Newbie setup problems, sorry

[xereve]

Hello all,

Ive just set up my first motorised system, but am having a few teething problems,

I have got all the settings on the dish to where the table tells me to:

i.e, Latitude: 52.708° Longitude: -1.967°, elevation 38, my declination angle is 7.5 so I subtracted this from the 30 degrees to 22.5 on the rear of the dish as in instructions.

anyway the results are, I get a 82% signal strenth on W5 satellite but do not get above 22% when tuning in to any other of the 25 pre installed satellites ,thor etc., allowing me to watch one french channel, not a lot of use when you only speak english.

I have played with slight angle adjustments on the dish when tuned into W5 and did improve the signal but still cant pick any others up so I must be out of line with the arc, What usually causes this?

Thankyou in advance

dave

If anybody has any suggestions i will be glad to hear from you.

 

[satelliteman]

Welcome to satellites,

Take a look at the guides in my signature below, very helpful.

You must input your longitude & Latitude and then send the dish to 1W (ref sat).
Align by adjusting the dish & motor together around the pole and by the dish Elevation only.

Make sure all brackets are plumb.

SM

 

[xereve]

OK, Started from scratch again today,

Bracket and pole are plum. set to recommended settings, I input my lat/long, moved to thor (1w) and began adjusting dish elevation and moving dish slightly around pole.... just couldn't pick it up.

so i got a satellite finder, I set it to where it appeared to be picking up 1w the best (most led's and highest pitch noise). Tried it at the receiver again and still nothing. So i went through the other pre installed satellites and it picked up 5.0w atlantic bird, 8w telecom2 and 12.5 w atlantic bird with a good signal strength.

I noticed as the motor went to each satellite the satellite finder bleeped at each satellite point as if it had found it, but on the installation screen the quality of signal is never higher than 20-22 %.

For me to pick up and view channels from three satellites i must be very close if not on the arc.

could it be my lnb is not good enough? it came with the system, its a megasat high gain 60db, 0.1dbnoise figure.

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[satelliteman]

You just haven't located your reference satellite (1W) spot on.

Make sure you are trying 1W with an active transponder. Normally used 11.325 for BBC World.

Start with the motor on zero then input your long/lat. Select 1W and the dish will move the difference in longitude. At that point align up.

Make sure motor is set correctly to your Latitude. Some motors have both El and Lat on them.

SM

 

[bigtee]

I am assuming you are using USALS for the set up and that you have also correctly entered your latitude and longitude correctly in the receiver using the decimal format rather than the degree/minute format.

If this is the case, send the dish back to 5 west again and confirm that you get the French channels; then send the dish to 1w; select the 11325H transponder on 1w to check if there is a signal/quality on that; if no signal then go t try and find 1w again; the distance from 5w to 1w should only be a few inches so it may be an issue with dish elevation (aka declination).

 

[xereve]

I am pleased to say i sorted it, thanks for all your help, the problem was something i havent seen in any instruction manual or help guide anywhere. By chance i turned my LNB round a bit and everything came on.

the dish was set up in the correct place just needed to move the LNB, which I have now learnt is LNB skew. So if any newbs get a similar problem its certainly worth trying.

Regards

Dave