Sorry to be out of touch---spent most of Monday on the road, driving and working from 6am till almost 1 in the morning. To reinforce our earlier answer--if you acquire a DSR-410 from somewhere other than Skyvision or its authorized agents, all bets are off as to whether it can be authorized for W5 programming. I tend to say that it cannot, because of the clearance requirement on its history. In some cases, you might be able to get a unit so described activated, but only after paying an extra fee to go through the procedure (this is not something that is easy and automatic), with no guarantee about positive results. IF you want a guarantee--buy the Skyvision DSR-410 units that are being offered at a very fair price, and get into the program!
Part of yesterday's work was fighting with a new installation on a DSR-410 that was not currently mapped and the dish needed alignment. Perhaps my experiences can be a source of amusement as well as educational for some of you thinking about doing a DIY installation.
First and foremost, do not try to use anything smaller than 6 feet (180 cm), and pick a dish that is mechanically stable, even if you have to locate some fender washers to beef up a few mechanical connections. This is especially true in some elevation adjusters, as well as when converting a polar mount to fixed non-motorized operation. Get everything rock tight when you are finished so that it does not become a source of failure next winter or any other uncomfortable time in the future. Minimize all use of splices--every mechanical connection is a potential accident waiting to happen...so do them properly, wrench tight, and weatherproof with electrically rated silicone grease, coax seal, tape or a combination of all three.
Finding 105 West is actually quite easy....but getting polarity aligned is tricky, and some MPEG-2 receivers may output voltages opposite that of the DSR-410 to a C-band LNBF, driving one crazy at times. I started with a very nice meter from the Applied Instruments people, and it appeared to find the desired signal in less than 30 seconds of skilled tweaking. I was using a very common C-band LNBF, adjusted to what I thought was close to the desired skew setting for 105 West in this location. Amazed that I found the signal in nothing flat, after correctly as just as quickly finding a Ku-band satellite on an offset dish a few minutes easier, the skeptic in me said to connect a Traxis DBS-3500 receiver to positively confirm a picture to ID the channel(s). It was nothing from 105 West. Visions of Anik F1R two degrees to the west appeared, with very strong signal quality readings on multiple channels. I attempted to locate the SRC-Radio Canada channel on the horizontal side of F1R with the MPEG-2 receiver, and it would not register. So I then changed the receiver to 103 West and quickly located DW-TV on the vertical side. The only known batch of signals that I had listed on 105 West were from NBC, on the horizontal side, so rather than waste my time hunting for something that would not be present, I needed a way to find horizontal. Rather than to fight with the C-band LNBF, and possibly a significant offset on the skew from where it was supposed to be...I took an old PR-1 C-band feedhorn with the motor removed and skew wheel exposed, and connected an inexpensive C-band LNB. While still on 103 West, I easily twisted that wheel and separately found the vertical side of 103 as well as some channels on horizontal. What was freaky about the horizontal was that NY Legislature would come in at one location, with nothing else, and another movement would find ION-TV (Pax) instead. Two degree spacing issues are tricky to resolve on an undersized dish, and when you have a mix of strong and weak signals on the same polarity, some may work fine and others not at all. No sign of NBC when looking for 105 on the horizontal side, and still no sign of SRC-Radio Canada on the horizontal side of 107 West.
One of the advantages of using a spectrum analyzer is that you get to identify carriers immediately, at least a pattern of strong signals. IF your LNB or LNBF is off frequency, which can sometimes happen on cheaper units, it may not be enough for a professional meter such as the Sat Buddy, Traxis 2200 or even any MPEG-2 receiver to locate something easily. So I thought a moment on how to get another opinion, without the use of the spectrum analyzer that I did not have with me. What can detect any signal without being exact on the frequency? Out came the In-Line Tuning Meter. I started on 103 West and carefully shifted the elevation down about a half a degree while shifting to the west slightly. The meter pegged and had to be reset twice by turning its sensitivity down a bit. Either I was finding a very strong Anik F1R, or it was 105 West, also a super strong satellite, even on a six foot antenna. Rather than pulling out the expensive artillery (fancy tuning meters or MPEG-2 receivers), I chose to now put the DSR-410 on line, after first hitting Options 6 7 7 8 and clearing the memory back to factory values. Once it booted up, I called up channel 204. No signal in the Options 6 4 3 mode. Go to the front of the dish and twist the wheel on my makeshift feedhorn assembly about 90 degrees. Instant green light on the console of the DSR-410 receiver, meaning we were on the proper satellite. Call up Options 6 0 5 right right to get the Diagnostics C meter, and register about 4.5 dB. Play with the dish a little more (while still on channel 204), tweaking up and down, left and right, and returning to the skew on the feedhorn. We now had a c/n reading between +5.0 and +5.1. Let the receiver map for about 15 minutes, and then call the Satellite Programming Center to have them hit a re-map command, letting the receiver stay there a few minutes to receive further information from the satellite datastream. Exit out of the program and see if we have a picture on channel 204. No problem. Time to hook up the LNBF again.
After mapping and authorization, BBC America (201) and all channels on that polarity were registering +8.0 to +8.1 dB. The opposite polarity about +7.1 dB. There appears to be about a 1 dB difference from one polarity to the other, and since this system will not fade out with pixelization until dropping to +2.0 dB, even the weakest signal has 5 dB of headroom. Not an issue with C-band, which tends to vary in tenths of a dB, not several, as compared to Ku-band when it rains.
I'm not sure how the receiver gained at least 2 dB in signal level after being authorized, but when finished, this six foot system had readings on W5 channels anywhere between +7 and +8 dB on the average. Quite acceptable for 6 foot dish.
Moral of the story is several: if you have access to a working C-band system, connect the DSR-410 to it BEFORE setting up your permanent system, and have it channel mapped and hopefully authorized BEFORE starting on the other dish.
Have several tools for metering function. The most expensive may not solve all of your problems. None of my equipment was defective; but it took the cheapest meter on hand to get me back on track, as well as a bit of horse sense about how these things work. Bottom line is that most of you should be able to get this system installed without a lot of extra help.
