Advice Needed Trouble locking on

mikeb64

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I'm struggling locking on to Thor 0/8w to set a new dish up. So I've swapped out a 1m dish for a 80cm steel ofset, using a Jaeger DiSEqC 1.2 motor, with a spiderbox.
My old settings were latitude around 60 (The motor has Lattitude on one side and elevation on the other. On the motor with deline at 24 on the dish.
The manual on the motor suggests Elevation set at 37 with dish at 22.4?
I'm at 53.3 & 02.30 in Altrincham, cheshire.
Has anyone got some settings that I could try. My box supplier suggested Lat 53.3 on the motor (Which has 30-Declination) and 24-25 for the dish.
Thanks.
 

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Lazarus

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Set Motor to 53.3 on it's Latitude Scale (Ignore the motor's Elevation scale) and leave it alone.

Set dish bracket to around 24 deg and alter that when aligning.
 

mikeb64

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Cheshire, UK
Set Motor to 53.3 on it's Latitude Scale (Ignore the motor's Elevation scale) and leave it alone.

Set dish bracket to around 24 deg and alter that when aligning.
Thanks, out of interest how have you worked this out??
 

Lazarus

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Because the Motor Latitude scale should be set to your Latitude, which you gave as 53.3 , and because 24 is, empirically, a proven good practical starting point for setting up Motorised Dishes in the North of England. You could try setting it to an exactly calculated value (which would probably be marginally lower), using eg Dishpointer, but most us of can't preset a dish with tenth of a degree precision owing to accumulative small errors in the pole plumbness, clamp squareness etc, so will inevitably be obliged to tune for maximum smoke anyway. Ergo, an approximate starting angle is fine.
 

mikeb64

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DiSEqC 1.2 Jeager Motor, Spiderbox HD6000, SSM Steel 80CM Ofset dish, INVERTO Premium Twin Output Satellite LNB, Lat 53.39 Long 02.30
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Cheshire, UK
Because the Motor Latitude scale should be set to your Latitude, which you gave as 53.3 , and because 24 is, empirically, a proven good practical starting point for setting up Motorised Dishes in the North of England. You could try setting it to an exactly calculated value (which would probably be marginally lower), using eg Dishpointer, but most us of can't preset a dish with tenth of a degree precision owing to accumulative small errors in the pole plumbness, clamp squareness etc, so will inevitably be obliged to tune for maximum smoke anyway. Ergo, an approximate starting angle is fine.
Fare play, just strange that the last dish (1 M) I had was set at 60 with the motor, as you can see from the old marks and as you say the dish was at 24. I'll jump up again at weekend and give it another bash. If it won't lock on then I'll just try the old settings again. Thanks
 

a33

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Is your pole exactly plumb? Otherwise the motor latitude setting could be different, dependant on the non-plumb-ness.

Apart from that: The modified motor angles for 53.3N are:
Modified latitude angle = 53.9* (So a bit closer to your 60?...)
Modified declination offset angle = 7.0*; so dish elevation scale (30-7.0) = 23.0*
(With modified motor angles, you track the arc a little bit better, so less fine-adjustment is needed.)

Greetz,
A33
 

mikeb64

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Is your pole exactly plumb? Otherwise the motor latitude setting could be different, dependant on the non-plumb-ness.

Apart from that: The modified motor angles for 53.3N are:
Modified latitude angle = 53.9* (So a bit closer to your 60?...)
Modified declination offset angle = 7.0*; so dish elevation scale (30-7.0) = 23.0*
(With modified motor angles, you track the arc a little bit better, so less fine-adjustment is needed.)

Greetz,
A33
Pole is good checked with my phone app measure, plus my last one worked fine but kept getting blown. Was heavy and 1m. Will shove it up to 53.9 and try the dish starting at 23 and see if I can do it. Tunning into AlJaz news on thor. Thanks
 

mikeb64

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Cheshire, UK
Is your pole exactly plumb? Otherwise the motor latitude setting could be different, dependant on the non-plumb-ness.

Apart from that: The modified motor angles for 53.3N are:
Modified latitude angle = 53.9* (So a bit closer to your 60?...)
Modified declination offset angle = 7.0*; so dish elevation scale (30-7.0) = 23.0*
(With modified motor angles, you track the arc a little bit better, so less fine-adjustment is needed.)

Greetz,
A33
Hay Greetz, Spot on with your calcs. I’m getting 80s and 68q any tips on fine tune? I’ll be swapping my LNB from a twin to single and sqew-1.12?
Cheers
 

mikeb64

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Cheshire, UK
Is your pole exactly plumb? Otherwise the motor latitude setting could be different, dependant on the non-plumb-ness.

Apart from that: The modified motor angles for 53.3N are:
Modified latitude angle = 53.9* (So a bit closer to your 60?...)
Modified declination offset angle = 7.0*; so dish elevation scale (30-7.0) = 23.0*
(With modified motor angles, you track the arc a little bit better, so less fine-adjustment is needed.)

Greetz,
A33
Hay Greetz, Spot on with your calcs. I’m getting 80s and 68q any tips on fine tune? I’ll be swapping my LNB from a twin to single and sqew-1.12?
Cheers
 

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The "S" in the 80's is nothing to worry about, it's the "Q" you need to tweak a bit.

The "S" is just a calculated signal strength from the LNB out to the receiver, the only way to fix this is better coax or a shorter run of coax to the receiver.

The "Q" can be adjusted, try this, bring out a small TV set and the receiver (or a receiver) out to the dish, then using very small movements, push up or down on the dish, if the "Q" goes up then re-adjust the elevation, if that does nothing then push it ever so slightly left or right, if the "Q" goes up then re-adjust the direction accordingly.

The same can be done for the "Skew" of the LNB, but you need to do very very small movements for this

If the "Q" does not change with any movment then the only choice to improve the "Q" would be a bigger dish. (go back to the one meter dish)
 

a33

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Hay mikeb64,

How did you set due south? With USALS I find best, when you don't have a real due south satellite (there is no, at 2.3W I guess?).

LNB skew should be on zero, when aiming due south. But when you're watching much Astra's (19, 23, 28E) then maybe somewhere between 0 and 7,5 might be better; 13E also has about 3.5 preskew.

Motor setup tutorials are here: Dish Setup Guides, Information threads and FAQs
Adjustments to tracking the arc right, see e.g. appendix A1 from this: http://www.stab-italia.com/download...hh120/Instruction Manual [EN-DE-IT-FR-ES].pdf
Similar pictures to test tracking the arc are on the internet.

Greetz (is meant as greetings, BTW),
A33
 

mikeb64

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Hay mikeb64,

How did you set due south? With USALS I find best, when you don't have a real due south satellite (there is no, at 2.3W I guess?).

LNB skew should be on zero, when aiming due south. But when you're watching much Astra's (19, 23, 28E) then maybe somewhere between 0 and 7,5 might be better; 13E also has about 3.5 preskew.

Motor setup tutorials are here: Dish Setup Guides, Information threads and FAQs
Adjustments to tracking the arc right, see e.g. appendix A1 from this: http://www.stab-italia.com/downloads/rotor sat division/hh100 and hh120/Instruction Manual [EN-DE-IT-FR-ES].pdf
Similar pictures to test tracking the arc are on the internet.

Greetz (is meant as greetings, BTW),
A33
Great guide, I set the motor to 0 then pointed south, used my phone app, luckily my house is South facing. Then I swung to Thor 0.8 and used dishpointer as a guide. Wiggled it and found it. Moved the dish up down at 23-25 and got 80s and 58q. On Hotbird and Astra its higher so just need to move the LNB as I set this at +1 so will turn to the right and set at -1 so should be good. Currently have a twin LNB but sill swap out at weekend. Thanks for your help.
 

a33

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So, basically your motor zero is now at 0.8W, instead of 2.3W?
Or did you (after aligning motor and dish for the zero-position) rotate your motor axis 1.5 degree, before finetuning at 0.8W?
That would be first point for finetuning the motor setup.

BTW: Does your receiver have USALS? That makes the aiming at satellites a lot easier...

greetz,
A33
 

mikeb64

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So, basically your motor zero is now at 0.8W, instead of 2.3W?
Or did you (after aligning motor and dish for the zero-position) rotate your motor axis 1.5 degree, before finetuning at 0.8W?
That would be first point for finetuning the motor setup.

BTW: Does your receiver have USALS? That makes the aiming at satellites a lot easier...

greetz,
A33
No I set it to zero, pointed south then sent it to o.8w via usals, then used dishpointer to find it. It's locked on now and at about 68% quality so just gonna tweek with the new single LNB. Thor wont go above 56-60, but Astra and Hotbird is good. Have I done it right?
 

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With the modified angles, and the USALS procedure as you wrote, you have done right.
Then only some tweaking on other satellite positions is needed, as @Terryl wrote. Mostly rotating the whole setup a little bit around the pole, and checking/tweaking the dish elevation.
Also try LNB a bit forward and a bit backwards, that also helps sometimes.

For hitting the furthest satellites right, you can experiment with setting your USALS-value for Latitude in your receiver to the 'modified latitude' value of 53.9*. That should give a slightly better hit on those furthest sat positions.

greetz,
A33
 

mikeb64

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With the modified angles, and the USALS procedure as you wrote, you have done right.
Then only some tweaking on other satellite positions is needed, as @Terryl wrote. Mostly rotating the whole setup a little bit around the pole, and checking/tweaking the dish elevation.
Also try LNB a bit forward and a bit backwards, that also helps sometimes.

For hitting the furthest satellites right, you can experiment with setting your USALS-value for Latitude in your receiver to the 'modified latitude' value of 53.9*. That should give a slightly better hit on those furthest sat positions.

greetz,
A33
Spent ages fine tuning. Set 53.9 best I could get. All working. Hotbird 69%
 

a33

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Well, if all are working, you can't do better, can you? :):)

Nice that the modified angle is best. Using modified angles makes fineadjustment hardly necessary...

Greetz,
A33
 

mikeb64

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Cheshire, UK
The "S" in the 80's is nothing to worry about, it's the "Q" you need to tweak a bit.

The "S" is just a calculated signal strength from the LNB out to the receiver, the only way to fix this is better coax or a shorter run of coax to the receiver.

The "Q" can be adjusted, try this, bring out a small TV set and the receiver (or a receiver) out to the dish, then using very small movements, push up or down on the dish, if the "Q" goes up then re-adjust the elevation, if that does nothing then push it ever so slightly left or right, if the "Q" goes up then re-adjust the direction accordingly.

The same can be done for the "Skew" of the LNB, but you need to do very very small movements for this

If the "Q" does not change with any movment then the only choice to improve the "Q" would be a bigger dish. (go back to the one meter dish)
Done all that and I'm getting nearly 80% on the strongest stas ad about 68 on weaker ones. Not sure I could better that. Tweaked the lnb loads and could not improve. Used my ipad/iphone top view the signal lines. Worked a treat. Thanks
 
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