technomate 5500DAPCI setup newbie help

jthrppel

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Hi:
I am totally new to satellite dish setup. I bought tm5500 plus a 1 meter dish and an hh120 diseqc motor. I have enough room in the back garden with reasonable views. I assembled the dish on a patio stand exactly following the instructions. I am at 53.547 lat and -6.088 longitude. I setup the system with a P value of 37.
I started up the 5500 and followed the steps at the bottom of page 15. I says to go to motor setting and "select DiseqC of your choice either USALS or DiseqC. My motor setting is greyed and not selectable. But there is an option of DiSeqC and the optins are A, B, C, D and none. I think the critical thing is that when I try to move the motor manually it says "reached the east limit 5000" When autosearch function is selected it says "Actuator error" and nothing happens. The motor hasn't moved at all and is set at 0.
Is it possible that I am actually not setting up the unit correctly? Or is it that the cable is not communicating with the motor? I get "no signal" on the splash screen and the quality of signal is 10% when try to select a particular satelite sat Thor at 1.0. My dish is pointing straight south and I haven't adjusted it to get any specific satellite, I was hoping to move to Thor by using the motor. Anybody in the group has a 5500 DAPCI please give me some pointers as to how to proceed. All your help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.
Jthrppel
 

jthrppel

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Just one other thing, the LNBF has what looks like a white plastic cover on it. There was no instructions with it and I am not sure whether it need to be removed. I have left it on, could that be the reason why there is no signal?
Thanks
Jthrppel
 

rolfw

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My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
Sounds like your receiver is expecting to see a 36v positioner and not a DiseqC motor, I think that you need to select DiseqC and none, can you give all of the options on that and the previous menu page.

You can actually use 5W as a reference satellite for your due South, there is the added advantage of analogue channels, which if you have an old analogue receiver can make setting up so much easier.
 

jthrppel

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Hi all:

Thank you Rolf. As you said what I was doing wrong with the TM5500DAPCI, I haven't turned off the positioner (there was a typo in the manual, instead off off it was "orr), I should have figured this out but late at night I was not thinking straight). So now I can move the motor. Unfortunately, I reset the receiver to factory settings but now I have put in most of the sat values and saved them. I also have the .zip file from the TM website for the channel settings. I cannot set channels manually because I do not see any channels tuned because of the signal quality.

My current problem is that the quality of signal is only 10. It doesn't change with turning the dish manually at the mount or by the motor. The signal strength is at 76 near full. If I disconnect the LNB signal strength falls down to 10. So the LNB is picking up signal. but the quality being so low I do not see anything. I am tried to tune in Thor at 1w and Astra at 19.2E.

I am at about 50 ft above sea level and I am trying to do the set up in my back patio and the dish mount is about three feet above but being a 1 meter dish the bottom is fairly close to the ground. This could be my problem although I have a reasonable view of the horizon. Eventually, I will have the dish moved up to a south facing wall and waiting to find someone to put it up there.

What I am wondering is why wouldn't the quality of the signal change at all. I would have thought it would move either side of 10.
With regard to analogue setting, since DAPCI has analogue tuning as well, could I use that function to set up the channels? Just a thought.

As always thank you all for any input in advance.

jthrppel
 

rolfw

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My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
Yes, use the analogue side to setup your due south satellite. There is a method to setting up a DiseqC motor and if you deviate from it, you will get bad or no results.

Make sure that your pole is perfectly plumb, set degree scale on motor to match your lattitude, find your Due south satellite by rotating the motor on the pole (azimuth) and moving the dish elevation up and down.

Once you have found your due South, the close in satellites should drop into place, although you may need to fine tune a little for the outer ones.
 

jthrppel

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Hi Rolf and others:
I finally got a local expert to set up the dish, more for the fixing on to the wall part and he had a very good satfinder. Everything went well. 5500DAPCI is working fine, from where I am 53/6 we can get about 8 or 9 sats but the fta one are mostly on two. I sure will need help in the future with finding some non-mature content CI sites!
Jthrppel
 
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