Advice Needed Set up my motorised dish

[Loquacious]

Hello Guys,

Finally I got some satellites on my Fortec HD passion plus.
However, I had to tilt the dish and with the meter I got the strong signal. I knew more or less that would be Astra 2A or Freesat . ( obviously the sat up for the motor gone )
Somehow, There was list with 19.2 E and the quality and signal was about 80% I scanned it but only the channels on the above were available . ( BBCs on so on) .
Anyway, what really tricks me , is that some old channels from 19.2E in my list were having the signals but no video nor song were there.
I tried again to set the motor and it moves to East and West but doesn't catch any signal apart from the ones above. NO THOR 08W...

Any suggestions and guidance as if the weather permits I will try to finish this job please?
Thanks a lot and best regards,
Cheers

 

[jeallen01]

Well, congrats for finally getting "something"

Regarding the "signal but no video/sound", that is actually quite normal for any (and that means many in some cases) channels where the video and audio PID values are not set correctly and that could well be a result of the receiver channel list being s..o out of date. FWIW, I really think you need to get a more up-to-date receiver with a relatively current channel list - without a current(ish) channel list, looking for channels on a digital receiver is like looking for the proverbial "needle in a haystack"

As far as the dish and motor are concerned, it seems to me that:
- If that satellite really is one of those at 19E (i.e. one of the several Astra 1 sats) when the motor is driven to "0 degrees", you have not moved the motor around the pole to the correct position - it should be pointing quite a bit further West (about 20 degrees) to get Thor at 0.8w - and, even so, because you had to lift the dish, then, as sonnetpete said earlier, the dish elevation is quite a bit too low.
- Whatever "compass" you are using (and assuming it is working correctly!) to point the motor and dish, you may not be reading /interpreting it correctly to translate that into aiming the dish at Thor at 0.8W.

 

[Loquacious]

I will try to set the motor again tomorrow.
Can use the dishpointer details?Or from the motor manual?
Cheers

 

[jeallen01]

Dishpointer gives you the overall "correct" azimuth (compass direction) and elevation - but, in simple terms, you have then to look at the motor and dish manuals to work out what that means in terms of the combination of the setting the elevation "number" (usually around "your latitude" degrees) on the scale on the motor bracket and the declination "number" (which should be found in the dish manual, but is usually around 26 degrees or so) on the scale on the dish mount on that bracket.

 

[Lazarus]

Quite.

Set Motor to your Latitude, using the Latitude scale (There is often a scale on the other side of the Motor bracket marked "Elevation" - ignore it), set the Dish bracket to 26 as a starting point, and you won't be far off.

 

[a33]

Somehow, There was list with 19.2 E and the quality and signal was about 80% I scanned it but only the channels on the above were available . ( BBCs on so on) .
Anyway, what really tricks me , is that some old channels from 19.2E in my list were having the signals but no video nor song were there.

"Signal on 19E" without matching video means absolute nothing about 19E; when you receive programs (actual video) from 28E that means you're on 28E.

Congrats with receiving anything.
For the accurate motor setup, it looks like you're back at square one?
What more suggestions do you need? You've had some skillfull suggestions throughout this topic already.

Greetz,
A33

 

[sonnetpete]

Slightly confused....did you move the motor round the pole and adjust the dish to get 28E? Or move the dish on it's own round the motor stub, then adjust the dish? Anyway, you now a rough idea where the dish elevation should be set to.

 

[Loquacious]

Yes, I had to move the motor around and the dish to get a strong noise signal ( about 10) in the anologue satellite finder meter.
Also I wonder if any of you know if I can download the transponders to transfer to my receiver as there the possibility to do updates using USB sticks.
Now, I am going to set the motor and dish accordingly to my location and finding the true south from the pole. I will catch up later with you.
Cheers

 

[jeallen01]

Whilst I don't have any info on how to get a recent sats & transponders list for your receiver, take a look at William-1's recent (7th Dec 2017) list of strongest transponders on the sats from 53E to 45W here, and then look at the receiver l and make sure that each of those sats & transponders is listed in it, or that you add these to it as detailed in the manual.

After you have done that, delete most of the other transponders on each of those sats (otherwise the receiver may run out of memory quite soon), and then you can (starting with Thor) set the motor & dish up reasonably accurately to get a few of the sats either side of Thor by setting the receiver to the strongest transponder on each one - once you have done that then the dish should track fairly accurately across the rest of the arc - but you will probably still have to "tweak" the motor bracket and dish bracket settings a little (do that GENTLY).

Finally, assuming your receiver has a "blind search" option (which ignores the already-loaded transponder lists) then use that to look for the currently active transponders and channels on each satellite you have "found" - takes a long time, but should get you pretty up-to-date lists on most of them. OTOH, as I mentioned above, you may find that the large number of transponders and channels now broadcasting may rapidly fill the receiver memory right up. (Modern receivers have much larger memories than older ones, and so that's less of a problem - HINT!)

In which case, again, delete most of the channels on each sat and, if you can, rerun the blind searches but tell the receiver to only look for free to air channels - in which case it should then ignore all the encrypted channels, which will make the newly stored lists much shorter (especially for sat positions like 13/16/19 & 28E where there are very large numbers of encrypted channels!).

 

[Loquacious]

I've just had a look in the transponders of the receiver and some in the William list are the same but a lot are not there.
I did a factory reset and I need to set up it again and put the new ones/ delete the others . Let's see how it goes.
Is better do it first or try to set up the motor/dish now first?

 

[jeallen01]

Is better do it first or try to set up the motor/dish now first?

Probably better to set up the receiver first because that will mean you should have up-to-date transponders & channels on each satellite, and so when you a get a lock on "good one" on a given satellite, then you will know more definitely that the dish is pointing at it. By doing that, quite a lot of the "uncertainty" about at which satellite the dish is pointing will be removed.

 

[a33]

... or try to set up the motor/dish now first?

I would just load a 0.8W transponder in my receiver and do the south aligning first (with using the MODIFIED angles).

After that, while moving your motor with motorcommands, you can check with your satellite finder when you are on "a" satellite, and then do a blindscan and get all actual transponders of that satellite.
Or, when you are using USALS and you have setup the motor and dish pretty well, USALS will give you a lock on satellites pretty soon.
Or does your receiver not have USALS?

greetz,
A33

 

[Mickha]

You are so close, once you've learned how to locate a satellite, and found one, you just need to scan in some channels then use Lyngsat, or Kingofsat, to identify which satellite you're on.
The important thing is to have 0, on your motor, aligned to your Longitude position, for tracking the satellite arc.
You have done this by setting everything to 0, entering your Latitude, and Longitude, into your receiver, and then moving the motor, to 0.8W, now you only need to physically align the dish on 0.8W, by moving the motor, on the pole, and adjusting the elevation.
If you were able to view a lot of BBC channels you were probably aligned to Astra 2, 28.2E, so you needed to move the dish 29 degress West, left as you face the dish, right if behind the dish, and maximize the signal, on 0.8W.
You will probably find other satellites, before getting 0.8W, but check the channels, you scan in, on kingofsat, or lyngsat, to confirmn which satellite you are aligned to:

http://en.kingofsat.net/

https://www.lyngsat.com/

 

[Loquacious]

I would just load a 0.8W transponder in my receiver and do the south aligning first (with using the MODIFIED angles).

After that, while moving your motor with motorcommands, you can check with your satellite finder when you are on "a" satellite, and then do a blindscan and get all actual transponders of that satellite.
Or, when you are using USALS and you have setup the motor and dish pretty well, USALS will give you a lock on satellites pretty soon.
Or does your receiver not have USALS?

greetz,
A33

Yes I have USUALS.
But before raining, I tried to set up.motor and dish accordingly to my location and when checking with a satellite finder meter was quite strong noise and went to 10 but when coming to check the receiver nothing in any satellite signal Thor.
In my receiver , only 3 digits number allowed to put in my longitude and latitude. There are S/N and W/S assuming it is south and north, west and east.
Stack again.

 

[Mickha]

Don't forget to decrease the sensitivity, on your meter, after it reaches 10, to maximize the signal quality.
When it reaches 10 you turn the knob, to the right, until it returns to around 5, then adjust your dish, until it reaches 10, you keep doing this until you have maximized the signal.

 

[aceb]

Try again tomorrow, set it up with the correct elevation on the motor, the pic you posted looked about right for this latitude, set USALS then drive it to .8W.
Get up there at midday and lift the dish up high on it's declination adjustment so the LNB casts a shadow on the reflector and move the whole lot round the pole till the shadow is central across the reflector.
Lock it off, start lowering the dish and watch for a signal, I'd be surprised if you don't see some movement on the meter but if not move the dish+motor very slightly east or west and try again but it won't be far out to begin with. To get a good idea of where south is you could put the details into satbeams and zoom right in to see where it should be pointing.

 

[jeallen01]

@aceb

Try again tomorrow, set it up with the correct elevation on the motor, the pic you posted looked about right for this latitude, set USALS then drive it to .8W...

I think he said earlier that he can only set the longitude to 3 digits - thus 0.8W would have to be rounded up to 1.0W.
@Loquacious
If that is true, I think this is another good reason to consider getting a much newer receiver as most of those will allow you to enter the longitude to 1 decimal place (thus Thor can be set as "0.8W") and sometimes even to 2 decimal places - certainly at least one of those that I have has the latter capability, and it can come in very handy when trying to nudge the dish "just a very little" E or W on a weak satellite.

 

[Mickha]

Why would he need to set Thor as 1W, either 0.8W, or 1W, should suffice, at this time?
I think it best that he leaves everything as it is, and then adjust his Longitude, if necessary, once he's got everything else set up, and the dish is tracking the arc.

 

[jeallen01]

Why would he need to set Thor as 1W, either 0.8W, or 1W, should suffice, at this time?
I think it best that he leaves everything as it is, and then adjust his Longitude, if necessary, once he's got everything else set up, and the dish is tracking the arc.

Earlier on I think he appeared to say that he could only set his longitude to 3 digits - thus the nearest he could set "0.8W" would actually be "1.0W" (and so on).

 

[sonnetpete]

I must have misunderstood, as I thought the longitude reference was relating to entering his location into the receiver...