strong srt 4375 problems

[jamie2001]

Hi,

What a great forum!

I have a strong srt4375 motorised system with a 1.0 mtr dish that after many nightmares i managed to install myself. i received all of the main sats no prob, such as astra 28.2/19.2, Hotbird, Sirius, etc.
but i still couldnt seem to get many of the other sats listed in what sat mag, even though i seem to have the correct dish set-up (i even get a brilliant signal strengh on sirius although i believe i should have a 1.2 dish - around 75% on a good day on some channels)

Howether i was getting i bit fed up with not being able to receive some of the others i was missing.

This is where it gets confusing- (for me anyway!!) i posted on a newsgroup and someone suggested uploading a new channel/ tp list, so after visiting the strong web site, i made a null modem lead from the schematic on the site , upgraded the firmware using srtlink no prob and then uploaded a file i downloaded from: http://www.belgiansatellitehoppers.com/
This is a channel settings file. i installed it to my receiver and bingo some of the sats that i was unable to receive i can now get, howether some of the sats i received previously are gone! and i have looked and scanned for these with the correct tp data to no avail. obviously this does look like a tp problem in that i have the incorrect settings on some sats on one file and my original file which i had thankfully backed up. i have tried both files many times, changing tp info etc, moving the dish etc. but i still cannot get this sorted.
Does anyone know somewhere else i can download new channel/tp data from for uploading to my receiver? is the srt receiver satcodx compatible as i tried uploading files in satcodx formast to my receiver which seemed to go ok, but on checking the file did not upload to my receiver?.
I would appreciate any help on this matter!!! (sorry to ramble on a bit!!)

jamie

 

[2old4this]

The satellite positions in a settings file are recorded not just as the longitude itself, but also in terms of a positioner count. It is that information which the integrated positioner needs to direct the motor to the right place. The number ofg pulses/counts that bcorrespond to each degree longitude will vary depending on the motor you are using.
Now it is highly unlikely that the person who made the settings file you loaded would have been using exactly the same motor as yourself - so you should assume that those counts will need adjusting/recalculating when you transport them into your own equipment.
I imagine that you haven't done that. It would certainly expain your problem.

2old

 

[jamie2001]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply, while i understand what you are saying, i dont believe this is the problem as i am not using the position settings from the file. With the strong you put in all the tp settings etc ( either manually or in a file upload) u can then get the dish to do an auto scan for the satellites based on the tp info inputed/uploaded to the receiver. This i have done.

I have tried adjusting the dish tonight and am pleased to say that i have now sorted out some of the problems, so i believe the dish was not tracking 100% in fact i now get fantastic signal strengh across the range of sats i have found.

The thing i dont understand though is like i said earlier is the fact that on 2 sat files i got 2 different results even though the tp data was the same?

Still, i'm enjoying everything i'm learning getting my system sorted, and thats the main thing i guess!!

kind regards,

Jamie

 

[2old4this]

>With the strong you put
>in all the tp settings etc ( either manually or in a file
>upload) u can then get the dish to do an auto scan for the
>satellites based on the tp info inputed/uploaded to the
>receiver

This I don't follow. How can the autoscan succeed if the position information is not available? How does it know where to move the dish to find each satellite?
Or are you saying that the Strong loader (which I don't personally know) offers the choice of whether or not to use the position info from the settings file, and that you elected not to use it (so using whatever poisition info you already had in your receiver)...?

2old

 

[PRINCE]

Hi,

I have a Strong 4375 as well, and it might be something to do with the software in the strong, because when Kiosque change there freqency I edit the channel setting with the new frequency, did a rescan and it was still giving the old listing even though the transponder setting display the new setting I input, I tried for a while and in the end I gave up.So it could be that the original settings could not be overwritten completely even though this might appear to be the case.

Regards

Prince

 

[jamie2001]

Hi,

I might be missing something here as i am a little new to this but this is as i understand it:

i input either manually or upload the tp/channel settings. Then using the positioner menu i ask the strong to scan, then the dish moves from horizon to horizon searching for the satellites from the details i have given it. As soon as it finds a satellite matching the tp details it locks on and saves this as a sat. i.e i input the tp/channel list for say hotbird, and the dish goes back and forth until it finds the best signal for this satellite upon which it saves this as hotbird. it is totally automatic although obviously you can also do this manually. and most of the time this seems to work very well.

Does this make sense!!

kind regards,

Jamie

 

[jamie2001]

Prince,

Have you updated the firmware to version 1.02? i wonder if this makes any difference? i have and i cant say iv'e noticed a change.

Jamie

 

[2old4this]

But it surely isn't just scanning "blindly", effectively moving one pulse at a time and then seeing if it has a signal matching any of the hundreds of transponders it has in its memory (allocated to all the different satellites)...?

It must be moving the dish to a particular position where it expects to find a particular satellite, and then looking for a signal on a default or beacon transponder for that satellite, using that signal to peak/fine-tune the dish position.

In other words it's starting off with some basic idea of where each satellite should be found. And my point is - that basic idea is either what you manually entered as the position (NOT just the longitude, but the actual position in terms of the counter), or else it's using what it picked up from the settings you loaded - which could be completely "wrong" for your own equipment.

Imagine that the settings you have loaded were originally created on a system where Astra1 at 19.2east longitude was at position 2000 and Hotbird at 13east at 2500. Don't worry about these numbers. They are purely arbitrary, to illustrate a point.
You load those settings into your receiver, and start scanning. Let's imagine that the receiver does manage to locate Astra. Now it moves to Hotbird. To do that, it knows it has to go from counter 2000 to 2500. IE move 500 pulses/counts. But let's imagine that your particular motor is different from that of the original system. Your motor only passes half as many pulses through for a given amount of travel. So the dish, in moving 500 pulses actually overshoots Hotbird on your system. Where it ends up is anybody's guess. It might even by coincidence land on a different satellite, with a signal on the same transponder it would expect to find on Hotbird. So it would scan the wrong satellite, and you might end up with (say) Sirius channels assigned to Hotbird. Alternatively (more likely) it will find no signal at the overshot position and you will be left wondering why it failed to locate some of the satellites...

Or am I totally missing some clever trick the Strong receiver uses to avoid this problem?

2old

 

[PRINCE]

Hi,

I have done an upgrade to V1.2, and haven't notice much difference.
I think you didn't understand how the setting up of the Satellites works, if it was that simple I wouldn't have paid £150 to get mine set up, basically I am not sure I can explain it better than 2old who has explained the procedure, the Tp/Channel setting doesn't mean a thing unless you asked the receiver to scan in the right place,if you are able to get Astra 19, and hotbird is in 13, you have to move the motor slowly to the east, until you find a signal, which is from the transponder you are searching, and unless your dish is properly aligned you wouldn't get all the channels you can get, I tried setting it up myself and was having the same problem that you are having.

Regards

Prince

 

[Stargazer]

The automatic scan feature on the Strong does not do any calculation of satellite positions - it just sweeps the dish from endstop to endstop until it encounters a signal (I believe that it looks for the frequency of the first transponder for each satellite). As it moves the dish at full speed, it will overshoot if a signal is discovered, but it then stops the dish and moves back and forth in decreasing arcs until it gets the best position. If it cannot find any signal for a satellite, it will try a complete sweep of the dish 2 or 3 times before giving up and moving on to the next one.
It does sometimes get the wrong details (eg confusing Thor and Intelsat707) but you can always manually redo a specific satellite.
The 1.02 software DOES have one new feature of note - a Network Search option (under Satellite Setup/Configuration) - when set this appears to detect new transponders when scanning a satellite - running this on Astra 2 which I had previous set up with only those containing FTA channels gave me lots of new TPs (and a stack of channels presented in glorious Videoguard...)

 

[jamie2001]

Hi,

Thanks for explaining that, it is what i have been trying to say all through this thread- the fact that the strong drives the dish e-w blindly looking for sats based on the tp info provided in the receiver.

You got the new v1.02 software with the sat firmware update?

regards

jamie

 

[2old4this]

Stargazer -
are sure it works this way? It seems doomed to failure. It would never be able to guarantee that the "right" satellite was being associated with the found signal.

You're saying that it starts at the east position, and looks first for a specific transponder it associates with its east-most sat. Having found that, it fixes the position, and moves on to the next transponder in its list - that associated with its next east-most sat. And so on. But if it's doing that without keeping track of any longitudinal information at all, then it would go completely wrong if it so happened that one of its target transponders was not transmitting (or signal simply not found) at the epected satellite, but WAS found at a different satellite. It might end up thinking that Panamsat was Astra just because of where it happened to detect a signal.

I bet it goes wrong a LOT.
And where are these target transponder details stored? Are they part of its firmware, or are they user-definable?

2old

 

[jamie2001]

That seems exactly how it works, when you first set up the receiver there are a list of satellites with 'uptodate' (debateable!!) tp's in a menu. you can enter new sats or tp's manually if you require. It also has position details although obviously these are blank as you havent found them yet.
Basically you set the east to west limits on the dish
Then you go through the digital setup menu and get the receiver to scan automatically (you can do this manually also one sat at a time)

As said previously it scans from east to west based on the tp's saved.

When the scan is complete (this can take a little while!!) if you go back to the menu you will now see that the satellites that are listed will now have the positions saved.

I can see what you are getting at 2old it does seem a little easy and prone to failure , but it works very well although sometimes it takes a couple of scans to get them all and some you do have to play with a bit , for example doing a scan manually on a certain satellite with different transponders.

So with a different receiver to the strong, how do you normally set it up? i would imagine you input the tp details then scan manually?, surely this isnt a lot different to the way the strong does it except the receiver moves the dish automatically?

As i understand it the echostar 3000, you have to find sats at extreme east and west and say thor at 1 degree south as your central sat and then the echostar calculates the position of the rest?
Surely this method is even more prone to failure than the strong patiently searching back and forth?

I have had a few problems with certain sats but this has been due to my lack of experience (this is my first motorised setup) and nothing that some uptodate tp's and a couple of late nights hasnt solved.

At last i have a fantastic setup (almost!!) and i have the sense of achievement of having installed it all myself! (the missus is starting to get the hump with my constant tinkering and running up and down the garden adjusting the dish etc)

Anyway gotta run,

Regards,

Jamie

 

[PRINCE]

Hi Jamie 2001,

The reason I haven't use the autoscan myself is that I read in the review of the receiver that the software sometimes ignore the east west limit and might move the dish beyond those limit,and since I have a wall close to the dish I was afraid my dish might hit a wall with disastrous consequences, have you experiences the software overshooting the limit set?

Regards

Prince

 

[jamie2001]

Hi,

Yes, i did also read that in the what satellite review.
However i have never had any problems and i have used it quite a lot (oh the joys of installing your first system!!)

But i do understand your concerns, mine is also on a pole, so there wouldnt be a problem if it spun to far.

But, i know a few people with the strong, and have never heard of any problems.

Regards,

Jamie

 

[PRINCE]

Hi jamie2001,

I am begining to envy you for the courage you had to install it yourself, maybe I should dismantle mine and see if I could set it up myself and experience the joy in the process or sadness if I fails and another £150 pounds down the drain, I think I would ponder about it for a while.

Regards

Prince

 

[Mike16]

I just upgraded to v. 1.02. There are several improvements, but I wouldn't sweat it if you can't get the upgrade to work. Here is a list of the improvements I can remember:

1. Future upgrades via Astra 19.2E
2. Network serach feature to scan for new transponders.
3. On/Off switch for sub-titles
4. PIN lock-out for Channel Edit, Delete, etc.

Hope this helps,

Mike

 

[Channel Hopper]

Jamie and Prince

Yes the 4375 can ignore the preset electronic limits and overshoot them when scanning

As long as you have the mechanical limits of the motor set up to click in before any immovable obstcales all that will happen is a error ident on the screen and then you start again

The 4375 can be a real pain and the suppliers are not really playing fair with upgrades. You could always sned an e-mail to the manufacturer in Korea explaining the problems