Pictures of my Dish setup. Tell me what I'm doing wrong.

[john green]

I know you said you have checked and rechecked that pole but it sure looks like it's leaning forward to me.

 

[john green]

I say take the motor off and try the dish mouted to the pole directly. Spend awhile looking for true south and other sats by hand and get a feel for where they all are.
With the motor off the pole you can check the shaft for play and tighten the bolt. Maybe it loosened up with all this work you have been doing.

 

[GMFreak8]

I know you said you have checked and rechecked that pole but it sure looks like it's leaning forward to me.

I think it's because of the angle I took the picture at. I'm getting very short spikes of up to 85 - 90 percent quality, but it goes right back down again. Gotta keep playing with it. Best yet. Hopefully it's not just a fluke with the receiver detecting the strength.

 

[GMFreak8]

I say take the motor off and try the dish mouted to the pole directly. Spend awhile looking for true south and other sats by hand and get a feel for where they all are.
With the motor off the pole you can check the shaft for play and tighten the bolt. Maybe it loosened up with all this work you have been doing.

Yeah I know. I've thought about that many times. I just got a solid signal that doesn't deviate out of the 65 - 75 signal quality range. I'm gonna see what happens. Maybe I finally got it......

 

[concord]

FYI, I just checked my MercII and I'm getting between 57-66 SQ.

 

[GMFreak8]

FYI, I just checked my MercII and I'm getting between 57-66 SQ.

On AMC 5? Which transponder?

 

[digiblur]

I don't know the history of this install but I always recommend to new FTA folks this type of order.

1. Leave the motor in the box. Mount the dish and get comfortable hitting all the strong circular birds. Hit all of them in your LOS. This will teach you the receiver scans and signal strengths for each bird.

2. Now fire up the linear KU LNB. Repeat... hit and scan a bunch of KU linear birds. Get comfortable knowing how sensitive things are and also the angle the dish points at. (Don't forget to skew your LNB since you don't have a motor)

3. Then put the motor in the mix.

Baby steps...baby steps....

 

[concord]

Here's a video of the signal quality jumping around. Does anyone have a clue as to why this would do that? I can't seem to lock onto a decent signal permanently, and this has been the best I've been able to do. It's annoying The satellite is AMC5, 12182/H/2300.

ImageShack - Hosting :: video3je8.flv

On AMC 5? Which transponder?

AMC5, 12182/H/2300

 

[GMFreak8]

Yeah I should take it down and play with it without a motor, but I'm so close it seems.

Here's my problem now. I'm getting quality of 70% on AMC5 11900/H/2170, and I'm getting about 58% on 12182/H/2300. As soon as I move to any other satellite, it doesn't pick anything up. Something has to be off, but I just can't figure out what.

 

[concord]

Once you move to another sat, say on the west of AMC5, have did you move the dish up/down left/right to see if you can get the signal? Write down what brought it in. Do the same on a sat east of AMC5. Was the adjustment for both the same or opposite? This will give you information on the arc. i.e. if they are opposite, then the pole or something is not level, etc.

 

[GMFreak8]

Once you move to another sat, say on the west of AMC5, have did you move the dish up/down left/right to see if you can get the signal? Write down what brought it in. Do the same on a sat east of AMC5. Was the adjustment for both the same or opposite? This will give you information on the arc. i.e. if they are opposite, then the pole or something is not level, etc.

Cool. Thanks for the tip. I'll try that tomorrow.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Good tips Digiblur, I recommend the same.

 

[GMFreak8]

Well I didn't get to try it today. Had to go out of town. Maybe tomorrow.