Powering Sat Finder with batteries - a warning

N

nickH

Member
My Satellite Setup
Fortec Star Innovation Receiver
80cm dish
(Maplin HD kit with motor)
My Location
South West Birminham
I bought a Sat finder kit which included an external "Battery Compartment". Filling the compartment with ten AA batteries and plugging this into the Satellite finder enables you to power the finder and align the dish without having to connect the cable from the receiver. I found you can even drive a motor using the battery pack.

I set up my dish quite successfully using one of these. However I have just discovered that the batteries must be producing a good voltage in order for the LNB to work. You can easily be fooled that all is well because the Sat finder lights up and produces the audible strength tone but the voltage may not be enough to get the LNB to operate.

I have wasted another few hours because of this :-DOH2. I had set up the dish without the motor before and now I just could not find Astra. It was only after taking the dish down again, sure that something had broken did I discover that after connecting the sat finder to the receiver, I could find Astra easily again . Reconnecting the battery and I got nothing. Using an adjustable power supply I found that I needed 16+ volts for my Fortec Star LNB to work and for the Sat finder to register a signal. The spec says 13 to 18 volts. My batteries were producing 14.5 volts - not enough. I should point out that this was with outside temperatures around freezing, which may be a factor.
 
This is looking to be more complicated than I thought. Yet again thinking I knew what was happening I climb the ladder and fix the dish to the motor. Yet again nothing! Back down again and I once again can find no satellites with my dish on a lash up where I can point it anywhere. I check all cables and then check the DC voltage on the cable. This time only 13v, not 19v as it was last night! After playing around I found that after changing the selected Transponder the receiver is outputting 19v again. Trying again on the lash up and yes I can find satellites. The receiver pulls in all channels fine, even ones on the Transponder setting where previously I couldn't find any. What the heck is going on?
 
Read this thread with caution. Back up the ladder and the Sat finder showed a satellite but it wasn't Astra 2A and I don't know how to find what it was. I tried setting the receiver to other likely satellites but never read any signal. Completely fed up after 3 days of messing about I take the dish back down and the motor with it so I can go back to my none-motorised-but-functioning set up. On the ground I can find no signal at all. This is on my lash up (cement mixer stand!) which this morning was bringing in everything. Can only assume I have an intermittently faulty LNB but why it developed this fault after a week of perfect operation, the moment I try and connect up the motor, heaven only knows.
 
nickH said:
Read this thread with caution. Back up the ladder and the Sat finder showed a satellite but it wasn't Astra 2A and I don't know how to find what it was. I tried setting the receiver to other likely satellites but never read any signal. Completely fed up after 3 days of messing about I take the dish back down and the motor with it so I can go back to my none-motorised-but-functioning set up. On the ground I can find no signal at all. This is on my lash up (cement mixer stand!) which this morning was bringing in everything. Can only assume I have an intermittently faulty LNB but why it developed this fault after a week of perfect operation, the moment I try and connect up the motor, heaven only knows.
Click to expand...

Not really sure I want to get involved here but if you are receiving a signal but do not know what satellite it is just scan the satellite and you will then be able to see what channels you are receiving by comparing to lyngsat web site or flysat. You will then know which way to rotate the dish to get what you actually want.
I think you are getting too bogged down in voltages and positioning, if you have working fixed dish on the cement mixer why not do a motorised set up on the cement mixer also to save climbing ladders, then move the whole lot to somewhere more convenient.

I assume you are doing this following the stickies for motorised setup tutorials step by step otherwise you will not get anywhere, you should be lining up on your due south satellite initially.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/dish-setup-single-sat-multi-sat-motorised-systems/
 
It seems to me that I have to select a satellite on the receiver and then it scans all the transponders it expects on that satellite. Unless I select the right satellite in the first place it won't find anything so I have to go through each satellite in turn.
I had not realised the subtleties of a motorised system. The link you point to tells you what you have to do but not why you are doing it so if you can't follow one step exactly, then you are lost. In my case I can't point my dish due south on the mounting, almost but not quite. I understand enough now and will be setting it all up on my mixer stand before erecting it on a new pole on new brackets. Thanks for your help.
 
Your receiver may have blind scan (automatic scan) function. Enable it, and it will find all transponders, regarding the name of satellite selected.
 
Back
Top