Social Feed

First of all let me thank everyone there at Satelliteguys.us. You guys made my day!

I stay in a apartment and there is no LOS to south. I can't mount dish anywhere outside my "property". I installed it in my patio..finally I am on G10R with 45 TV channels and 1 radio station tuned in.

Pretty long story though, but I will go on. I had seen my 7 year nephew adjusting satellite dish to different satellites with ease.. it was 8 years ago...in a small village in India That bud of about 4 or 5 feet, must have been used for C-band. It has got a screw rod with a handle welded to it. Adjacent to that there was a ruler marked to identify position of different satellites. Surprisingly it has only one screw rod, positioned such that it takes care of inclination and azimuth. You turn the handle manually and you are on different satellites!
Thinking about all these I though it will be simple job to get FTA setup here by myself.

Now some confessions: Saw a add in cr*list for FTA system being sold for $180. Looked at lyngsat and found some channels of my interest. Went and bought the system fro $150 which had a Samsonic 30" dish, Drsat 0.5 dB universal lnbf and Traxis DBS1500 receiver. I didn't even check what I am getting and what I can do with that! Then I wanted a tripod to mount the dish. Searched in few shops and finally got it at F* Electronics for $17. Had to find out from their website that it is available with them. At first all the salesmen denied having it in the store. I had to refer to telephone call I had made to the shop before going there. Unfortunately I had not written down the SKU number while going to the shop. Then I found that the pole which came with the Dish was not suitable for tripod and made another trip to H* Depot. Put everything in place. No signal! Then google search landed me here at this site. Replies to my stupid questions made me realize that I have a set up suitable for Ku band and the channel I am looking for is in C band. For that I need a bigger dish and not possible to have that dwelling in an apt!! Even now I do not know the differences b/w all beams. That's all fine.. then I was on hunt for getting some channels from Ku band, good news.. I succeeded with your help guys.

Steps that I followed- may be useful to dumb guys like me:
Knowing that I have only Southwest and west LOS I tried to hook on to G10R. I printed out a circular chart having 2° markings and 10° lines extended longer and placed it below center pole. I did not want to struggle with a compass and as it gives wrong readings when you move close to metal objects! Then having the approximate inclination and azimuth fixed started doing the fine tuning. I am there with 31% quality level on some transponder but it is not tuning in. I had a doubt and added E*9 as another satellite. Yep, that was it..Almost all the transponders were showing a quality level varying from 31 to 49%. Trying to fine tune turned the LNB counter clockwise, boom quality level is 91%. So that was another mistake I had made. Now my receiver tuned in to 63 scrambled TV channels and 13 radio stations. But I am not sure on I am on E*9. As suggested by Pepper I should have got a message "congratulations you have a superdish pointed at 121": OK, I figured it out. The FTA frequency on E*9 12074 /V/20000 was not there in the transponders list added it. Yes, after scanning i have the message popping up!! I was on E*9.

Now moved on to G10R on Xponder manager with 11986/V/6510, which had some fluctuating quality level. Loosened the bolts a little, turned the Dish to few degrees west. Started playing with Inclination. Few minutes of struggle, I was at 61% quality level. Slowly adjusted the azimuth to get the quality level to be stable and tried moving the LNBF to peak the signal. OK, that was it.. about 65% quality level. Scanned the TP and 3 channels came up. Rest was simple. Add few frequencies from Lyngsat and scan the satellite, I am there with 45 TV Channels (3 scrambled) and 1 Radio station. It took 25 minutes to get on to G10R. I do not know if a satellite scanner would have saved some time for me. I did not use one as I was not ready to spend another 100 bucks for that. I will upload the pix somewhere and let you know if you guys are interested to see the set-up.

Iceberg, Pete, you are great. I do not know if you read the thread while we are typing Your answer is so quick. I submit and refresh the screen, your answer is ready!!
Now I am getting addicted to your site! Once I go back to India, first thing will be setting up a FTA set-up with a receiver which has got Smart / blind scan, AC3 capability , 0.3dB LNBF and a motorized dish, though the cable companies provide ~90 channels for ~$5 a month!!

Thanks again
Zero