Advice Needed Set up my motorised dish

Mickha · Dec 4, 2017

Finding your first satellite is always tough, and is still difficult, without the right tools.
I personally prefer to use a meter, the cheap ones, £5-£10, work perfectly.

With these you instantly know if your connections are correct, as the back light comes on, and you can get a signal even if your dish is pointing at the ground, by increasing the sensitivity, turning the knob to the left.
You then get the meter to read about 5, half way, and gently adjust your dish, until you get it to go to 10, when you decrease the sensitivity, until it reads 5, adjust the dish, until it reads 10, and keep doing it until you have the strongest signal.
If using USALS, to drive your motor, you enter your Latitude, and Longitude, from your readings, 50.84N 0.26W, negative longitude readings are West.
You then ensure everything is set everything to 0, Motor, Dish, LNB, and use your reciver to drive the dish to 0.8W, which is probably best to set up on.
Once done you use your meter to help find a satellite signal, and your receiver to discover which satellite you're pointing at.
Once at this point you fine tune your dish, to track the satellite arc, but we'll discuss that after you've found 0.8W.
Please keep posting back, with your progress.

Channel Hopper · Dec 4, 2017

John Pykett said:
the strongest satellite in the uk is either 19.2e or 13e

Which UK are you talking about ?

jeallen01 · Dec 4, 2017

I agree with Mickha about the need for a cheap analogue meter - it is almost essential, especially 1st time around.

sonnetpete · Dec 4, 2017

Loquacious said:
I took the dish out, checked the level, put again the correct settings, tried to find a satellite with a satellite finder, I reset the motor and still not finding any signal in the receiver. ( the motor is working perfectly )

Do you mean the meter on the receiver or an analogue meter as has been suggested? Also can you confirm that you are getting any signal to the receiver, I.E. a strength reading but no quality or are both bars blank?

jeallen01 · Dec 4, 2017

@sonnetpete
Must be on the receiver because I don't think the OP has yet got an analogue meter.

sonnetpete · Dec 4, 2017

It's just he mentioned a 'satellite finder', which is the way they advertise an analogue meter, however you may well be right.

Loquacious · Dec 4, 2017

sonnetpete said:
Do you mean the meter on the receiver or an analogue meter as has been suggested? Also can you confirm that you are getting any signal to the receiver, I.E. a strength reading but no quality or are both bars blank?

In my receiver I have nothing.
No signal nor quality

sonnetpete · Dec 4, 2017

Loquacious said:
Nothing at all.

In that case, I'd check your cabling from receiver to motor to LNB. Normally you would get a strength reading even if you were not on a satellite...

Loquacious · Dec 4, 2017

sonnetpete said:
In that case, I'd check your cabling from receiver to motor to LNB. Normally you would get a strength reading even if you were not on a satellite...

It is a new WF 100 cable only 20 metres away and the motor is going to east , west and to centre. :rolleyes:

sonnetpete · Dec 4, 2017

Loquacious said:
It is a new WF 100 cable only 20 metres away and the motor is going to east , west and to centre.

Perhaps a photo of the set up screen of your receiver might help? I'd still be inclined to check all your connections though...or even take the motor out of circuit and connect directly to the LNB. Also, as it's a twin LNB, you could try the other output in case one has developed a fault.

Lazarus · Dec 4, 2017

Loquacious said:
It is a new WF 100 cable only 20 metres away and the motor is going to east , west and to centre.

That leaves the cable between the motor and the LNB

jeallen01 · Dec 4, 2017

Loquacious said:
In my receiver I have nothing.
No signal nor quality

It's the connectors that are typically the critical points - unless, of course, it the receiver itself that is causing the problem? Maybe you might need to look at the manual to check that you are in the correct menu to search for satellite signals?

a33 · Dec 4, 2017

It looks like you have your dish elevation scale set at about 7 degrees?
And your motor tube/motor axis has a bend in it?

Then the 7 degrees on your dish elevation scale is wrong; it should be Bend angle (usually 30/35/40 degrees) MINUS 6.74 degrees.
SG2100 has 30 degrees tilt in motor axis I believe, so in your case set the dish elevation scale to about 23.26*.

Did you do a motor Goto-0, and have motor and dish perfectly in a straight line, while setting up?

Greetz,
A33

jeallen01 · Dec 5, 2017

Another thought/question: is your receiver correctly set up with the correct parameters for a live channel on (I assume) Thor,- because it won't register anything when the dish is pointing at the satellite unless you have done that first?

OTOH, a simple analogue meter, as suggested above, doesn't need any of that info because all it does to indicate that there is a signal "somewhere" in the general band of satellite transmissions - and the stronger the signal, the higher it will read. By comparison, digital satellite receivers need to be set up with the correct parameters for a channel or they will not respond to anything at all (unlike much and obsolete older analogue receivers!).

Loquacious · Dec 6, 2017

Good Evening folks,
Tomorrow I will take my dish out and will start all over again.
Questions:
1. Do I have to reset my motor again?
2. As mention above, my receiver is from 2010 and I did a factory reset but seemed that hasn't worked. Can I reset again?
3. After going to check cables, change the output of the twin LNB, check the connectors and get a cheap analogue meter, could you guide me to put the correct elevation on both ( motor and dish ) according to my location?
4. Finally, which is the best to do? USUALS or Diseqc 2?
Here has been very wind...
Have a good night.
Cheers.

jeallen01 · Dec 6, 2017

I suggest you get the cheap meter before doing anything else

Mickha · Dec 6, 2017

Use USALS, this works automatically, working out where to move the dish, once set up, from your location, Latitude, and Longitude.
Set the motor position to 0, and LNB to 0, then connect your motor to your receiver, enter your latitude, and longitude, and use the receiver to send the motor to 0.8W, the satellite you're going to use to align your dish.
Providing your bracket is plumb, and secure, you shouldn't have too many problems.
Just connect the meter, to the LNB, it will be marked, on the meter, which conection goes to your LNB, and which to your receiver.
At this point you might want to run a cable directly from the LNB, to your receiver and find a satellite, before re-connecting your mot to the system.
Use the meter, as described above, to get the strongest possible signal, first by moving East/West, then by adjust the declination.
Try dishpointer.com, to get a rough idea where you need to point your dish.
Type in your postcode, select Intelsat 0.8W, from the satellite drop down box, then zoom in on the map and move the green icon to where you dish is positioned and check where the green line is pointing.

a33 · Dec 6, 2017

Loquacious said:
1. Do I have to reset my motor again?

That depends on where the motor goes after you give the command 'goto-0'. When it goes to exactly the zero position, then NO.
When it stops at another position, then 'manually' move it to the zero postion, and THEN reset the motor.
(The reset allways stores the 'current' position as 'zero position'.)

I wouldn't know if or why you should need a receiver factory reset? Unless you want to clean up its stored databases or so?

The motor elevation you had already correctly set, according to your photo.
You can use the values I mentioned earlier; I fed the calculator with your exact location data.

The aligning of motor and dish, and aiming at exact south, is now a very important step (as also mentioned in some earlier posts).
Then do the usals procedure as mentioned above, and find the satellite signal by a) turning the whole setup aroud the pole with little moves, to find the correct direction, and b) changing the dish elevation with little moves, to find the correct satellite beam elevation.

You first have to succeed with these steps, before you can go further.

greetz,
A33

Loquacious · Dec 10, 2017

Guys , I have done every step you suggested to do the only alternative left is to know if my receiver ( Fortec Star HD Passion Plus ) is out of date or the Transponders have changed.
It quite impossible as some have mentioned not to get any satellite signal over here in south west so could you give some advise please? Many thanks.

jeallen01 · Dec 10, 2017

Loquacious said:
Guys , I have done every step you suggested to do the only alternative left is to know if my receiver ( Fortec Star HD Passion Plus ) is out of date or the Transponders have changed.
It quite impossible as some have mentioned not to get any satellite signal over here in south west so could you give some advise please? Many thanks.

That is possible - I suggest that you look at William-1's latest list of strongest transponders for 78/80cm dishes here - then make sure, at least to start with, that you have the strongest transponder on Thor @0.8W in the list for Thor in your receiver, or, if not, then look at the manual/work out to enter that transponder into that list.

Once you have got that one in and "found it" by adjusting the dish, then recheck William-1's list and check/enter the strongest transponders on adjacent Sats to the E (say 13 & 19E) & W (say 5W) and look for those - if you can do that successfully then the dish is tracking reasonably well for a start.

Advice Needed Set up my motorised dish

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