacom type with a feedhorn. I'm tempted to try with the 90cm dish I'm using pointed at hotbird/astra (offst LNBs) btu I fear that will be too small.

When you tweak the position to get Amos 3, which way do you go and how far? Are we talking a Flea's whisker kind of tweak?
Our target is all the Ukrainian channels to supplement those we have already.

all the best, Tony
 
I must confess to being a bit confused by your 'My system' details. Is your dish offset or prime focus? Perhaps posting a couple of photo's would help us determine how bad the warping is as well. It could be that that's causing the LNB to be focused away from the dish centre.
 
aha yes, that is somewhat out of date, I'll update that shortly and get some pictures up.
 
I remember Vipersan's dish got warped and he straightened it out by placing it face down on the floor for a few days...
 
Hi again all, sorry for the delay, not much time for dish play with my young family and the wet weather.
Looking at my dish it was clearly warped, I could see quite a ridge around where the dish meets the mount and the circumference was dented like,, er, a dented thing.
So, I took a hammer to it today! done the best I can to get it back into a decent dish shape, strung it up to check it was true-ish and made a few measurement to make sure the strings crossed exactly in the middle. I also use the formula to check the focal point and confirmed the feedhorn is bang on the focal point and also checked that it's pointing directly at the centre.
I do have a _slightly_ better signal on Amos 2 and got a slightly un-lockable signal on 11389 on Amos 3, but still not enough to catch a channel properly put only about 10% out on quality compared to Zorch's readings. Could it be that my receiver simply isn't sensitive enough or clever enough to lock a signal?

I am also tempted to buy an undamaged 1.2m dish and see what happens.

As far as my setup, It's a 1.5m prime focus motorised dish to a "Digital 800" receiver (german brand I believe - that I picked up in Poland). I've not recommented the motor control yet as we're just concentrating on Amos.
We also have a DISEQ switch linked to a sky minidish for the UK channels and a 90cm offset dish for Polish (hotbird/astra). The cable run to the big dish is really quite long and the cable not to good, but saying that, I dont get any higher signal by linking the receiver to the dish with just 4m of cable out in the garden.

thanks again for all the assistance.

T
 
You say you're using a prime focus dish but your details list you having an offset LNB. What brand of dish is it and have you tried a C120 with a feed matched to the dish? Photos are always good :)
 
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