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J
Last reply · posted in C-BAND Satellite Discussion
Finally got the Rebuilt and Regreased 4 wire - 8 magnet Von Weise Actuator Mounted and Installed on my 12 Ft Mesh Dish and it does work well with my V Box III. Can move it 1 pulse at a time and best of all it remembers the setting. BUT after about a week of testing & hard work I've been having some major problems.

The Problem:
Last week we have a huge gusting wind and drenching rainstorm and it knocked out my Dish Declination from 6.6 degrees up to 7.2 degrees. Still not sure how that happened since the Declination Adjustment of 6.6 degrees had been okay since March. Couldn't get any decent reception on 97.0W so I went out and reset the the Declination Setting back to what is now 57.4 - 50.6 = 6.8 degrees when I checked today. The objective for my area thanks to Linuxman's great advise is 57.18 - 50.57 = 6.61 degrees.

The problem now is I can get my true South Sat 97.0W, and 99.0W on C Band which are booming in, but as soon as I go too far East or West I lose my Signal? That is, I can get 101W, and 95.0W, with a reduced signal, but as soon as I try for 93.0W or 103.0W - I can't get anything!! I've also noticed my S Values on the Tp's are down about 5 - 10 points but the all important Q values are about the same as they were before! Could anyone advise me on what I need to do next? Any comments would be appreciated.
9 Replies · 1951 views
Corrado
The first thought that comes to mind, is the pole 100% plumb? With a 12' dish, heavy wind and rain, perhaps the dish settled in the ground slightly.

Secondly, is there any lost motion in the dish moving hardware? Any free play in the mechanism will cause the pulse count to change. Binding can cause similar problems.
J
The first thought that comes to mind, is the pole 100% plumb? With a 12' dish, heavy wind and rain, perhaps the dish settled in the ground slightly.

Secondly, is there any lost motion in the dish moving hardware? Any free play in the mechanism will cause the pulse count to change. Binding can cause similar problems.

Thanks for the comments, Corrado, Lak7, Sergi, and Gabshere. Corrado the pulse count changed only after the severe windstorm, which unbelievably also knocked out the Declination from 6.6 up to 7.2 degrees, but I got the reception quality back on 97.0W after resetting Declination again back to 6.6 degrees yesterday, ...hope I don't have to do that again since it lasted 3 months previously. Also nothing is evident re loose hardware I'll check again. Corrado the Dish is on a Tripod and I can adjust it - it reads 99.8 on the Digital Level on the Pole and 99.9 in 4 directions on the Pole Cap of the Dish, and I can easily adjust it up to 99.0. But with only 1 welded Nut & bolt, and 1 screw without a welded Nut on the other side (instead of the required 2 Screws on each side on the Pole Cap) I wonder if this could this cause a Clark Belt tracking problem?

Gabshere, I have tried that procedure of Raising and Lowering the dish at various points, which worked well on my 1 meter Dish, - but it just doesn't seem to do anything on the 12 Footer, maybe the Dish is just too big?? Sergei, I definately agree that small adjustments are the way to go, but I'm just not sure what to try next!!
L
Shouldn't the Level should read 0.0 or 90.0 vs. 99.X?

also, when you Raise / Lower dish elevation, try bumping Left / Right a few clicks.
J
Shouldn't the Level should read 0.0 or 90.0 vs. 99.X?

also, when you Raise / Lower dish elevation, try bumping Left / Right a few clicks.

Thanks Lak7, I'll readjust Plum to 99.0 in all 4 directions and see if it helps. Also I did quickly notice after adjusting the Dish that bumping with the V Box III Left / Right a bit helps, and as you mentioned that is a great feature on the V Box III that I previously never had when I had to use the 12VDC Battery Charger.
L
0.0 or 90.0 (not 99.0) is Plumb / Level.
J
0.0 or 90.0 (not 99.0) is Plumb / Level.

Lak7 your absolutely correct, on rechecking the readings were 89.9 on the Pole Cap and 89.8 on the Dish Pole, thanks.
Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68657 Replies · 2680157 views
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sdfntx
I Care About Detroit - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
gms49ers
It's Easy - Boston
R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 37 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 276 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 45 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 49 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.