Newbie Here Have I misunderstood what a channel update achieves?

[SoSatnaive]

I have had a TM5402HD (Mk1 type) for many years linked to a motorised 1m dish. It was originally set up purely to give my wife access to a Japanese language feed on Hotbird, but I took the opportunity to include a motorised system, albeit with no real idea how much we would use it (as it turned out, very little - it spends most of its life pointing at Hotbird!). The initial installation was straightforward, and the system has worked well, although with good line of sight to satellites limited by local obstructions to the range 4.8E to 28.0E.

I recently installed the update TM5402HD Channel List by William-1 for August 7th 2021 downloaded from this site. When I point the dish at Astra 28.0E, Hotbird 13.0E or Astra 4.8E, I get good reception of a large percentage of the FTA channels that appear on the channel list for each satellite, although a significant number of the remainder just display 'No or Bad Signal'. When I try other satellites that lie between these three, the success rate is much less, and in some cases none of the channels listed can be tuned. When I try moving the dish E and W slightly to try to improve the signal with these, there is no improvement - it looks as though I'm not pointing at a satellite. (I have tried updates from other sources over the years and had similar issues, so I don't believe there is any problem with the update itself).

My question is - why does this happen? Given that this is a very recent update, I assume the channel data is current, so I must be doing something wrong or I'm assuming that a channel update does more than is actually the case?
As far as I know, the channels that I can't tune are not of specific interest to me, and the system as it stands gives access to the channels I'm likely to use, but I would love to understand why this happens. What am I missing in my assumptions?
If anyone would be kind enough to explain or point me at an explanation, I'd be extremely grateful. Thanks.

 

[ozumo]

It sounds like your dish isn't perfectly aligned. Have a look at william-1's strongest transponder list, you should be able to receive all those listed between 4.8°E & 28.2°E:

Just Sharing This - Strongest transponders

The Strongest transponders for January 4th 2021 All active Ku band satellites from 50° east to 45° west This list was compiled by William-1 $ = encrypted TM5402HD M3 +100cm Dish+Inverto Black Ultra Lnb-Signal Quality in dB Turksat 4B @ 50° east 11196 V 2222 TürkSat Tanitim==14.7 AzerSpace-1 @...

www.satellites.co.uk

 

[SoSatnaive]

Thanks for your instant response! I'll review the alignment as you suggest. I have been assuming that since I get good signal at 28E, 13E and 4.8E, then the tracking arc must be OK - is that not the case? Is it likely to be the tracking arc that is the problem?

 

[Mickha]

You need to post some of your channel information, name, frequency, and especially the signal quality readings.
Considering, that if based within the UK, you can pick up 28.2e, and 13E, on a much smaller dish, than your 1 Metre dish, doesn't tell us if your dish is correctly aligned, but if you really get 4.8E, and 28.2E, it can't be too far off.
Can you please also post your general location, and the Latitude, and Longitude, entered into your receiver, if using USALS, to control your motor, or if you're using Diseqc 1.2 to manually assign satellite positions, to your motor.

 

[ozumo]

Thanks for your instant response! I'll review the alignment as you suggest. I have been assuming that since I get good signal at 28E, 13E and 4.8E, then the tracking arc must be OK - is that not the case? Is it likely to be the tracking arc that is the problem?

I think so. Are you using USALS or DiSEqC 1.2 to move the motor? If you're using USALS (AKA DiSEqC 1.3), when you send the dish to any of those three satellites you have good signal on, do they require any extra movements east/west in order to maximise the signal?

 

[Channel Hopper]

Post some pictures of the outside system, the reason for signal loss could be visibly apparent.

 

[SoSatnaive]

Thank you all for your help. I used william-1's transponder list and established that I could see the 3 satellites I mentioned at comparable signal quality. I then went to the satellites that are positioned variously between these 3 and realised that by tweaking east/west rather more than I'd done previously, I could often find the satellite concerned. Doing this I've found most of the ones on the list in the 28E to 4.5E range at good signal strength and quality, and can now also see satellites at 1.9E, 0.7W, 1W and even 5W (having removed some plants growing at the edge of my garden-based dish). I haven't found Eutelsat-21B, Eutelsat-3B, ABS-3A, Amos-7 or Amos3. I'm not sure why, since they fall inside the range I can now see, but I'm sure I can live without those. So, thanks to your collective help I've gone from 3 to 14 satellites and realised that a channel update is what it says and updates the channels on each satellite, but doesn't make the dish point correctly at each satellite if it wasn't doing that already. (I now think I must have known at least some of this stuff in order to successfully set the system up 10 years ago, but I've learned that 10 years is plenty of time to forget a lot when you are past 70 - apologies if I've wasted your time).

Please can I ask 2 more questions arising from the above -

1. If I save the current channel settings to usb on the TM5402HD now, will that save any changes I made in east/west tweaks to find those satellites?
2. I can see entries in the satellite list on my tuner, falling between some of the satellites, that are labelled 'Feeds' - what are they?

Again, many thanks for your helpful suggestions.

(BTW - the info you requested: I'm using DiSEqC 1.2 to move the dish, which is 90 cm, not 1m as I said initially. Google says the dish coordinates are: Latitude 52.43deg, Longitude -1.96deg)

 

[Mickha]

Negative Longitude readings = West, if you ever decide to switch to USALS.
Feeds are programs that only are broadcast at unknown times, they are literally feeds, used by broadcasters, from various satellites, some are FTA, and some use encryption.
You can find lots of news feeds, if there's something big happening, also sports feeds, if you're lucky.