Usals problem & alignment

[TJExcalibur]

Fill a dish/bowl with water to the brim. Pack the underside to make it level all round. Still water is always level, even the Romans knew that. Then check your spirit level, it will be out. Place a piece of flat wood on the dish/bowl and use that to zero the digital level. 100% accurate.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Use a plumb line, gravity is (almost) always straight down.

 

[a33]

Your receiver works it all out for you, if using USALS.
You set everything to 0, dish, motor,

And don't forget to really check this bold part for the zero-alignment:
motor AND dish should be perfectly aligned with each other!
(That is part 1 of the zero-alignment.)

BTW Another way to find true south easily is with the sun, exactly at south.
I use this calculator to find the true south time for my location at a certain date ("Time when Sun Azimuth equals Satellite azimuth"): Satellite Look Angle Calculator
(set the wanted "satellite position" at your longitude)

greetz,
A33

 

[antrabe]

No success today. i have to install a wire to the pole to decline a little bit backwards. its almost plumbed.
The problem that i have is if i have tune in 19ºE fine i lost the rest to the W.
My procedure is put the motor 0 in line with the dish point to the 5W when is almost 95% tight the nuts. then i suppouse that should works.
W sat works fine but the problem is E sats that i lost most of them.

tomorrow i give another try.

There is anyway to reset the motor maybe the motor is not well and the 0 is moved.

ok i found how to reset in this way

HARDWARE RESET BY DiSEqC MOTOR 1. Cut off the power by disconnecting the coaxial cable. 2. Press and hold both EAST / WEST buttons for 5 seconds. 3. Reconnect the coaxial cable. 4. LED1 and LED2 blink for 5 seconds. 5. Then, its memory erased, the receiver rewrites the satellite table to initial one and corrects the “0”


My latitude is 37 then my dish should be 29.1?

 

[a33]

@antrabe :
As the topic of @Red alert is still going on, I suggest you start your own topic?
Otherwise two problems are entangled....

Greetz,
A33

 

[Red alert]

So pole is plum east/west see images. Motor set to 35.9 as shown in image. Strange dish elevation is 20 degrees and not 23. Any higher than 20 and i lose all signal. Dish is plumb on motor because i fixed the dish onto the motor before i attached to pole and made sure it follows the centre line of the motor pole. But getting peak signals within centre of arc and excellent signals at 13 east but dont pick anything beyond 33 east. Also 26 east signals very bad. Does this sound more like the dish elevation problem or the azimuth still not set on true south properly? Any other checks i can do? Also do you think the 90.00 degrees you can see on right of pole matches the bubble location above it? Also took photos of the side of the motor brackets

 

[antrabe]

So pole is plum east/west see images. Motor set to 35.9 as shown in image. Strange dish elevation is 20 degrees and not 23. Any higher than 20 and i lose all signal. Dish is plumb on motor because i fixed the dish onto the motor before i attached to pole and made sure it follows the centre line of the motor pole. But getting peak signals within centre of arc and excellent signals at 13 east but dont pick anything beyond 33 east. Also 26 east signals very bad. Does this sound more like the dish elevation problem or the azimuth still not set on true south properly? Any other checks i can do? Also do you think the 90.00 degrees you can see on right of pole matches the bubble location above it? Also took photos of the side of the motor brackets

I use this manual is in sapnish but you can see the examples of calculation where do you have to set up the motor manually dependig on your position. For example my satellte more to the south is 5W. I calculate the position like this:

(+5W) - (+4.84O)= 0.16 x 1.15 = 0.184 this is the value where i should set up the motor and adjust to 5W to the pick. The rest should be fine also.

 

[TJExcalibur]

It is really easy. Set the motor to zero with the dish pointing south. Set the receiver to Thor 5 @ 0.7 west, Sky News 12418 v 28000. Loosen the brackets on the pole and move the dish slightly west and you should get a signal. If not try going east when you get a signal adjust the elevation a fraction at a time. Once you get a signal fine tune it for the best. Fiddling with a level on the motor is always iffy and elevation markings on motors are only a very rough guide. If you get nothing its the elevation that is wrong, amazing how a little tweak alters it all.

 

[Red alert]

It is really easy. Set the motor to zero with the dish pointing south. Set the receiver to Thor 5 @ 0.7 west, Sky News 12418 v 28000. Loosen the brackets on the pole and move the dish slightly west and you should get a signal. If not try going east when you get a signal adjust the elevation a fraction at a time. Once you get a signal fine tune it for the best. Fiddling with a level on the motor is always iffy and elevation markings on motors are only a very rough guide. If you get nothing its the elevation that is wrong, amazing how a little tweak alters it all.

I am using a level on a motor because my north/south is 1 degree off. So using Modified motor angles and setting using inclinometer. Cant use latitude on motor. **I had signal on 1 west and peaked to about 72 % not sure how much it should be in my location** Are we saying that if i am able to peak the signal around 23 degrees on the dish elevation then thats when its peaked? And not at 20

 

[TJExcalibur]

I get 74% on 0.8 west Sky news. So 72% is good. If you tweak the elevation on 0.8 west the rest will work fine.

 

[Red alert]

I get 74% on 0.8 west Sky news. So 72% is good. If you tweak the elevation on 0.8 west the rest will work fine.

I got 72% when dish elevation was 20. Since 20 seems low, If I then start tweaking mount left/right i should get same amount of signal when dish elevation is closer to 23? Is this right?

 

[TJExcalibur]

Ignore the numbers. If you are getting 72% you may get a bit more by adjusting the elevation a fraction. That's it. you are misleading yourself by trying to obtain perfection and getting confused with angles and degrees.

 

[Red alert]

Ignore the numbers. If you are getting 72% you may get a bit more by adjusting the elevation a fraction. That's it. you are misleading yourself by trying to obtain perfection and getting confused with angles and degrees.

Ok, but im getting bad signal quality for sats beyond 23. Signal improves more on 26 east if i push dish slightly to the right or rotate lnb slightly anti clockwise. I know lnb has to be at 0 but was just testing to see what improves the signal. Raising or lowering dish on that sat doesnt improve signal

 

[jeallen01]

Ignore the numbers. If you are getting 72% you may get a bit more by adjusting the elevation a fraction. That's it. you are misleading yourself by trying to obtain perfection and getting confused with angles and degrees.

It's always worth simply grasping the feedarm just below the LNB and trying to manually raise/lower it a fraction to find out which way (if either) makes an improvement, and then adjusting the declination appropriately to aim for the same effect.

 

[jeallen01]

Ok, but im getting bad signal quality for sats beyond 23. Signal improves more on 26 east if i push dish slightly to the right or rotate lnb slightly anti clockwise. I know lnb has to be at 0 but was just testing to see what improves the signal. Raising or lowering dish on that sat doesnt improve signal

Definitely sounds like the dish is pointing a little bit too far to the East as moving it to the right (West??) will lower the beam on the Eastern part of the arc because 26E is slightly lower in the sky than 23E - and do leave the LNB skew at zero degrees or you will just get even more confused as to what is happening!

 

[sonnetpete]

Can I just affirm what others have been advising? I've set up my motorised dish (in several iterations) many times over the past 15 years or so. Apart from ensuring the mount is a plumb as possible (to 0.1 of a degree if you can) and setting the motor to the correct latitude I've only ever peaked the dish by referring to a sat meter read out. Don't try for perfection!! There is a certain amount of compromise with your results that you'll have to accept.

 

[Red alert]

Definitely sounds like the dish is pointing a little bit too far to the East as moving it to the right (West??) will lower the beam on the Eastern part of the arc because 26E is slightly lower in the sky than 23E - and do leave the LNB skew at zero degrees or you will just get even more confused as to what is happening!

Its the fine adjustments that get me. Im close but when i make fine adjustments i lose it and get confused which way to turn the mount. I should get that sat meter going better than taking the tv out. Do you make the fine adjustments on 1 west or at 0 position? I assume i need to make mm adjustments left/right

 

[Red alert]

Can I just affirm what others have been advising? I've set up my motorised dish (in several iterations) many times over the past 15 years or so. Apart from ensuring the mount is a plumb as possible (to 0.1 of a degree if you can) and setting the motor to the correct latitude I've only ever peaked the dish by referring to a sat meter read out. Don't try for perfection!! There is a certain amount of compromise with your results that you'll have to accept.

The problem is sats beyond 23 east. Not sure what is happening on western sats as i lose LOS after 5 west. For example getting 70% on 23.5 east then only 40% on 26 east , and 40% on 33 east.

 

[TJExcalibur]

This depends on which sat and transponder you are tuned too.
On 26 east I get 44% BBC Arabic HD. Sky News 50%
On 23 east I get 50% Chamber TV.
On 28 east BBC News I get 100%.
provide you are above 50% you will get a good picture.

 

[jeallen01]

Its the fine adjustments that get me. Im close but when i make fine adjustments i lose it and get confused which way to turn the mount. I should get that sat meter going better than taking the tv out. Do you make the fine adjustments on 1 west or at 0 position? I assume i need to make mm adjustments left/right

Set the motor to go to "0", and then, since Manchester is about 2.3 degrees West, I would then make fine adjustments on 0.8W (ABS-3A at 3W would be even closer to your due South but I doubt that, at least yet, you'll be getting any signals from that sat)