First setup - Motorised 100cm Gibertini on the South Coast

[doesitmatter]

Thank you so much for all your help in the previous months and before it goes up tomorrow, I thought I'd post my setup, in part in case people want to pile in with criticism (advice) but also so that anyone reading might get to the final stage more easily and understand a newbies process/confusion.

My home is a bungalow and there is a bungalow next to me, giving me some decent clearance of satellite arcs. I live on the South Coast. Quite literally, there is a dock at the end of my road.

I used the excellent Satellite Finder Pro to work out what sort of satellites I might miss if I mounted at just above gutter level, which I calculate a slightly higher mast would allow me to access (I recently learnt about C-Band, so this may be a consideration). I believe I could see all these if I mounted around 50cm above gutter level.


This image is of my 12" T & K brackets (bought from TLC Direct), chemically held into brick using Fischer Fis VL and some easyfit M10 studs (recommended on here, though I think only 3 brick courses down.....which may be a mistake).


In terms of location, it's just off the corner of the house and next door takes a lot of wind away, which I know is the case as there are two small fruit trees in my garden so I can see which ones gets blown the most and it's not the apple, which is a metre away from the dish. Maybe I am wrong but it seemed that nature was a good indicator of potential issues!


Then we have the 100cm dish. I had very rusty, snapped clamps that connected the Gibertini dish holder to the pole (in my case it will be a motor) so they needed to be replaced. This was done with 95mm car exhaust clamps (£4 from ebay), which are round u-bolts, not rectangular like the originals. 95mm fits perfectly though, which is good info for anyone who has a Gibertini.


I've managed to save the motors clamps (TM2600)....well, we'll see tomorrow, as one thread is being a pain.....so hopefully the motor does still work. I painted the jaws in metal paint (after wire brushing, sitting in vinegar, the wire brushing) as they were a little rusty.

Tomorrow, I will buy a scaffold pole (I think steel due to price & I saw someone say aluminium is less forgiving?) which will be 2m and that will let me rise 50cm about the gutter if I choose. The T & K's are 45cm apart.

One thing I made a mistake on were the T & K brackets. You can see an extra hole below the T, which despite some guestimates I first drilled into mortar. Also, I was too bloody accurate on the K bracket, so had to file the edge of one of the K bracket mounting points to make it fit well.
If you're new to chemical fixing (as I am), I used a magnetic spirit level to ensure the fixings were level and with chemical fixing you get 15minutes to adjust the mounting points and make sure you get it level.

Tomorrow, when it's up, I will update on how it looks/works (unless I have to make changes on peoples recommendations) and how I aligned it all. Plus some extra details about the purchase etc.

I hope this post helps someone else more than I because this forum has been a great help to make me understand what I need to consider (including that I missed the best Free to Air satellite days ), so I felt I had to give something back, if I could.

Any questions, feel free to ask. If it's some very technical, expect someone else to answer; ha!

 

[Manikm909]

exciting times! nice one.
however, you've forgotten to screw the dish on

do that before it goes up.

 

[Manikm909]

How did it go....

 

[doesitmatter]

Finally got it up after a long day searching for a scaffold pole, breaking some hacksaws and then burning my gloves with a newly purchased angle grinder.

I think I'm a little lost on the alignment.

I had Astra 2 perfectly but I moved the dish using the receiver (motorised) and then the channels went.
Satellites were on the USALS setting (it is second hand kid), so I put in my co-ordinates in the position option (Technmate 5402) but that still didnt help and I couldnt save the tweaking 'west', which got me back on track.

So I factory reset it (bad move, as the previous person had all the channels sorted) and switched to Disecq 1.2 and then I could save a position.

However, I can't get any other Satellites, so I'm thinking my elevation is incorrect on the dish and after some reading I also need to reset the motor, which I'll do tomorrow morning.

A serious learning experience but a fun one. Hopefully I can crack it before the other half comes home from her trip away.

 

[Manikm909]

Put correct usals location in STB
Select a channel on 1 west like sky news

Set motor to 0 manually. Make sure dish is in line with centre position on motor

Make sure motor angle is set to your latitude Ie 52 if London based this is a rough measure

Rotate dish And motor on pole until you are at 1 west. Adjust dish angle to get strong position on sky news. Tighten up. Send dish to 42e and check some channels and likewise 30w

Hopefully all good

Ps. Don't bother trying to peak signal at any other position other than your central position or it will knock out other sats. The key is doing it all at 1 west

 

[doesitmatter]

Thanks @Manikm909. I have read similar elsewhere but it's confidence building when someone says it to you directly (especially it being key at 1 west, in relation to other sats) and I'll be up tomorrow to get it done.

I'll then take some shots etc for you all to check out the setup and decide for yourselves how long it'll take for my house to resemble 'chartering an accountant' and sail down the road.

 

[a33]

after some reading I also need to reset the motor, which I'll do tomorrow morning.

That would only be really necessary, when the motor doesn't stop at zero, when you give a goto-0 or Goto-Ref(erence) command with your receiver.
Is that the case?

Aligning to true south is easier with USALS (and other satellites will then be found easier, too), so did you find a tutorial for setting up your motor with USALS?

Have you found/calculated the proper motor angles (motor elevation and dish declination-offset) for your latitude? And do you have an inclinometer (on your mobile phone)?

Greetz,
A33

 

[Manikm909]

i never use a guide for the dish angle - i leave everything loose on pole, with the motor (and dish) at 1 degree west - i then just peak 1w signal on sky news - for me on my1.2 - it usually equates to about 16db on sky news 1w - 16.8db on channel "24" on 42e = and 16.8db on "24h" on 30w

MAKE SURE the MOTOR IS LEVEL on pole!!!!! or you will WASTE lots of time peaking the extreme sats and one side will always be "out" if not level.

also make sure there is enough slack on the cable when it goes to the extremes.

 

[doesitmatter]

All sorted, thanks @a33 and @Manikm909.

I understand so much more about it all now, after much trial and error. I am getting good reception on many satellites but due to the closeness of my neighbour, Western sats aren't going to be fully accesible.
I spent about a day trying to get Thor but then realised I could switch the frequency range and it came through perfectly.

Had a little moment when the motor stopped working but there must have been some damage to the cable I fed through my drilled holes, meaning the LNB power wasnt coming through.

Will include a photo tomorrow but it's been great to have learnt so much about this all and hopefully I'll help some others, or be able to talk a newbie through it without the technical lingo which some of you guys have.

 

[Manikm909]

All sorted, thanks @a33 and @Manikm909.

I understand so much more about it all now, after much trial and error. I am getting good reception on many satellites but due to the closeness of my neighbour, Western sats aren't going to be fully accesible.
I spent about a day trying to get Thor but then realised I could switch the frequency range and it came through perfectly.

Had a little moment when the motor stopped working but there must have been some damage to the cable I fed through my drilled holes, meaning the LNB power wasnt coming through.

Will include a photo tomorrow but it's been great to have learnt so much about this all and hopefully I'll help some others, or be able to talk a newbie through it without the technical lingo which some of you guys have.

well done for sorting it

what did you mean about switching frequency range on Thor - were you using a transponder \ channel that wasnt active...?
any active H or V TP would have done really - thats why i mentioned Sky News - a nice strong channel to lock onto.

shame it took a day to get that. should have taken 15 mins max.

 

[doesitmatter]

Just some images from the road etc. Neighbours across the road were fine with it on the chimney, so the wall should be fine. Now to wind monitor!!

@Manikm909; on Thor, I had 60ish H and V TP settings to choose from. I assumed that where I pointed it, the first setting would just show up connections. Then in desperation, as I kept getting 7E and 5W sats at 80%% on setting 1 but never Thor, I thought I was missing something, so cycled through the different H & V settings until I saw 60% and 80% signal strength. That's when I realised I was properly noobing it all but that helped me learn some much needed info for my parents set up, as I convinced my dad to scrap Sky a month or so ago (he's retired and it's bloody expensive).

I hear you about Sky News but I assumed I had to find the sat, then tune in and as I explained above, I didnt know I was pointing at Thor at all until I changed the settings. Then all the channels came in perfectly.

I also now feel more confident to put it back up/adjust in 15minutes, if I get an issue. Plus, if it gets super windy, the dish and six screws is easy enough to just remove and at a height I can do it. Now I need to work out how to sort channels, or at least work out which ones are worth watching! I've been brushing up on my Polish already, ha.

One thing I'd say, is that square u-bolts are easier to work with in terms of adjusting brackets. So if you have rounded ones, like I had to get, they work fine but square ones may reduce the tinkering time if you're trying trying to ensure the sat is square to the motor.

 

[Manikm909]

sorry i should have said 12418 V 28000 - its easy to forget to leave out something so obvious which isnt that obvious to newbies.