Unable to pickup 101w

[joshua18]

Curious what transponder you are trying to get on 101W?

MeTV

 

[cyberham]

MeTV

Worth the effort. I get it most of the time by local OTA.

 

[joshua18]

Worth the effort. I get it most of the time by local OTA.

I can’t recieve it OTA in my location because the towers are too far away

 

[joshua18]

Get a level. Make sure the pole is 100% plumb. Dirt moves. Look at sidewalks.

 

[joshua18]

I don't know as of yet. There's a LOT of things that must be perfect, in order to do so. Please understand that the c-band signal is about the size of a PENCIL width. You MUST BE dead-on to do so. It's NOT the same thing as aiming a tv antenna just "sort-of" and getting some signal.

Give use some really GOOD photos of the dish MOUNT on the back. The azimuth and declination adjustments, etc. EVERYTHING. The more photos you can give us, the better for us to figure it out.

 

[arlo]

Oh hell. You live in Portville?
Buy me a beer at Crazy Eddies and maybe I can help.
Your pole is off kilter. Without it being plumb the only thing we can hope for is 1 or 2 satellites.
Then again your motor isn't hooked up.
It will have to be treated like an az/el mount.
So in the pic here. The blue line represents the elevation angle.
It would be the same as laying a straight board vertically across the dish face.
Time to head to WW Smiths or Harbor Freight for a digital angle gauge.
After you get the dish azimuth twisted around to where you're supposed to.
Then adjust the lnbf skew angle.

Ballpark. I guess the next thing is to slowly turn the dish on it's axis back and forth and raise/lower the elevation in small increments until you snag a signal. About the best we can do.
Can you pull the motor and turn the actuator screw shaft inside of it? It's just a single bolt where the motor housing meets the actuator tube shaft.

 

[joshua18]

I

Oh hell. You live in Portville?
Buy me a beer at Crazy Eddies and maybe I can help.
Your pole is off kilter. Without it being plumb the only thing we can hope for is 1 or 2 satellites.
Then again your motor isn't hooked up.
It will have to be treated like an az/el mount.
So in the pic here. The blue line represents the elevation angle.
It would be the same as laying a straight board vertically across the dish face.
Time to head to WW Smiths or Harbor Freight for a digital angle gauge.
After you get the dish azimuth twisted around to where you're supposed to.
Then adjust the lnbf skew angle.

Ballpark. I guess the next thing is to slowly turn the dish on it's axis back and forth and raise/lower the elevation in small increments until you snag a signal. About the best we can do.
Can you pull the motor and turn the actuator screw shaft inside of it? It's just a single bolt where the motor housing meets the actuator tube shaft.

I am able to do that

 

[joshua18]

Oh hell. You live in Portville?
Buy me a beer at Crazy Eddies and maybe I can help.
Your pole is off kilter. Without it being plumb the only thing we can hope for is 1 or 2 satellites.
Then again your motor isn't hooked up.
It will have to be treated like an az/el mount.
So in the pic here. The blue line represents the elevation angle.
It would be the same as laying a straight board vertically across the dish face.
Time to head to WW Smiths or Harbor Freight for a digital angle gauge.
After you get the dish azimuth twisted around to where you're supposed to.
Then adjust the lnbf skew angle.

Ballpark. I guess the next thing is to slowly turn the dish on it's axis back and forth and raise/lower the elevation in small increments until you snag a signal. About the best we can do.
Can you pull the motor and turn the actuator screw shaft inside of it? It's just a single bolt where the motor housing meets the actuator tube shaft.

If you can help that’s great

 

[primestar31]

I don’t know exactly where the dish was before I messed with it and I’m only trying to get one satellite which is 101w and I’m using a dish pointer app to do so

Look at the pole, right at where the mount and bolts are. They likely indented the metal when tightened up. Find those indents, (unscrew one bolt completely, and look through the hole to find the indents) and put the mount right on them, and retighten the bolts. Then, use your level and find some way to straighten the pole again. Maybe some stakes in the ground around the pole, and guy wires with turnbuckles to FORCE it back straight.

Or, dig around the pole down about a foot or so, and push the pole over until it's level, then fill that dig hole up with cement! Brace the pole temporarily with some 2x4's for 5 days or so, until the cement sets up hard. Check level over and over until it's PERFECT! Do not settle for "it's good enough".

Oh yeah, while tightening down the mount bolts, make SURE the polar mount itself stays level! Level pole, level MOUNT. They both have to be level, and it's possible for the mount to be tightened down in a way that it's NOT level, even if the pole is fixed and level.

 

[primestar31]

As for testing your motor, take the back cover off of it, find the BLACK and RED wires going to the motor itself. Use a car battery, and give it 12 volts and see if it moves at all. You can go +12 volts to Red, and - to Black. It should work one direction. If so, reverse those wires, and the motor should move the other direction. IF you are lucky. It's likely a 36 volt motor, but 12 volts might work, albeit much slower movement.

It's likely an old potentiometer motor, which needs and ancient positioner to work with it. Or, converted to reed switch, once you confirm the motor even works.

 

[joshua18]

As for testing your motor, take the back cover off of it, find the BLACK and RED wires going to the motor itself. Use a car battery, and give it 12 volts and see if it moves at all. You can go +12 volts to Red, and - to Black. It should work one direction. If so, reverse those wires, and the motor should move the other direction. IF you are lucky. It's likely a 36 volt motor, but 12 volts might work, albeit much slower movement.

It's likely an old potentiometer motor, which needs and ancient positioner to work with it. Or, converted to reed switch, once you confirm the motor even works.

It is an old potentiometer motor because it used to have an lnbf with a servo motor

 

[a33]

For a motorized setup, non-plumbness of the pole in the direction north/south is no problem at all.
It's the non-plumbness east/west that causes problems: it reduces the range in which you can have a fit with the clarke belt.

In your photo, it isn't shown in which direction of the pole you used the spirit level. Could you use the spirit level again at east/west side of the pole, and make a photo again?

Greetz,
A33

 

[joshua18]

For a motorized setup, non-plumbness of the pole in the direction north/south is no problem at all.
It's the non-plumbness east/west that causes problems: it reduces the range in which you can have a fit with the clarke belt.

In your photo, it isn't shown in which direction of the pole you used the spirit level. Could you use the spirit level again at east/west side of the pole, and make a photo again?

Greetz,
A33

I think it was the east west side

 

[Guitar playing jimmy G]

It takes a lot of time and effort to figure things out on C Band , I've had a 10 foot dish for many years when it was analog and was easy to find satellites, now that it's digital you have to be right on the money, I learned a lot about C Band from a 86 year old man at a Ham swap in Traverse City Michigan, he said to go to your most south satellite which is 89 west at my location, starting there and work your way down, word to the wise if you are using the titanium 5 G Red it must be Set with dish facing south and 0 must be horizontal, hopefully I have helped you a little bit, be patient and good luck , Jim Gauthier KD8FHC

 

[arlo]

It will be at least a week before I could get up that way. Yeah. Like Mike says we don't know how far you moved the dish from where it initially was. But there should be rust marks to put back.
As for the pole not being plumb. I know the area good. Back in the day installers used post hole augers and I wouldn't be surprised that the pole is buried at least 4-5 feet. We have a pretty serious frost line up here.

All is true. The "right way" is to get that pole leveled up again. If that's your intention. You're going to be in for a job.
There's most probably a few bags of Quikrete poured around it. And it's going to be sturdy.

You're going to have to be crafty in engineering a way once you figure which way the pole needs to move to be level.
I don't know what your yard is like but I have some big honkin' rocks and boulders in mine.
Park the Ford and Kubota where you can ratchet strap or come-along the hell outta' the pole to pull it back ?
Shove a garden hose in as deep as you can and get the ground squishy and let it run until it does?

The motor itself. I wouldn't even waste time trying to put a battery on it to be honest. Want to look in my box-o-junk to see why? And the actuator tube itself? Probably ain't gonna' budge one bit. Again. The box will show you it's true.
Just bite the bullet and for the forty-seventh time and unbolt the motor and see if you can turn the shaft inside of the tube.
We don't live in alba-kurkee. We live in Appalachia. With wind and rain and snow and crap and corruption. Dang. You live in NYS. Land of free inspection holes in fenders and frame lightening surprise notices from even the most corrupt vehicle inspector when you still have 10 payments left. Yeah.
But it's worth a try. Grap that 30-06 shell and clench it in your teeth while you unbolt the motor with a 9/16's.
Depending on which way the pole needs to be caressed. You're going to want the dish up in the air and out of the way anyhow. Right?

For the instant gratification you could just treat the pole as a future project. That's if you intend on having a dish that moves to different satellites.
Yeah. I know. All the baby dish guys are whining "but-the-pole's-gotta'-be-lev-elllll".
It's true it should. Does it have to be for a fixed position?
If you can answer that you can find Jupiter in your yard at night standing or lying on your back making snow angels. Well then...
Your path? Tell us. Do you want to grow the corn, shuck it, get sugar and yeast, fire up the still, grab the heads and tails and sip what's in the middle? We got that I guarantee ya'. "Apple Pie"....mmmmmm.
Or head out to Allens or Eddies?

You didn't mention your receiver (maybe you did). Have a new lnbf. All you need to know is a few angles and be able to measure them accurately. Know North from South. I happen to be S.E about 40 miles or so. Depending on if you drive through Shinglehouse or Eldred. Gives us some time to plan the plan.

1) Fix the pole and actuator.
2) Grab 101W. Or 99. Or 97.

 

[joshua18]

It will be at least a week before I could get up that way. Yeah. Like Mike says we don't know how far you moved the dish from where it initially was. But there should be rust marks to put back.
As for the pole not being plumb. I know the area good. Back in the day installers used post hole augers and I wouldn't be surprised that the pole is buried at least 4-5 feet. We have a pretty serious frost line up here.

All is true. The "right way" is to get that pole leveled up again. If that's your intention. You're going to be in for a job.
There's most probably a few bags of Quikrete poured around it. And it's going to be sturdy.

You're going to have to be crafty in engineering a way once you figure which way the pole needs to move to be level.
I don't know what your yard is like but I have some big honkin' rocks and boulders in mine.
Park the Ford and Kubota where you can ratchet strap or come-along the hell outta' the pole to pull it back ?
Shove a garden hose in as deep as you can and get the ground squishy and let it run until it does?

The motor itself. I wouldn't even waste time trying to put a battery on it to be honest. Want to look in my box-o-junk to see why? And the actuator tube itself? Probably ain't gonna' budge one bit. Again. The box will show you it's true.
Just bite the bullet and for the forty-seventh time and unbolt the motor and see if you can turn the shaft inside of the tube.
We don't live in alba-kurkee. We live in Appalachia. With wind and rain and snow and crap and corruption. Dang. You live in NYS. Land of free inspection holes in fenders and frame lightening surprise notices from even the most corrupt vehicle inspector when you still have 10 payments left. Yeah.
But it's worth a try. Grap that 30-06 shell and clench it in your teeth while you unbolt the motor with a 9/16's.
Depending on which way the pole needs to be caressed. You're going to want the dish up in the air and out of the way anyhow. Right?

For the instant gratification you could just treat the pole as a future project. That's if you intend on having a dish that moves to different satellites.
Yeah. I know. All the baby dish guys are whining "but-the-pole's-gotta'-be-lev-elllll".
It's true it should. Does it have to be for a fixed position?
If you can answer that you can find Jupiter in your yard at night standing or lying on your back making snow angels. Well then...
Your path? Tell us. Do you want to grow the corn, shuck it, get sugar and yeast, fire up the still, grab the heads and tails and sip what's in the middle? We got that I guarantee ya'. "Apple Pie"....mmmmmm.
Or head out to Allens or Eddies?

You didn't mention your receiver (maybe you did). Have a new lnbf. All you need to know is a few angles and be able to measure them accurately. Know North from South. I happen to be S.E about 40 miles or so. Depending on if you drive through Shinglehouse or Eldred. Gives us some time to plan the plan.

1) Fix the pole and actuator.
2) Grab 101W. Or 99. Or 97.

The receiver is a gt media and the motor screw does move but with the motor betas old as it is like someone else said it probably uses a potentiometer and won’t work with newer equipment so it will probably have to be swapped out anyway even if it does work and I have heard of some guys picking up 99w 101w and 103w at the same time with one dish and I measured mine today and it’s a little over 9ft and how accurate is a sat finder app I’m going to get a digital angle gauge tomorrow at ww smith if they still have them

 

[arlo]

The receiver is a gt media and the motor screw does move but with the motor betas old as it is like someone else said it probably uses a potentiometer and won’t work with newer equipment so it will probably have to be swapped out anyway even if it does work and I have heard of some guys picking up 99w 101w and 103w at the same time with one dish and I measured mine today and it’s a little over 9ft and how accurate is a sat finder app I’m going to get a digital angle gauge tomorrow at ww smith if they still have them

I dislike hearsay. 4 screws would tell you for sure. Actuators worth having are expensive. As well as the controller needed to run them. Do you have a controller by the way?
Motors can be torn down and refurbed. If they aren't too far gone. Are you mechanically inclined?
You'll only know if it does have a pot by opening the cover.

C band picking up multiple sats will be impossible. I can do C & ku. Remember me ranting about the aimed directly at the center thing. I mean it. There is just not enough space to stick 2, 3 C band lnb's there.
I have a "sidecar" ku band lnbf on mine. It works pretty good. Considering that ku content is crap.

I find the sat finder apps work "pretty good". Phone compass calibrations are a pain. And the AR apps where you can use the camera and look in the sky for where sats should be "work".
They give you a pretty good idea. But really. All in all. Get that dig. gauge.
Smiths, Hazard Fraught, Home Depot. I have a Klein I use from there. My circle dirt friends just got one that measures to 0.01 degree and it was only like twenty bucks. I'm jealous now.

 

[joshua18]

I dislike hearsay. 4 screws would tell you for sure. Actuators worth having are expensive. As well as the controller needed to run them. Do you have a controller by the way?
Motors can be torn down and refurbed. If they aren't too far gone. Are you mechanically inclined?
You'll only know if it does have a pot by opening the cover.

C band picking up multiple sats will be impossible. I can do C & ku. Remember me ranting about the aimed directly at the center thing. I mean it. There is just not enough space to stick 2, 3 C band lnb's there.
I have a "sidecar" ku band lnbf on mine. It works pretty good. Considering that ku content is crap.

I find the sat finder apps work "pretty good". Phone compass calibrations are a pain. And the AR apps where you can use the camera and look in the sky for where sats should be "work".
They give you a pretty good idea. But really. All in all. Get that dig. gauge.
Smiths, Hazard Fraught, Home Depot. I have a Klein I use from there. My circle dirt friends just got one that measures to 0.01 degree and it was only like twenty bucks. I'm jealous now.

That’s the receiver that went with the old equipment

 

[joshua18]

I dislike hearsay. 4 screws would tell you for sure. Actuators worth having are expensive. As well as the controller needed to run them. Do you have a controller by the way?
Motors can be torn down and refurbed. If they aren't too far gone. Are you mechanically inclined?
You'll only know if it does have a pot by opening the cover.

C band picking up multiple sats will be impossible. I can do C & ku. Remember me ranting about the aimed directly at the center thing. I mean it. There is just not enough space to stick 2, 3 C band lnb's there.
I have a "sidecar" ku band lnbf on mine. It works pretty good. Considering that ku content is crap.

I find the sat finder apps work "pretty good". Phone compass calibrations are a pain. And the AR apps where you can use the camera and look in the sky for where sats should be "work".
They give you a pretty good idea. But really. All in all. Get that dig. gauge.
Smiths, Hazard Fraught, Home Depot. I have a Klein I use from there. My circle dirt friends just got one that measures to 0.01 degree and it was only like twenty bucks. I'm jealous now.

When would you be able to come out and help me set it up because I might need it I don’t know yet for sure though

 

[arlo]

When would you be able to come out and help me set it up because I might need it I don’t know yet for sure though

Oh it will be a week definitely. In that time you sound like an eager and smart dude.
Let's try to get you (and your dish) steered in the right direction first.
We will need to just pull that motor off the arm and put it away for the time being.
1) Make positive you have returned the dish on the pole as exact as it was before you turned it.

2) Use only the actuator screw to turn the dish in the direction that Dishpointer tells you to.

3) Have a long and straight board or something that you can put across the dish face vertically rim to rim from ground to straight up in the sky. We need that to measure and set the elevation angle.

4) Soak the dish and pole hardware with good penetrating oil. Wire brush the threads if need be. Soak them again.
Have some wrenches and long screwdriver or pry bar handy.

5) Familiarize yourself with the digital gauge. A small cube type should do just fine. And resolve to at least 0.10 degree.

6) Review the lnbf instructions so you know how to set skew angle.
We may use an alternate method and have you turn the actuator until the dish points as high in the sky as it can and then place the lnbf for 0 skew. After that, the mount geometry will take care of that.

7) And I'd suggest you prep a place to put the receiver and a monitor with hdmi inputs close to the dish with a chunk of good coax to connect the receiver/lnbf. And pray for sun and heat.