Setting up a Motorised system to pull in weak signals for Feed Hunting

william-1 · Feb 28, 2012

Set up guide for maximum signals on a motorised dish >>

Part-1

1/ Pole must be dead vertical in 360 degrees ( use a spirit level ),

2/ Dish mounted dead central on the motor spigot,

3/ Motor set at the correct Elevation for your location for maximum signal at your reference satellite,

4/ Motor at zero on the scale when aimed at your reference satellite,

5/ Dish Declination set for maximum signal at your reference satellite,

6/ Lnb set in the correct position for max signal(Move Lnb fully forward & Back while viewing a meter for max signals)

7/ Site dish so that you have an unobstructed view of the Satellite Arc,

8/ Tighten all bolts when you have achieved maximum signal on all Satellites in your Satellite Arc.

Part-2

A normal motorised dish installation is very straight forward for receiving the major satellites 42 east,39 east,28.2 east,19.2 east,13 east 5 east 1 west 5 west & 30 west,

But the feed hunter is looking for feeds that are sometimes very weak signals so the dish/motor set up is more critical than a normal installation,

I have found this method to be the most successful after you have established that the pole is dead vertical,

The dish is mounted dead central on the motor spigot,

Your motor elevation is set for your location (use as a guide only) & maximum signal was achieved on your reference satellite by altering the the dish declination & USALS settings of Longitude & Latitude then check out the Lnb position in the Lnb holder is giving you the best possible signal by moving the Lnb fully forward & back to achieve this whilst viewing a signal meter we then move on to stage two,

As the scales for the motor elevation & dish declination are just a guide & not an accurate measuring scale so with the Longitude & Latitude can be altered slightly to improve your dishes ability to track the arc more accurately as with all guides you may find a slight variation on my finding will enable you to track the arc more accurately,

To improve your motor's capability to track the Clarke Belt / Geostationary Satellite's on the Arc make sure that the Motor has been clamped in the correct position to make tracking the arc accurately possible,

Try this to find out if your dish is set up correctly:-

Go to 30 west or the furthest West your dish will travel now while viewing a signal meter lightly flex the dish back at the top if the signal goes up or down make a note of this now do the same with the bottom of the dish & make a note of what happens,

Now go to 36 east or the furthest East your dish can travel & flex the dish as above,

If your findings are that the signal gets better on the East satellites when the dish was flexed back & the signal gets better on the West satellites when the dish was flexed forward then the motor is fixed to the wrong place on the mast to correct this change your USALS @ your reference satellite from say 0.07 Longitude to 0.4 Longitude now slacken off the motor fixing bolts & move the motor a few mm either way to achieve maximum signal,

Now check you East & West satellites again for maximum signal if it is better then tighten up your Motor at the new position if not then change your USALS to 0.0 Longitude now slacken off the motor fixing bolts & move the motor a few mm either way to achieve maximum signal,

Then check your East & West Satellites again for maximum signal.

Once you have established that you are tracking the Arc more accurately you can fine tune your dish / motor set up by changing USALS by 0.3 to 0.6 from your current best setting then slacken off the motor fixing bolts & move the motor a few mm either way to achieve maximum signal,

Settings for my location should be Longitude 0.07 East & Latitude 51.7 North but I track the arc more accurately with Longitude 0.4 East & Latitude 51.7 North as I said scales are just a guide line & you must use your own common sense & judgement when setting up a motorised satellite system to track the arc as accurately as possible,

After completing these fine tuning adjustments your 90 to 100cm dish will now pull in the weaker signals on 10 east,16 east ect & probably work better than a 120cm dish that has not been set as precisely as this,

Happy Feed Hunting

Sat1969 · Aug 16, 2017

I am using a channel master 90cm and have motorised it to obtain 30 west through to 42 east. However, I am struggling to get 45 and 46 east.

I am using an Emitor Satlook lite as a meter for signal quality.

The dish is high up on roof and has clear line of sight. How can I pull in the signals further east...

Mickha · Aug 16, 2017

Check William-1's strongest transponders list:
Just Sharing This - Strongest Transponders Oct 21st 2016
Then try 52E, Turkmenistan Sport:

Code:

https://www.lyngsat.com/TurkmenAlem-MonacoSat.html

Sat1969 · Aug 16, 2017

Thank you for the link.
I am still struggling to lock on to anything beyond 42 east.

All other from 42 east to 30w are being received.
I believe that 90cm dish should be able to see 45, 46, 52 east...

archive10 · Aug 16, 2017

Sat1969 said:
I am using an Emitor Satlook lite as a meter for signal quality.

I assume you have reprogrammed the Emitor to a more up-to-date Sat list?
The default one is many years out-of-date, and does not reflect that many transponders use DVB-S2, which the SatLook Lite does not support...

RimaNTSS · Aug 16, 2017

Sat1969 said:
I am using a channel master 90cm and have motorised it to obtain 30 west through to 42 east. However, I am struggling to get 45 and 46 east.

I am using an Emitor Satlook lite as a meter for signal quality.

Does not your Emitor has spectrum analyzer? Use it to see where to stop your polar mount. Bu, most likely, polar mount is not tuned properly.
Did not you want to get bigger dish? ;) I still offer upgrade of your CM 0.9m to 1.2m. You just pay shipment (something around 40 quids) and you get nice Channel Master 1.2m with INOX LNB-holder :rolleyes:

Sat1969 · Aug 16, 2017

st1 said:
I assume you have reprogrammed the Emitor to a more up-to-date Sat list?
The default one is many years out-of-date, and does not reflect that many transponders use DVB-S2, which the SatLook Lite does not support...

Yes, I have manually updated the satellite meter to reflect DVB-S channels only...

Sat1969 · Aug 16, 2017

RimaNTSS said:
Does not your Emitor has spectrum analyzer? Use it to see where to stop your polar mount. Bu, most likely, polar mount is not tuned properly.
Did not you want to get bigger dish? ;) I still offer upgrade of your CM 0.9m to 1.2m. You just pay shipment (something around 40 quids) and you get nice Channel Master 1.2m with INOX LNB-holder

Emitor has spectrum analyser but how do I know when to stop the polar mount ?

Bigger dish is not always good as I would need permission from the local authorities...

RimaNTSS · Aug 17, 2017

Sat1969 said:
Emitor has spectrum analyser but how do I know when to stop the polar mount ?

I have Satlook Emitor G2 and find spectrum function very useful to find position of antenna whether it is stationary or motorized. When your antenna stopped at 42*E turn on spectrum analyzer and start to turn antenna by positioner (click by click) and you will see on the screen that "hills" will start to go smaller and smaller and then disappear. After some more clicks "hills" will start to grow again and when they become at maximum height stop the polar-mount and that will be the position of 45*E.
Speaking about "local authorities"- How will they discover you installed slightly bigger antenna than you had?

Antenna is on the roof.... I do not believe that "local authorities" climb roofs looking for big dishes!

Lazarus · Aug 17, 2017

Local Authorities do, however, get information from whistleblowers eg malcontented neighbours.

william-1 · Aug 17, 2017

Sat1969 said:
Thank you for the link.
I am still struggling to lock on to anything beyond 42 east.

All other from 42 east to 30w are being received.
I believe that 90cm dish should be able to see 45, 46, 52 east...

I used a 88cm dish for satellites up to 53 east maybe this will help you.

jeallen01 · Aug 17, 2017

May I say that I think there is something not quite as clear in the first post as it could be, and that one thing is missing:
Instructions 3 to 5 say this:
3/ Motor set at the correct Elevation for your location for maximum signal at your reference satellite,
(4/ Motor at zero on the scale when aimed at your reference satellite,)
5/ Dish Declination set for maximum signal at your reference satellite,
The thing that is missing (at least for off-set dishes) is reference to the "Dish Off-set angle", i.e. the angle between the axis of the dish and the centre of beam seen by the LNB, and the relationship between that and motor elevation & dish declination, and this is discussed (probably amongst many other places) here.

And that's an area I had a lot of trouble with in setting up the steerable Triax early last year (not helped by the fact there are two separate dish declination scales on the bracket at the back - one for low latitudes and one for high latitudes!).

FWIW (after instruction 4) when doing that I used a fairly simple sat beeper to get some sort of "signal" from a sat that I was looking for, and then with the Rx fed to a monitor near the dish (all at ground level!) I began to see actual broken up images (digital is like that!) pop up, and I adjusted the dish declination by loosening the declination adjustment bolts and tipping the dish edge up and down until the image stabilized - problem is that there is only a minute angle (couple of degrees or so) of such adjustment between no signal and good signal, and then you have to be able to hold it in the best place for the latter whilst tightening up the declination adjustment bolts!

william-1 · Aug 17, 2017

If you go further down in my guide you will see that I have already covered this:-

As the scales for the motor elevation & dish declination are just a guide & not an accurate measuring scale so with the Longitude & Latitude can be altered slightly to improve your dishes ability to track the arc more accurately as with all guides you may find a slight variation on my finding will enable you to track the arc more accurately,

jeallen01 · Aug 17, 2017

william-1 said:
If you go further down in my guide you will see that I have already covered this:-

As the scales for the motor elevation & dish declination are just a guide & not an accurate measuring scale so with the Longitude & Latitude can be altered slightly to improve your dishes ability to track the arc more accurately as with all guides you may find a slight variation on my finding will enable you to track the arc more accurately,

But I don't think you mentioned the dish offset part of the equation.

william-1 · Aug 17, 2017

You are correct I have not considered this in my instructions maybe you could tell me the best way to achieve this part of the equation as I am always looking for more signal with weak feeds & tend to adjust the Lnb position & dish declination to achieve the best signals.

jeallen01 · Aug 17, 2017

william-1 said:
You are correct I have not considered this in my instructions maybe you could tell me the best way to achieve this part of the equation as I am always looking for more signal with weak feeds & tend to adjust the Lnb position & dish declination to achieve the best signals.

See that linked thread that I put in post #12, i.e. here

william-1 · Aug 17, 2017

Yes I did read it but not having a digital protractor how else will I get these readings ?

I found the string test & the small round mirrors interesting.

jeallen01 · Aug 17, 2017

william-1 said:
Yes I did read it but not having a digital protractor how else will I get these readings ?.

I've not got one either but I have a couple of the cheap (£4 or so) & simple inclinometers with magnetic bases, like the ones here - they will get you reasonably close to start with if there is a convenient place on the the dish

antrabe · Oct 6, 2019

somebody knows a manual to set up a prime focus mothorized dish?

i get to tune in the W or E but not both at the same time.

thanks

Channel Hopper · Oct 7, 2019

You have just one reflector.

Setting up a Motorised system to pull in weak signals for Feed Hunting

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