USALS And Fine Tuning.

[RustySpoons]

I'm happy with my dish set up and have aligned it multiple times and am getting strong signals from 65e - 65w.
And I would say I'm confident its perfectly plumb and aligned.

The question is, Using "Fine Tuning" on 7W if I nudge it West by 1 or 2 steps I can sometimes bring the signal up just a fraction. On 3W "Test Card" I can bring that up a small fraction by nudging East 1-2 steps.

Now, those birds are fairly close to each other, so don't think any more fine tuning of alignment will make any difference. If they were much further apart then I would consider it.

Is this down to the birds themselves not being quite perfect or down to how the box/motor controls it, or is this just how USALS is?

 

[Terryl]

It's USALS, most receiver only have a 0.1 degree resolution, now if it could go 4 digits past the decimal point it would be a whole lot better.

 

[RustySpoons]

It's USALS, most receiver only have a 0.1 degree resolution, now if it could go 4 digits past the decimal point it would be a whole lot better.

Interesting, that makes a lot of sense. It's incredible how these H-H even work!

I noticed Eutelsat 7W says 7.3W on Lyngsat, If I put in 7.3W I get the strongest signal.
0.1 resolution would make sense on that really weak transponder on 3W

Part of me is tempted to use Diseqc to wring every last bit out of the dish.

 

[Captain Jack]

What is your 7w set as? Eutelsat there is on 7.3W while Nilesat is at 7.0W. Nilesats are generally not receivable in UK so just adjust your sats.xml file and you'll be there.

 

[Channel Hopper]

I'm happy with my dish set up and have aligned it multiple times and am getting strong signals from 65e - 65w.
And I would say I'm confident its perfectly plumb and aligned.

The question is, Using "Fine Tuning" on 7W if I nudge it West by 1 or 2 steps I can sometimes bring the signal up just a fraction. On 3W "Test Card" I can bring that up a small fraction by nudging East 1-2 steps.

Now, those birds are fairly close to each other, so don't think any more fine tuning of alignment will make any difference. If they were much further apart then I would consider it.

Is this down to the birds themselves not being quite perfect or down to how the box/motor controls it, or is this just how USALS is?

The two satellites mentioned are far enough apart to be distinguishable and locked in with one command from the receiver.

You might find that the claims made by TJ on another thread regarding receiver compatibility hold out and that not all satellite kit is suitable for use with the Stab rotor logic, though this has been disproven a number of times. Try another of your steeds on the dish, see if the result is the same.
If this doesn't fix then you might have play in the motor mount where the dish falls slightly to one side when travelling west, but when moving east requires a couple of 'nudges' to bring the focus back into line with the satellite.
Lastly you might have a faulty Stab rotor, not unheard of either, in which case it's back to the dealer for replacement under warranty.

 

[RustySpoons]

What is your 7w set as? Eutelsat there is on 7.3W while Nilesat is at 7.0W. Nilesats are generally not receivable in UK so just adjust your sats.xml file and you'll be there.

Yeah it's still 7W I need to adjust that if it is actually 7.3W. It's only that sat that needs a couple of steps to the West so makes perfect sense.

Every other sat from extreme E to W is perfect, cannot make any improvement stepping it any direction. I've sat there and checked every single one that's receivable to me. Signals are all good, ABS 3W test card was the only one that came up a tiny bit from 15% to 22% by 1 or 2 steps to the East, but my box signal reading is not linear it just jumps from 15 - 22% with nothing between.

 

[RustySpoons]

The two satellites mentioned are far enough apart to be distinguishable and locked in with one command from the receiver.

You might find that the claims made by TJ on another thread regarding receiver compatibility hold out and that not all satellite kit is suitable for use with the Stab rotor logic, though this has been disproven a number of times. Try another of your steeds on the dish, see if the result is the same.
If this doesn't fix then you might have play in the motor mount where the dish falls slightly to one side when travelling west, but when moving east requires a couple of 'nudges' to bring the focus back into line with the satellite.
Lastly you might have a faulty Stab rotor, not unheard of either, in which case it's back to the dealer for replacement under warranty.

The only other receiver I have here is a DM800HD and the images/drivers for that are prehistoric and that's just a mess when using it on the motor.

I'd like to try a non E2 box on it, but I don't have one here any more. May just pick something up cheap to mess around with.

Talking about TJs rotor, mine is an older firmware/model to his.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Your profile mentions a Stab HH10, was it a garage sale from the Cretaceous era ?

 

[RustySpoons]

Your profile mentions a Stab HH10, was it a garage sale from the Cretaceous era ?

No idea what happened there...

 

[a33]

I noticed Eutelsat 7W says 7.3W on Lyngsat, If I put in 7.3W I get the strongest signal.
0.1 resolution would make sense on that really weak transponder on 3W

Part of me is tempted to use Diseqc to wring every last bit out of the dish.

Kingofsat shows it even is at 7.34W: Eutelsat 7 West A / Nilesat 102 / Nilesat 201 (7°W) - Alle uitzendingen - Frequenties - KingOfSat

USALS should probably be fine, if your receiver does in fact calculate correctly for motor axis parallel to earth axis, as stated in this thread: USALS Notebook
To compensate for the modified motor angles (with polar axis tilt) of a fine-tuned motor setup, you could "fool" your receiver by entering the modified motor latitude instead of the actual latitude of your location in the USALS menu; see post #36 there. However, the difference in hour angle was quite small in my test-calculations.

greetz,
A33

 

[jeallen01]

It's USALS, most receiver only have a 0.1 degree resolution, now if it could go 4 digits past the decimal point it would be a whole lot better.

Paradoxically, on some of the very cheap "fag packet" receivers (such as the Free Sat V7 HD) you can set the sat longitude to 0.01 degree, and that generally does seem to "work" as you can see the difference in signal strength from changes of as little as 0.02-0.03 degrees.

 

[a33]

As far as I know, the diseqc 1.2 command "GotoX" that is issued by a USALS program goes in units of 1/16 degree. So that would be about 0.06 degree.

The fact that a USALS programm works with units of 0.01 degrees is definately an advantadge, but the motor command precision is another thing...

Greetz,
A33

 

[jeallen01]

..the fact that a USALS programm works with units of 0.01 degrees is definately an advantadge, but the motor command precision is another thing...

That's a matter for the design of the electronics and the tolerances in the motor/gearbox assembly, and how much backlash there is in the motor gear box - and that's certainly an issue for the Dark Motor and many similar ones, and, to a variable extent, it can sometimes be minimised by adjustments (on the Dark Motor, the adjustment screw is behind a label stating "Do not Remove" - if you do then you may void the warrantee, as I did after CH told me how to do it ).

 

[william-1]

Some satellites in close proximity that may give rise to reception problems at certain times:- LyngSat

For a satellite to be able to use the whole of the Ku Band there needs to be 3° of separation from the adjoining satellites in the arc,
Well this was how it started about 20 years ago 23.5 east -19.2 east-16 east - 13 east -10 east- 7 east - 4 east - 1 west

Now we have this:-
Eutelsat Hot Bird 13B/13C/13E at 13.0°E
Eutelsat 10A at 10.0°E
Eutelsat 9B at 9.0°E
Eutelsat 7A/7B at 7.0°E
SES 5 at 5.0°E
Astra 4A at 4.8°E
Eutelsat 3B at 3.1°E
BulgariaSat 1 at 1.9°E
Thor 7 at 0.6°W
Thor 5 & 6 at 0.8°W
Intelsat 10-02 at 1.0°W
ABS 3A at 3.0°W
Amos 7 at 3.9°W
Amos 3 at 4.0°W
Eutelsat 5 West A at 5.0°W
Nilesat 201 at 7.0°W (No reception in the UK with a small 100cm dish)
Eutelsat 7 West A at 7.3°W
Eutelsat 8 West B at 8.0°W
Express AM44 at 11.0°W
Eutelsat 12 West B at 12.5°W