setting up my system aagain

ciarank

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hi all

i have moved house last year and it is only now that i'm getting round to setting up my system!

i spent yesterday putting the dish and bracket up on the garage wall and running cable into the house.

i then connected my satellite finder between the LNB and receiver and got NO SIGNAL AT ALL.

After scratching my head for a bit and then checking all connections and still getting nothing, i then went and bought new satellite finder from maplin. Thinking that the finder might be faulty. Still no signal.

I then thought there might be something wrong with my cable so I then took the LNB off the satellite and brought it into the house. Using about 0. 5 metre of cable I connected the LNB to the new satellite finder and then connected the finder to the receiver and still no signal.

i am right in thinking that i should still get a signal (of some description) on the new finder even if the LNB is not on the dish?

Everything appears completely dead.

i have ordered a new LNB as well in case it is faulty.

what do you think guys?


thx in advance
 

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ciarank said:
i am right in thinking that i should still get a signal (of some description) on the new finder even if the LNB is not on the dish

NO, your wrong. Dish collects signals, LNB converts signal for receiver.
 

rolfw

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You need to check to see if there is a voltage at the LNB end of the cable.
 

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thx for the quick reply chaps!

aftr reading your replies, it's got me thinking that it could be where the dish is positoned.

it is on an EAST facing wall, ath the back of the house, sandwiched between my house on the right and the neighbours HIGH conifers on the left.

the front of my house is SOUTH facing, i suppose that is a better place to put it...
 

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Yes everyone has made a basic assumption there lol :-rofl2
What satellites are you wanting to receive ciarank? yes they will be easier to access from a south facing wall. Is it a fixed system or motorised?
 

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it's a fixed system.
i want to receive Hotbird @13 east.
i think the azimuth is 157 degrees and elevation 26 degrees

sorry for not stating all this at the start:-bash!
 

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Thus your dish needs to be pointing 13 degrees East of due South. With a fixed dish system fix the dish to the wall fit the lnb and ensure you put some right hand skew on it. and then set the dish approximately like this picture. Connect up the sat finder and slowly play around with elevation and rotation until you find a sat.
 

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thx topper

will give it a try sometime this week
 

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Providing there's actually volts going up the cable (as said, check that!), then you'll always get "something" coming out of the lnb, even if it's not mounted on a dish, but that's just a low level background noise signal!

If there's nothing at all - your sat finder is registering zero under all conditions - then something is wrong. Check there's no wire whiskers shorting between the cable inner and outer conductors where f plugs are fitted.
 

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having another go and setting up my system and i'm still running into problems

i have connected my new LNB to my new SAT finder and then plugged the SAT finder into my reciever and everything is still dead.

the power light on the SAT finder does not even come on.

i have used different cables to connect eveything up and still nothing.

there is power going to the receiver and i can browse the menu's in it but no power seems to be going to the SAT finder.

could the receiver itself be faulty? :(
 

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If you have a volt meter, then check whether there is a voltage at the end of the cable, if there isn't, then check in the receiver menu, that the LNB voltage is turned on.
 

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Yes, from the symptoms, it very much sounds like no lnb power.

Best for checking is a multimeter on low dc volts range, very cheap ones are sometimes sold for around £6 at places like Maplin etc. An expense, but has other uses around house, eg checking batteries etc.

Note that, there should always be some output from a powered lnb, although at lowish level, due to general radio noise. If the lnb is removed from its dish, then this actually goes up, and can be similar to some received satellites! Due to the dish no longer creating a "beam", so then radio noise is received from all directions.
 

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hmmmm..after cutting new lengths of cable and reconnecting everything i am getting very mild shocks from the connectors from the receiver to the SAT finder.

So, what does that mean? Does it mean that power is going to the LNB.
 

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It almost certainly does mean that, although might just be "floating earth" (sat receivers are class 2 equipment).

What about the sat finder? With power, it should do something, even if there's no conected lnb!
 

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Had a problem in Slovakia when I was asked to look at a motorised system that wouldnt turn i got a shock of the "f" plug to the motor. when checked out i found the f plug on the receiver was badly fitted and shorted.

Quite a tingle :-))
 

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Well, a tingle "almost certainly" means lnb volts present.

Since sat receivers are not directly earthed, it's also possible to get a tingle from the coax outer, under some conditions, even if there's no actual lnb volts.

If you get the tingle by touching the cable inner, then yes that should be dc volts.

Most sat finders of whatever sort have either a bleeper function or scale illumination, either of these working shows that receiver lnb volts ouptut is present, regardless of whether there's an lnb connected.
 

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went and exchanged my SAT finder as i thought it may be faulty.
even with this new one, i am still getting no power to it from the receiver even though i can get mild shocks from the cable

beginning to think my receiver is faulty:(

will go and buy a new one and see if i can progress...

is there anything obviuos that i may be missing, i have my receiver with:

a coaxial cable connected from the ANT IN connection to the REC port on my SAT finder

thx
 

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As Rolfw said, what you have to do is determine whether there's lnb volts present at receiver lnb socket. Somehow.

If the satfinder does anything at all, you've got lnb power (even a meter reading with no lnb means the internal amp's working, so must be powered!).

Best thing to do is buy a very cheap multimeter from Maplin. Otherwise, a l.e.d. in series with a 1 kilohm resistor might do (you have to get the led the right way round, so try both ways!). Just twist the wires together, then join free ends to coax inner/outer.

for example, see: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=44679&doy=19m3 .
 

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have bought the mutimeter from Maplin but i have never used one before.

can someone give me some pointers on how to test my receiver !!

thx!
 

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ok.

There's various web guides, eg se: http://www.doctronics.co.uk/meter.htm .

Multimeters measure volts (dc, and ac with rectifier and rms "form factor" correction), and current. Sometimes other stuff as well.

Measuring "volts" means actually taking a very tiny current from what you're measuring, which slightly distorts the reading, but not by much, and anyway a digital type has very high imput impedence, which avoids this problem.

What you're looking for is volts on the sat receiver lnb output socket. This is absolutely necessary, to power the lnb, otherwise you get no signal. The actual value is "nominally" either 14v or 18v , which is the system used to switch lnb polarisation between vertical and horizontal (2 different tiny aerials, inside the waveguide bit!). What you might actually see can be anything between about 9v and 20v, which is ok. A zero reading means there's something wrong with your sat receiver!

Fit a short cable length to an f plug. Bare the other end, so that the inner and outer conductor wire ends are exposed. Screw plug into lnb socket. Tune sat receiver to an actual channel, now there should be volts on lnb socket.

Take meter, and set - that particular one! - to 200v dc range. Touch the red +ve test lead to coax inner conductor, and the black -ve one to outer conductor. You should get a tiny reading (if the leads are the wrong way round, the meter display should say that!). If ok, then go to 20v dc range, that should show a more accurate value.

Then, change sat channels between vert and horiz polarised, and the meter should show lnb volts correspondingly changing to something above or below about 15v.

If that all works, then at least the lnb volts is working correctly.

If nothing there, then as Rolf said, check lnb volts is actually switched on in receiver setup menu.

PS, be ++++VERY CAREFUL NOT TO++++ short circuit the coax inner and outer conductors when sat receiver is powered. Most receivers will respond to this by current limiting at around 300mA, but some older ones will blow a "safety fuse", and a few may suffer circuit damage. If this is what happened to you when originally setting up the equipment, then bad news I'm afraid! But, at least this way you can find out.
 
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