What am I doing wrong?

[avz]

Hi
my question regards a satellite which I assume not many of the members familiar with - Amos 4W but I think that my question is not specific to this sat. anyhow, I live in Israel and I want to receive Amos. I've set up the dish (with a single lnb) as far as I can tell, to the right direction. my decoder is quite an old Magnum legend fta2505 but it works well (I've connected it to a different dish, which receives astra and nilesat and it works well. now, my problem is that I'm not able to receive Amos. I've entered the frequency, DiSEqC disabled, vertical polarity, and the symbol rate. after preforming a scan - no programs found. the bottom of the screen shows two indicators - level and quality. the level shows 95% and the quality varies between 9 to 11%.
any ideas what am I doing wrong? if you need more info, please let me know.
Thanx.

 

[RimaNTSS]

Hi @avz ! Which channels are you looking from that bird? May be you have too small antenna?

 

[Channel Hopper]

How did you confirm the correct dish position?

 

[Analoguesat]

I'm not able to receive Amos. I've entered the frequency, DiSEqC disabled, vertical polarity, and the symbol rate. after preforming a scan - no programs found. the bottom of the screen shows two indicators - level and quality. the level shows 95% and the quality varies between 9 to 11%.
any ideas what am I doing wrong? if you need more info, please let me know.
Thanx.

Chances are the dish isnt pointing at the satellite - the signal level indicates little more than a good electrical contact to the lnb. You need a quality of at least 50-60% to have a watchable signal, and that will only appear once a signal is being received

The dish needs to be aligned to within half a degree or so vertical and horizontally - -roughly the right direction isnt anywhere near good enough in this game!

 

[Topper]

Naaim meod avz
Yes the fact that you connected it to another dish which is looking at Amos and Nilesat, suggests that the dish your stb worked on was connected to a 3deg monobloc lnb, (which from memory are often used in Israel) yours is a single and will obviously only receive one geostationary location of satellite. Hence as AS has suggested you are probably just misaligned at this stage, or perhaps your elevation is incorrect. You could download the free version of dishpointer or similar for your mobile phone as there are a number of free versions available in the google play store these days. Unlike the analogue days of near enough where a picture developed with an approximate angle, digital is more of a bang on procedure, owing to the brick wall effect of digital transmissions.

 

[blademedia]

edit was looking at Amos 4

 

[avz]

Hi people and thanx for your comments. my dish's (measured) diameter is 87 cm and as far as I can tell it's more than sufficient since there is a commercial company that provides content via the Amos and they are using even smaller dishes, so I guess that the problem is elsewhere. since I dont have access to a professional tool to align the dish, I did it with a compass. I understand from your suggestions that this method is not accurate enough. I hope that that is the case. as per Topper's comment regarding the LNB, please take into consideration that I'm not familiar with the matter and I'll appreciate it very much if you can tell me in simple terms. as far as I can tell - it's a single LNB. that's all I know about it. is there any sense of taking a picture of it and upload it to the site? would that help?

 

[Topper]

I hope that that is the case. as per Topper's comment regarding the LNB, please take into consideration that I'm not familiar with the matter and I'll appreciate it very much if you can tell me in simple terms. as far as I can tell - it's a single LNB. that's all I know about it. is there any sense of taking a picture of it and upload it to the site? would that help?

Absolutely, any information will help an analysis by people, I would at this stage point out that if you are using an offset dish, the angle the signal arrives at the dish is a lot steeper than you would expect, if it is however prime focus you will still be surprised by the angle because of your proximity to the equator, the following picture may help


My comments related to the common practice in Israel in using a monobloc lnb which is a dual headed lnb set at a predetermined angle apart which allows reception of signals from two satellites 3 deg or sometimes 6 deg apart, these angles are preset in the lnb and the switch to control is built in. it sounds like yours is a standard lnb but for information they look similar to this


thus using this allows reception of two satellites 3 deg apart on the Clarke belt without moving the dish

 

[avz]

Topper - thanx for your patience and explanations. as you can tell, I'm a newbie to this and (almost) everything is news to me.
as far as I can understand now - my dish is equipped with a single LNB (it is a separate dish from the two other dishes that receive
hotbird, nilesat and astra and is located at a different place. if I got it right, the LNB that you've posted it's pic, is a LNB that enables to receive two
satellites without the use of the bar that enables to install more then one LNB's on one dish. so, we are talking on a stand alone dish with one single LNB installed on it.
now I would like to ask how can I know the correct elevation setting? as per your explanation it differs from the actual angle or better yet, is there a way to tell the ratio between the perpendicular line at the rim of the dish to the actual angle?

 

[Topper]

So please post a photo so that we can determine if you are using an offset or PF (prime focus) dish, then we can assist further, you can even enter your exact location here and get the required information such as the angle of elevation, but plenty of other information is given

 

[avz]

As far as I know, it is an offset dish. I'll post a pic tomorrow. thanx for the info so far.

 

[a33]

you can even enter your exact location here and get the required information such as the angle of elevation, but plenty of other information is given

As you have no satellite finder/satellite beeper if I understand correctly, based on the program of the link by @Topper you can use the sun for finding the exact azimuth position of your dish.
For the azimuth: Put a string or a band of tape from the top middle of the dish to the top of the LNB.
At the exact time (given by this linked website), that the sun has the same azimuth angle as the wanted satellite, align the azimuth of the dish so that the shadow of the string/tape is exactly at the middle of the dish. Then you have the correct azimuth.

After that you have only to try to find the correct elevation angle, by moving the dish up or down slowly and watch the signal quality bar of your receiver (that is tuned to a transponder of the wanted satellite).

Good luck!
Greetz,
A33

 

[avz]

Hן
Attached pics of the dish and the LNB. will appreciate your comments.

 

[Topper]

Yes avz that is an offset dish not a PF, but you have not captured the brackets at the back which should have a scalar reference on it so that we can determine what the elevation currently is and therefore should be, also as there is no skyline reference point or anything else but using guesswork I would say you dish looks correct for the uk but low for Israel. I am away until late Sunday, but someone I am sure will be able to help you in the meantime