Just one day after having the weird coax failure on my BUD, I decided to go on to my next project, which was to move my 90CM Fortec / SG2100 up to the roof of my garage, where it will have a better view of the sky. I had already installed the pipe I was going to mount it on, so I figured, that I'd just detach the motor from the pole in the ground, and put it on the pole on the roof, then turn the whole thing on the pole until the channel I had been watching popped in. Simple. Yeah... right.
Well, I moved the motor/dish assembly up onto the roof as planned, but I had a really hard time finding any sat. After fighting with the thing for about 3 hours, I finally found a couple sats in the tuning page of my receiver, but when I switched back to the TV page to view the channel, I lost lock. This was sort of why I was having problems finding lock, because the signal seemed to be coming and going. But THEN, I lost ALL signal, not only on the Fortec dish, but also on my fixed Primestar dish, which is fed through the same diseqC switch. Signal was ZERO, not even any baseline noise signal. Normally this happens when my diseqC switch dies, so I put in another switch. Same thing. Put in yet another switch. Same thing. Then I bypassed the switch altogether. Same thing, zero signal. THEN, I bypassed the SG2100 motor..... SIGNAL. So somehow the motor had stopped passing through the signal. I started to pull off the short coax that goes from the motor to the diseqC switch, and I noticed that the connector on the motor was loose. FOOEY, I thought.
This had happened to me once before, and is apparently a well known problem with the SG2100. Before, I was able to take the thing apart, and found that all I needed to do was unscrew the threaded part of the connector, back off the nut, then screw it in tightly, then tighten up the nut, that I could fix the problem, because there was really no wire to break off in there, it was just a contact connection. So I went out this morning in the rain, up on the roof with an umbrella, took the dish off the motor, and the motor off the pole, brought it inside, took it apart, fixed the connection, back out in the rain. Put the motor/dish back up. Came inside. ZERO signal!@$%#^@*)@*
I thought FOOEY, I should have checked to make sure it worked before I put it back. So back up the ladder in the rain. Dish off motor, motor off pole, brought it inside. Took it apart. Checked conductivity... checked out ok ????? Connected an 18V power source (Channel Master Meter), and the motor lit up, and the power was getting through to the LNB connector. So I hooked it up inside, receiver to the motor, and the LNB connection of the motor to the LNB on my fixed Primestar.
When I touched the center conductor of the coax to the LNB connector, I instantly got a lock on the receiver, however when I pushed the coax completely in, so that the ground made contact, then I LOST lock. No S/Q. HOWEVER, when I put on another coax to the LNB connector, and then connected the other end of THAT coax to the coax to the LNB via a barrel connector, THEN, I got a good lock, and I could make the motor move from position to position via the receiver while it was sitting on my lap.
It seems clear that I have a loose connection somewhere, but now that it's working, I can wiggle every connection and never lose signal. Everything seems solid.
I hate to have to move that thing back up on the roof, and find that it doesn't work again, but the darn thing works fine here in the house. This is really confusing.
Also, in the process of taking this motor apart several times, I realized that I think I have been completely wrong about how this darn motor works, and am confused about some other things relating to the motor, but I'll make a separate post about that. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out where the intermittant connection is on this motor. \
Well, I moved the motor/dish assembly up onto the roof as planned, but I had a really hard time finding any sat. After fighting with the thing for about 3 hours, I finally found a couple sats in the tuning page of my receiver, but when I switched back to the TV page to view the channel, I lost lock. This was sort of why I was having problems finding lock, because the signal seemed to be coming and going. But THEN, I lost ALL signal, not only on the Fortec dish, but also on my fixed Primestar dish, which is fed through the same diseqC switch. Signal was ZERO, not even any baseline noise signal. Normally this happens when my diseqC switch dies, so I put in another switch. Same thing. Put in yet another switch. Same thing. Then I bypassed the switch altogether. Same thing, zero signal. THEN, I bypassed the SG2100 motor..... SIGNAL. So somehow the motor had stopped passing through the signal. I started to pull off the short coax that goes from the motor to the diseqC switch, and I noticed that the connector on the motor was loose. FOOEY, I thought.
This had happened to me once before, and is apparently a well known problem with the SG2100. Before, I was able to take the thing apart, and found that all I needed to do was unscrew the threaded part of the connector, back off the nut, then screw it in tightly, then tighten up the nut, that I could fix the problem, because there was really no wire to break off in there, it was just a contact connection. So I went out this morning in the rain, up on the roof with an umbrella, took the dish off the motor, and the motor off the pole, brought it inside, took it apart, fixed the connection, back out in the rain. Put the motor/dish back up. Came inside. ZERO signal!@$%#^@*)@*
I thought FOOEY, I should have checked to make sure it worked before I put it back. So back up the ladder in the rain. Dish off motor, motor off pole, brought it inside. Took it apart. Checked conductivity... checked out ok ????? Connected an 18V power source (Channel Master Meter), and the motor lit up, and the power was getting through to the LNB connector. So I hooked it up inside, receiver to the motor, and the LNB connection of the motor to the LNB on my fixed Primestar.
When I touched the center conductor of the coax to the LNB connector, I instantly got a lock on the receiver, however when I pushed the coax completely in, so that the ground made contact, then I LOST lock. No S/Q. HOWEVER, when I put on another coax to the LNB connector, and then connected the other end of THAT coax to the coax to the LNB via a barrel connector, THEN, I got a good lock, and I could make the motor move from position to position via the receiver while it was sitting on my lap.
It seems clear that I have a loose connection somewhere, but now that it's working, I can wiggle every connection and never lose signal. Everything seems solid.
I hate to have to move that thing back up on the roof, and find that it doesn't work again, but the darn thing works fine here in the house. This is really confusing.
Also, in the process of taking this motor apart several times, I realized that I think I have been completely wrong about how this darn motor works, and am confused about some other things relating to the motor, but I'll make a separate post about that. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out where the intermittant connection is on this motor. \