Advice Needed Replaced LNB, still no signal quality on Box.

[rolfw]

Well yes, it can, but how to find aim for the dish then? The dish/jack motor is not at zero-position now, so aiming would be rather difficult.
I was going to suggest finding the azimuthangle for aiming the dish with help of the sun, but with such a polar mount not at the zero-position that doesn't work, alas.

Not difficult at all, the jack can be moved back and forth in the clamp if required to zero the dish, but if it is roughly in the right position, then moving the whole body around the mast and adjustiing elevation on the mount will get what you need.

However, if the receiver doesn't have a built in positioner or it doesn't work, then the jack can be moved with a 12v battery, I used a battery charger to move the one I had when the positioner broke.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Hi all,
I will try to answer all questions:

• I do indeed only want Italian so I believe the motor can be taken completely out of the equation.
• I think the dish is aligned to 13E. It was working on that alignment a few years ago and checking again online it looks like it is in the correct direction.
• My nan only wants the basic SD Rai channnels nothing fancy, at the moment she has nothing so just one channnel is better than nothing.
• About the signal meter, I thought those cheap ones were useless but I suppose if I am not even picking up one Sat then it could just tell me it is getting something rather than just noise.
• I have attatched some photos of the setup - It is very old but the cable and LNB are new atleast. I know the dish is dirty but signal should pass right through that.

The images show a Lenson Heath dish and matched polarmount.

From memory these had a set of bearings that would 'unscrew' in their housing and the dish would drop a few degrees as a result.
Not too worrying since the steel feed arm would also rust at the bend directly under the reflector, drop at almost exactly the same rate, keeping the LNB more or less on the arc until the arm rotted away completely.

Mind you I would suspect the Manhattan is probably your main culprit, I replaced lots with problems just outside warranty, though trying it out on a working Sky/Freesat syatem will provide the answer.

 

[John]

... Just an observation question, re: the support pole. Are those ty-raps that can be seen just for holding the coax down ?, is it safe to say that the support pole is well fixed and rigid so as not to move when the wind gets up a bit and therefore knackering any prior alignment effort ?

 

[NickJD]

Hi, thanks for all the replies.
I am indeed in the UK, South Wales infact.

I am going to rerun a new cable anyway but It seems odd that I do not get anything at all. If the dish is out of alignment even slightly, would I still get some 'quality'?

The motor was fed by 36v it looks like - It has been cut off for the last 10 years or so.

At the moment I am physically moving the dish - I under it is not advised but I am just trying to find any that shows some signal at all.

Thanks again.

 

[sonnetpete]

If the dish is out of alignment even slightly, would I still get some 'quality'?

That depends on your definition of 'slightly', if the dish is out of alignment by even a small amount in the vertical or horizontal plane, you probably wouldn't get a quality reading. Additionally the larger the dish, the more critical it's alignment will be.

 

[NickJD]

Hi all, I am trying to align the dish over and over again and still nothing. I would expect that while I have a live reading of signal and quality on my tv and that I am moving the dish that I should be able to see a fluctuation of signal or quality. Also I have completely replaced the connectors and cable and now I do not get any noise signal when just plugged into the sat box but when I am plugged into the LNB I get ~70% signal. which is the highest I have got.

I am repointing the LNB as I am not sure what angle that should be in (I had to replace the old one and the old one had no markings).

Should I not atleast get some sort of quality reading floating up and down when I reposition the dish?

Right now I just want to get any channel at all to just see if the setup works.

I have 10815H 27500 5/6 18V and do not know about Skew settings. The dish horizontal alignment is still what it used to be as the dish has always been set to the hotbird 13E even 20 years ago.

Thanks.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Have you tried the receiver on another satellite dish ?

 

[NickJD]

Simply no, The box did use to work on the same dish but in a different house. I have also two other boxes but without controllers, they are set up for hotbird but thats all the info I can get from them, they also produce no channels etc. If the box is responding to the new cable in terms of signal then should it not be working?

Thanks.

 

[Lazarus]

Just a thought but, as the old LNB was umpteen years old and might well have been single band and with different Local Oscillator frequency/frequencies to modern Universals, might your Receiver's LNB settings now be inappropriate for the replacement?

Please confirm the LNB settings you are using correspond to something like "Universal 9750/10600"

 

[NickJD]

Hi, Right now I have the settings of:

18v skew on
universal
22khz tone auto
hotbird 13E
searchmode auto
lnb skew -12
10815H 27500 5/6

So the new LNB I have is universal? - Also should I be on 18V or 14V.

I really should have atleast some flick up or down with signal/quality even if I move the dish in and out of alignment when I move it right?

Thanks.

 

[Mickha]

It would be a lot easier if you just got the cheap satellite meter, I mentioned earlier.
Not only is this far more sensitive, to allow you to find a signal, but it will tell you instantly, if everything is working, as if not it will not light up.
For £6-£8, and available even from some local stores, it would save you a lot of time, and effort.

 

[NickJD]

The issue I have is that I live a fair distance and am not at my grandmothers regularly so the meter has not arrived yet and when it does I do not know when I will be back to the house. I thought the cheap ebay ones would give me the same results as my box, do they read signal or what the quality level is?

Thanks.

 

[PaulR]

Signal level, not quality at all.

They also won't tell you if it's the wrong satellite, just that you've found a satellite.

 

[rolfw]

The issue I have is that I live a fair distance and am not at my grandmothers regularly so the meter has not arrived yet and when it does I do not know when I will be back to the house. I thought the cheap ebay ones would give me the same results as my box, do they read signal or what the quality level is?

Thanks.

Just signal strength, but they at least should vary as you move close to a satellite.

 

[NickJD]

Is that not what the sat box does? Becuase the sat box just stays at ~70%

 

[Mickha]

The cheap meter does help a lot, as do sites like dishpointer.com, which can help you get the rough direction, but even then it's easy to get a different satellite, like 19.2E, 10E, 9E, and others.
The first thing the meter will tell you is if your cable, LNB, and receiver, are working, as it will light up, and give a signal reagding, even if not pointing at a satellite.
You adjust the sensitivity, to give you a reading, 3-5, then gently move your dish, until it goes to 10.
You then decrease the sensitivity, on the meter, to get it back to 3-5, move your dish, to get it back to 10, then keep doing this until you get the strongest signal possible.
Once done you check your receiver to see what satellite you're on, using sites like lngsat.com.
With a meter you can have this done in minutes, whereas I've seen new satellite enthusiasts take hours, even days, just to find a satellite, let alone the correct satellite.
Don't you have a screwfix, or other store, nearby? They are slightly more expensive, than if bought online, but if you're in a hurry they're useful.

 

[Trust]

What I have got right now is, The coax cable directly connected to the LNB and other end to the sat box (Manhattan SKYLINE1000). I have redone all the connectors and even taken them off and tried putting the bare copper end into the recievers (I know its not good but for a test and the results were the same). I will be replacing the cable next week anyway but I have tested the current one for breaks and a current does run through it atleast. The dish is pretty rusted in and the bolts holding it in look pretty unmoved for a long time. I would have thought even if it was out of line slightly I should get some fluctuation of signal when connecting the LNB which I do not. The sat box I have seems to only let me switch between pre-selected satellites. I have chosen HotBIRD 1-5 (13.0E) TP35 RAI 11766MHz and no positioner or skew

Are you aware that also the shield must be connected ?
How do you connect the F connectors to the coax cable , is there connection between the outside of the connector and the cable shielding at both ends ?

 

[sonnetpete]

The box did use to work on the same dish but in a different house.

So...did you move the dish to it's current location and it has worked where it is now? By the way, if you took the LNB off the dish with the cable connected and pointed it to the ground you would still get a signal strength reading. As far as using a cheap analogue meter, I used one to align my first three motorized set ups and it would be fine for your current problem...

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Note also that continuosly moving the dish is highly unlikely to give a signal level reading on the receiver - the rceiver needs a couple of seconds to lock onto a signal before it will display a reading. The cheapo meters are almost instantaneous. So using the receiver you move it a couple of mm pause for 4 to 5 secs to check if a reading then move again - you cannot just move slowly across the arc and hope to succeed

 

[mariust5]

I think if you call someone out to have a look will save you a lot of trouble from as little as £20 just to give you an idea of what's what .