W2 16E dish setup ?

[tomthebomb1968]

I've had problems with the Fortecstar 90cm Robbo, particularly with 16E, as it pulls in either 19 or 13 E at the same time, so knocks out certain transponders.

I dread turning up to align somone's dish on 16E, only to find it's one of those, even woirse if it is one on a motor, as it takes ages and doesn't give good results.

This is the dish I have along with maplins own motor(Nikkai), no problems with anything from 8west to 28.2 East. Neighbours house is the reason for nothing after 8 west but Im stuck for a reason for the easterly birds. My location is 5.908 West and 54.618 North. I lined the motor up on Atlantic Bird 3 as my reference when setting up rather than Thor 1West as most of you on the mainland do, but I thought that was right for my location. Even manually searching for a lock with east/west movement gets me nothing. Really only looking to bring in 39 and 42 east and I think my 90cm should be capable. I

 

[chapops]

I swapped it - 'cause the receiver that went with it did not work

still it is a mystery to me why I was not getting anything at all from that cnannel - considering that I was getting other transponders well. I can't say that since changing the dish the quality of what I was getting before has improved by a noticeable amount.

but the problem I have now is that because of the larger dish - I cannot move west below 13E because it starts to touch on the house. I am not too bothered by this cause I can live without these sats for now - but it also means that it can't ever go to its reference position. I wonder if that is problem or not - I have set the limits but sometimes the motor seems to have a mind of its own and I am afraid it will go to its ref point on its own and crash/destroy into the house in the process. I suppose I could change the mount to allow for that but access is extremely difficult as it is high on the house and you can only use one hand to do stuff so I want to not do it if possible.

also - I don't quite understand why 'it is best to set up on Thor' ? Does it matter where you set up as long as you use usals - I think not - and really I find that the weaker the sat - the narrower its band of reception is and doesn't it follow that you should set up on a weaker sat to get the allignment correctly ?

I also wonder if there is a way to set the 0 of the motor to not be due south and still follow the arc correctly somehow by adjusting the other angles - obviously usals will not work then but 1.2 will.

 

[satelliteman]

I swapped it - 'cause the receiver that went with it did not work

still it is a mystery to me why I was not getting anything at all from that cnannel - considering that I was getting other transponders well. I can't say that since changing the dish the quality of what I was getting before has improved by a noticeable amount.

but the problem I have now is that because of the larger dish - I cannot move west below 13E because it starts to touch on the house. I am not too bothered by this cause I can live without these sats for now - but it also means that it can't ever go to its reference position. I wonder if that is problem or not - I have set the limits but sometimes the motor seems to have a mind of its own and I am afraid it will go to its ref point on its own and crash/destroy into the house in the process. I suppose I could change the mount to allow for that but access is extremely difficult as it is high on the house and you can only use one hand to do stuff so I want to not do it if possible.

also - I don't quite understand why 'it is best to set up on Thor' ? Does it matter where you set up as long as you use usals - I think not - and really I find that the weaker the sat - the narrower its band of reception is and doesn't it follow that you should set up on a weaker sat to get the allignment correctly ?

I also wonder if there is a way to set the 0 of the motor to not be due south and still follow the arc correctly somehow by adjusting the other angles - obviously usals will not work then but 1.2 will.

It's about sweeping the arc correctly

You set your motor up on Thor (0.8w) if your longitude is close to 1West.

Always if you can set up the motor on a reference satellite closest to your longitude (highest point of the arc). This should give your a correct sweep.

 

[chapops]

I see but would you expain why that is ?

in other words, UK wide, isn't it the same thing to :
a) set the motor to Thor 1W and 'wiggle the dish till you get best signal', or
set the motor to W2 16 E and 'wiggle the dish till you get best signal'

 

[satelliteman]

Have you read:

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/dish-setup-single-sat-multi-sat-motorised-systems/90916-setup-guide-moteck-diseqc-motor-others.html

I never 'wiggle' the dish until you get the best signal, I use a £2k professional spectrum analyser for set up... the difference is, you only have to align once.

Glad you are now up and working OK

 

[tomthebomb1968]

Dont take this as absolute fact as I am new to this and as you can see have some issues with my own setup, but i think its this.

Your motor when at o degrees has your dish at its highest elevation. If your longtitude was closest to 16 degrees then that is where you line up the motor as 0degrees. In the Uk 0.8 Thor is closesest so that is where your dish needs to be to follow the arc of the satellites. If you line up 16 as your motors 0degrees then you will get a great signal but when the motor moves to another sat it is not at the correct elevation to receive the signals. I used Atlantic Bird3 at 5degrees as my longtitude is 5.9degrees, ie the highest satellite in the sky at my location, yours is thor 1 west. Hope that sort of makes sense to you. lol

 

[satelliteman]

Correct & spot on

You can effectively set up on 16e with USALS with a longitude of around 1w but you would have to send the motor to where it thinks 16e is first. If you do it this way, you may have to make slight adjustments as 16e is not at the top of the arc.

If using DiSEqC 1.2 only and not USALS , you do the same but have to send the motor to the difference between your longitude and the satellite you are aligning to East or West depending on what satellite it is.

Hope this helps

 

[chapops]

guys I am talking usals-only for this from the start, am I missing something - USALS 16 E is not the same as Disec1.2 16E right ?

I mean you sent the motor to USALS 16 E and then align the dish manually on W2 signal, this is what I did anyway, and isn't this is the same as sending the motor to 1W and settiing the dish so you can receive it ?

the USALS 16 E spot on the motor's scale is exactly where the motor will go regardless of where you aligned your dish to, so I mean it should not matter which one you set it to ?

 

[tomthebomb1968]

it does matter. For you to get all the signals from all the satellites your dish needs to be pointing at thor, and your motor needs to be at o at when the dish is pointing at thor.

 

[rolfw]

I mean you sent the motor to USALS 16 E and then align the dish manually on W2 signal, this is what I did anyway, and isn't this is the same as sending the motor to 1W and settiing the dish so you can receive it ?

the USALS 16 E spot on the motor's scale is exactly where the motor will go regardless of where you aligned your dish to, so I mean it should not matter which one you set it to ?

You can of course do that when using USALS, but if you align your dish on a non-central arc satellite, there is much more chance of the opposite side of the arc being out, which is why it is advisable to align on your nearest due South satellite.

After aligning on a central satellite, you can of course then go to a difficult off centre satellite and check your alignment, perhaps even tweak slightly, but you may then find that it throws out something on the opposite side of the arc.

So if you get things perfect at the top of the arc, but your outside sats are not quite right, then you try raising or lowering the inclination on the motor to rectify the problem, doing this and resetting the dish declination on any sat other than your central one is a bit hit and miss.

 

[chapops]

ok so in terms of geometrical correctness you can set up on any satellite with usals however as you say above it is more practical to do it on the center ones

in my case I cannot see Thor at all (house is in the way) next one for me was Hotbird - which has a strong signal and it is very hard to judge which is the perfect spot (I don't own a 2K meter). So I set up there but then found that W2 did not work. Up the ladder again and this time I set up on W2 where especially declination-wise the margin was very narrow - and then I found all the others up to 45E work ok too. I cannot get 57 E, not sure if it is possible but I would not attempt it anymore before redesigning the dish and mountings to allow more precise movement on with one hand

 

[satelliteman]

57E only has one receivable beam (spot 1) delivering one Tp.... not worth looking at

 

[chapops]

well apparently there is bTV clear on it on 12551 V 9404 which I am told can be got in Paris and is paid on all other carries - so if at all possible with my size dish I would like to try get it, footprint below

http://www.ddelec.com/bg_news/NSS703.htm

 

[satelliteman]

http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/nss703_spot1.html

According to the above a quality dish of some 50 - 75cm should do it so you should be OK

It's very low in the sky though and the El is approx 11° (taken for London from dishpointer) , if you have not got an obstruction in view; you should be fine.

 

[chapops]

I am clear of the opposite house but there is a tree just in front of mine, it is rather a small tree but is right in the 57 path - i wonder if I shouldn't just cut it