problem receiving west satellites, help please

[velant]

Hello,

I have recently had a motorised 90 dish installed (Fortec Star 90 cm Dish and 450907 Metronic Motor). I receive major eastern satellites (Sirius, Hotbird, Astra1, Eurobird), but no western. I would like to receive Amos and Hipasat, but I can't catch even a slightest signal from either of them even if I go in smallest steps (nudge motor, step -1 ). My location is Birmingham, West Midlands.

I am complete novice to satellites, can anyone give advice ho to get the signal?

Any advice greatly appreciated,

Thanks!

P.S. Also, I have noticed that although at 0 degrees my dish faces up, when I go to west, the dish starts looking slightly down. Is that normal or is there anything wrong with the installation? (the guy who installed my dish was not a professional installer, so maybe he did something wrong). Is there a test I can use to check if my installation is OK?

 

[gameboy]

:-Welcome1

When the installer set it up he should have checked both East and West.

Two things should be checked...

1. The mount pole is EXACTLY vertical - if not then this would explain your problem

2. Your true South is slightly out this could cause East but no West reception.

Check 1 first.

The dish should appear to tilt as it is following an arch.

 

[Jeff_19341]

If you paid to have the dish set up, get the tosser back to do the job properly.
:-hny

 

[Analoguesat]

You arent going to get anything off Amos on a 90 cm dish in Brum, so scratch that one off your list.

 

[rolfw]

You don't mention Thor 1W, that should be your reference satellite, can you receive it?

 

[velant]

Thanks, guys! I very much appreciate your advice.

I checke the dish verticatilty - it's good within half a degree (deviation 6-7 mm at 70 mm length), and yes I can receive Thor - it's 2-3 minimum motor nudges (step 1 for the metronic motor) to the west of my center (south), so I guess this indicates that south is more or less ok, isn't it?

Is there anything else I could do myself?
If not, then I'll get the chap who installed the dish to re-adjust it.

Thanks once more.

 

[velant]

I have made another two interesting findigs:

1. My satellite box (Micromax mm-2400 FTA) claims that it found Hispasat, although angular position of the dish is identical with that of Hotbird. I have checked a few channels from the newly found in Google and found out that they may belong to "Eutelsat-Hotbird" 13 E. I wonder why my box identified them as Hispasat channels if Hispasat is 30 W?

2. When I did scans to the west from zero (south) to locate Hispasat, 2 or 3 times I had a signal of 10% quality, which however immediately dropped to zero % as soon as I started fine tuning (nudging motor) or carried on with continuous tuning. These 10% were not restorable by moving backwards and forward around the position where I found them. Does it mean that I have a very bad reception or could there be other reasons?

All comments are welcome. Thanks.

 

[Cupart]

I had the exact same problem when setting up my system two weeks ago.

Make sure you have entered your coordinates (long and Lat) in the motor set up menu. Initialy I didn't do this and my USALS motor wouldn't move west but only to the east.

Good Luck

 

[Channel Hopper]

I would first make sure that there is a clear line of movement to the West, if the dish encounters a wall or other obstruction then you wont get a thing/

Then look for trees or buildings that might obscure the satellites.

The beamwidth of a small dish means that it is quite possible to see channels even though the tracking may be off by a bit, and this would be confirmed if you can see something off the satellites closer to 1W (say 5, 8, or 15W) but not 30W.

Lastly the most common failure is of the database of the receiver being out of date, and the frequencies/transponders being unavailable as its not searching correctly. Lyngsat offers the most up to date confirmation of whats up there and where.

 

[Analoguesat]

I have made another two interesting findigs:

1. My satellite box (Micromax mm-2400 FTA) claims that it found Hispasat, although angular position of the dish is identical with that of Hotbird. I have checked a few channels from the newly found in Google and found out that they may belong to "Eutelsat-Hotbird" 13 E. I wonder why my box identified them as Hispasat channels if Hispasat is 30 W?

All comments are welcome. Thanks.

That ones easy - each satellite clusters share frequencies with the other clusters. Its so happens you picked some transponder frequencies in use at both locations.

 

[Low Profile]

is that the elevation is set too high and the whole set up is pointing too far to the west, consequently the rotator is falling to East in the correct(ish) arc, but is effectively going above the sats to the west.