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SatJoe44

Last reply Sep 20, 2026 · posted in Free To Air (FTA) Discussion

Weird motor issues?

Ok I finally got a motor and up and running with a dm2800 with a 42 mm shaft.

So I set everything up and so far can go up to 105 west from my due south of 85 degrees.

OK so I am assuming I am locked in as I am hitting 97,99,101, and 105 right on with usals. In fact I dont even have to adjust sats at all with diseqc except for a very slight few bumps on 105.

Ok here are some questions that I have.

1. Can you not be locked in and still be hitting sats 20 degrees away dead on with usals?

2. It says my dish elevation should be roughly 30, but I am around 33-34 on my dish elev and still peaking usals.

3. Where exactly do you level your motor bracket? The top of the bracket? Also where do you level the bracket that clamps to the pole?

4. So I am not having any luck running usals to the eastern sats. Any suggestions how you can be dead on towards the west, but not the eastern sats?

I guess what is getting me the most is the dish elevation being 3-4 degrees higher than it suggests. My pole is perfectly level.

Thanks guys!

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SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

cyberham said:
What satellites to the east are you using to determine that you can't receive them? Give us the satellites and transponders you have tried aiming for so we can confirm if those transponders are even active. Use Lyngsat as a reference.

I use lyngsat. I see quite a few sats like 30, 53,58, 67. I hit 77, but have to move about a half degree to the west when i use usals on 77. My due south is 85. Like i said i am only cknfused because of my dish elevation. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I literally moved my dish assembly 20 times until i was at 12-13 snr on most tps on 97 and 99 and hitting florida channel at 14 and lotto at 16 to 17. The alex jones fluxes alot but i think it is more on them. I somedays hit jones at 16 and some days 10

cyberham

Sep 19, 2026

SatJoe44 said:
...I hit 77, but have to move about a half degree to the west when i use usals on 77...

This is a clue in this mystery. Once you have motored using USALS to 77W, loosen your one bracket so you can rotate the entire dish assembly to the west very slightly. Do this to peak 77W. Lock the azimuth bracket. Now adjust declination setting very slightly again to peak 77W.

Now if you motor back to 97W, it should be peaked too.

SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

cyberham said:
This is a clue in this mystery. Once you have motored using USALS to 77W, loosen your one bracket so you can rotate the entire dish assembly to the west very slightly. Do this to peak 77W. Lock the azimuth bracket. Now adjust declination setting very slightly again to peak 77W.

Now if you motor back to 97W, it should be peaked too.

Thank you. I fined tuned 77 as well as possible, to about 15.5 to 16 snr, on a 36 inch dish, and then had to make some adjustments but now hitting 79 to 105 all at max, so its an improvement. Gonna check some farther east sats now. Only thing is my usals is about a half a degree off, but I can adjust that later. Point is if I am tracking a sat 8 degrees east of my due south and then 20 west of it I am getting close. Also the elevation is closer to 31 now.

Thanks for the help. I want to be setup perfectly.

cyberham said:
This is a clue in this mystery. Once you have motored using USALS to 77W, loosen your one bracket so you can rotate the entire dish assembly to the west very slightly. Do this to peak 77W. Lock the azimuth bracket. Now adjust declination setting very slightly again to peak 77W.

Now if you motor back to 97W, it should be peaked too.

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cyberham

Sep 19, 2026

SatJoe44 said:
...I want to be setup perfectly.

It's a good attitude. If you get really close using USALS but not perfect, you can just motor a couple bumps using diseqc commands as necessary and manually store that position in a memory in the motor rather than spending more time playing with USALS.

SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

cyberham said:
It's a good attitude. If you get really close using USALS but not perfect, you can just motor a couple bumps using diseqc commands as necessary and manually store that position in a memory in the motor rather than spending more time playing with USALS.

Well got it locked in now. I just tuned in 30 west in the mid 80s on quality, though USALS drives about a degree past the sat. So I am guessing if I am getting as far east as 30 at a high signal and so far 105 w I must be close to perfectly locked in the arc.

cyberham

Sep 19, 2026

SatJoe44 said:
...I just tuned in 30 west in the mid 80s on quality...

From your location, that's about a 68 degree swing to the east from your due south. And the dish face would be pointing visually toward the ground due to 30W's elevation of just 19 degrees for you. That's about all you can expect from a motor.

To get further east, if trees allow, you need to consider inverting your dish. This is what I do to get 180E which is just 13 degrees elevation from here.

SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

cyberham said:
From your location, that's about a 68 degree swing to the east from your due south. And the dish face would be pointing visually toward the ground due to 30W's elevation of just 19 degrees for you. That's about all you can expect from a motor.

To get further east, if trees allow, you need to consider inverting your dish. This is what I do to get 180E which is just 13 degrees elevation from here.

Yeah I tried to go farther but it maxs out around 26 degrees. Lol. Oh well gonna try for the western ones now and see if the trees are indeed blocking my view.

One more thing have you noticed any outages during the day on 105? Thats a weird one for me and also montana pbs on 99. They just seem to vanish at times. Especially vkn on 105.

cyberham

Sep 19, 2026

SatJoe44 said:
...noticed any outages during the day on 105? Thats a weird one for me and also montana pbs on 99. They just seem to vanish at times. Especially vkn on 105.

105W is a weird one, agreed. I happened to just check for it maybe 30 minutes ago. Nothing. I think their transponder was temporarily off. It will likely be back later if not already. And the Veterans channel is off frequently too. Maybe it's gone altogether? A blind scan only produced data transponders earlier.

If you look further west, there isn't a lot. Other than data transponders, you'll only find signals with video/audio on 115W (maybe if you can receive the CBC radio channels but they're encrypted anyway), 117W, 123W. Nothing on Ku further west than that.

SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

cyberham said:
105W is a weird one, agreed. I happened to just check for it maybe 30 minutes ago. Nothing. I think their transponder was temporarily off. It will likely be back later if not already. And the Veterans channel is off frequently too. Maybe it's gone altogether? A blind scan only produced data transponders earlier.

If you look further west, there isn't a lot. Other than data transponders, you'll only find signals with video/audio on 115W (maybe if you can receive the CBC radio channels but they're encrypted anyway), 117W, 123W. Nothing on Ku further west than that.

Yeah i got a ton of data tps out there up to about 110. Unfortunately looks like trees got me on anything past 107. Lets see what the leaves bring when they fall. Lol

arlo said:
Looks like great progress today Joe. That's what makes these dudes so awesome.
I see worm clamps in your future. At the bottom of your dish mount clamps on the tubes they are bolted to.
Makes doing fine movements more controllable w/o the mounts sliding down due to the weight of the mount.
Sharpie marks. I went one further. Sharpie and scribe super fine lines in the ink to connect the lines.
"Perfect". Yup. Gonna' take time. Now that you're in the park, get that ball dead-knutz over the plate and *whap*...into the catchers mitt.
My danged Samsung phones are sensitive to metal using protrator/compass apps.
The dig. gauge don't care. You just have to be careful you use the same reference plane and locations when checking and making changes.

Cybes. Got me intrigued. My weak mind tells me that you're doing what I prefer. DISEqC mode. Not using "their" burned in positions where you may be off a touch. Like using a polar mount with actuator. Use encoder counts and store them in the controller.
Are you hinting that any DISEqC positional (encoder pulse counts) settings can be written to the motor memory itself? And USALS setings will be updated as well? So switching between modes after positional tweaks using DISEqC will (should be) carried over to USALS memory in the motor? I know what you're thinking. "Go get one and see for yourself". NO. I will not ax Claude or any AI <expeltive-deleted>. Haha!

SatJoe44

Sep 19, 2026

SatJoe44 said:
Yeah i got a ton of data tps out there up to about 110. Unfortunately looks like trees got me on anything past 107. Lets see what the leaves bring when they fall. Lol

Thank you! Yes I am a big samsung guy as well. Lol

cyberham

Sep 20, 2026

cyberham said:
105W is a weird one, agreed. I happened to just check for it maybe 30 minutes ago. Nothing. I think their transponder was temporarily off...

105W is back on now. Veterans channel is not.

SatJoe44

Sep 20, 2026

cyberham said:
105W is back on now. Veterans channel is not.

Yeah it was up last night, but at only 7 snr. Jones was only around 11 snr too but at times I hit it at 15 plus. Weird Sat for sure, kinda like the nbc tp on 99.2. On that sat for me to get my max on the montana, around 9, and pbs, around 12, I have to lose a bit on the NBC signal, down around 11 snr. To get 13 snr on the NBC tp I lose nearly all other signals.

SatJoe44

Sep 20, 2026

cyberham said:
105W is back on now. Veterans channel is not.

Crazy to get a strong lock on a sat looking like that. Lol. This is about to my east limit.

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cyberham

Sep 20, 2026

This is what a dish located at 63 degrees W longitude looks like when pointed at 15W. It has motored 58 degrees east of due south.

Your dish looks kind of lonely. Create a family:

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Houston Rockets

Last reply A moment ago · posted in FTA Receiver / Equipment Support

OTHER Mini Multiswitch

I just received 6 receiver 2 port mini Multiswitch and it work great, no external power need it, and you can connect 6 receiver instead of 4 on most Mini Multiswitches... If anyone is interested in where they can get one PM me....

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Titanium

Today at 2:00 PM

Have you tested using external power? Over the years, have found unpowered polarity switching to be unreliable. Especially problematic when used with DiSEqC motors or switch stacking.

Houston Rockets

Today at 2:39 PM

No I have not. I just got it the other day and it is connected to six receivers working just fine. What I do is non power mini multi-switches work best with LNBF's and with LNB's

Houston Rockets

A moment ago

It also has a IPS and a OPS switch on the side of it with a power led light showing when is on. It seems to be very nice build switch

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply 9 minutes ago · posted in Internet Television (IPTV) Discussion Forum

Hughesnet cancelling email addresses

Wasn't exactly sure where to post this. Just had a customer come in inquiring about internet. He has HughesNet and had heard good things about mine. He asked if we provided email addresses and it kinda caught me off guard. I said he should be able to keep whatever email he had been using....my sister in law is still using a BellSouth email addy and they haven't been around here for many years. He said he had gotten a letter from HughesNet stating that they had until Nov 16th to save, move, forward, whatever, their Hughesnet emails because they would lose them after that date.

I have never heard of a company simply mass-deleting email accounts (the customer still has his HughesNet service). From what I understand, in the past, the company who was ditching their email service simply sold the customer base to a company like Google.

Anyone else getting this letter. He said he would show it to me tomorrow when I go out there and set up his internet.

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Foxbat

Today at 2:37 PM

Doing a Google of the HughesNet Email notice, it seems that HughesNet has been trying to eliminate hosting emails since 2019. And with HughesNet filing Chapter 11 back in August, it would be a smart move to switch to a more stable Email provider. Even AT&T farmed out their Email to Yahoo! years ago.

SpaceX's Starlink and the Cellular 5G Home Internet solutions have pretty much relegated HughesNet and its high latency, low bandwidth Internet service to History. If Earth had shorter days, maybe a Geostationary Internet Solution might have stood a fighting chance…

dishstaller

Today at 2:57 PM

Well, I helped him set up a gmail acct....I actually wanted to see what the new process is for setting up a gmail acct since it had been years since I set mine up. Anyway, I showed him how to forward the emails he wanted to keep over.

navychop

Today at 3:16 PM

Foxbat said:
If Earth had shorter days,

Wouldn't we then die of old age sooner?

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Foxbat

Today at 3:30 PM

navychop said:
Wouldn't we then die of old age sooner?

Still the same number of years, just more Sunsets…

klang

9 minutes ago

Foxbat said:
Even AT&T farmed out their Email to Yahoo! years ago.

I still have one of those although I've been trying to wean myself off it.

Bobby

Supporting Founder Lifetime Supporter

Last reply 33 minutes ago · posted in DISH Network Support Forum

Dish 4K Event Listings (No Discussion)

This is a thread that will keep you apprised of 4K events that will be showing on Dish channel 540. Keep looking here for information.

As of today, 9-27-17, there are no scheduled events posted for the next 2 weeks. That is subject to change on a daily basis.

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Bobby

Sunday at 11:00 AM

MLB, Brewers at Dodgers, Wednesday 10-14, 5PM PDT, Channel 148-02.

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Bobby

Tuesday at 8:48 PM

MLB, Brewers at Dodgers, Thursday 10-15, 6PM PDT, Channel 148-02.

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Bobby

Tuesday at 8:50 PM

CFB, Notre Dame at BYU, Saturday 10-27, 4:30PM PDT, Channel 148-03.

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Bobby

Tuesday at 8:52 PM

NASCAR, Freeway Insurance 500, Sunday 10-18, 12PM PDT, Channel 148-04.

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Bobby

33 minutes ago

CFB, Ohio State at Indiana, Saturday 10-17, 9AM PDT, Channel 148-01.
CFB, Arizona State at Texas Tech, Saturday 10-17, 12:30PM PDT, Channel 148-01.

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Former member 209992

Last reply 48 minutes ago · posted in SatelliteGuys Support Center

Site is slooooow

For some reason, the satelliteguys.us site is loading a lot slower than usual on both Chrome on my Asus laptop and Safari on my iPhone.
I'm also seeing longer appearances of the blue bar at the top and the "3 blue bars" loading symbol.
Is anyone else also having the same problem? Thanks in advance.

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Foxbat

Today at 1:22 PM

Yeah. It's probably something going on with the MacBook as my iPhone has been pretty snappy.

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Scott Greczkowski

Today at 2:49 PM

I have been optimizing the site the past few days... and got us here now.

We are rocking now!

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Foxbat

52 minutes ago

Foxbat said:
Yeah. It's probably something going on with the MacBook as my iPhone has been pretty snappy.

I rebooted my MacBook Air and it's zipping right along. Sorry, but it was taking over 20 seconds to load pages, with the pulsing blue bars so it was munching on something.

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Scott Greczkowski

51 minutes ago

Remember folks... just like DNS... its always Foxbat.

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Foxbat

48 minutes ago

Scott Greczkowski said:
Remember folks... just like DNS... its always Foxbat.

WTF… …What the Foxbat!

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dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply Today at 3:00 PM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Man falls to his death on roller coaster at 6 Flags in GA

Can't help but wonder if a worker overlooked checking the harness. I rarely ride a roller coaster anymore but when I do I check the harness myself pretty aggressively.
Can't imagine what the son is going through.

Dad levitated and bled then fell to his death from coaster

Eyewitnesses have shared fresh details of the horrific accident that happened at Six Flags Over Georgia on Monday afternoon.

www.dailymail.com

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Jimbo

Yesterday at 11:02 PM

Back on the Goliath Roller Coaster ... I'm interested to find more details as well ...
Like where on the track did this happen (somewhere I read that it was on the climb up the top), which is impossible ...

They really need to take that ride and add at the very least, seatbelts ...

The Park is opening back up on Friday, the ride will Not be opening ... personally, I would keep it closed until different type of restraints can be designed and installed (over the winter).

I find it hard to believe that this ride is even allowed to be running with the restraints that exist at the moment, there are other rides that use the same type and they have been shut down across the country.

You got to believe that every ride has at least 2 types of restraint systems in place.

I wonder what and when we will hear from the Manufacturer ... and whatever governing bodies control these ...

Just think, this is a Major Amusement Park .... I would not have any problem getting on the Roller Coasters I have rode ...

Imagine what these County Fairs and others like them, I would not be caught Dead on one of them ... they get put up and tore down every other week, where is the safety for those rides ... No Thank You.

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Jimbo

Yesterday at 11:10 PM

Could B&M’s Patent on the “Clamshell” Ride Restraint Design Offer Clues as to What Happened on Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia?

Incredibly sad news out of Six Flags Over Georgia as it’s being reported one man was killed after being ejected from Goliath, the B&M hyper coaster. Many news outlets have posted pictures of pe…

bgtsafari.com

navychop

Yesterday at 11:17 PM

Jimbo said:
I would not be caught Dead on one of them

Yet IF you were on one, you might be caught dead.

dishstaller

Today at 10:07 AM

Jimbo said:
Could B&M’s Patent on the “Clamshell” Ride Restraint Design Offer Clues as to What Happened on Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia?

Incredibly sad news out of Six Flags Over Georgia as it’s being reported one man was killed after being ejected from Goliath, the B&M hyper coaster. Many news outlets have posted pictures of pe…

bgtsafari.com

Had no idea there were that many redundancies built into those restraints.

Jimbo

Today at 2:18 PM

dishstaller said:
Had no idea there were that many redundancies built into those restraints.

It makes sense, however, I would want more types of restraints, so if one doesn't work, the other does ... the restraints coming over the shoulder I would have expected ... with a Seat belt as last resort.

Fwiw, I inquired with what they use on Coasters at Cedar Point, various Coasters, different restraints according to what the car and track requires ...

NONE of the Coasters at CP use THAT particular system

I'm glad to see ...

dishstaller

Today at 3:00 PM

Jimbo said:
with a Seat belt as last resort.

According to the article, when you see a seat belt on a ride like this, it is basically used as a way of making sure the rider isn't too large/fat to safely ride the ride.

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Ham Radio 2.0

Today at 2:52 PM · posted in Ham Radio 2.0

Kenwood TM-D750 vs ICOM ID-5200: Don't Buy One Before Watching This!

Time for another AWESOME video from Ham Radio 2.0!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGlC_BDgwZo

Direct YouTube Link - Kenwood TM-D750 vs ICOM ID-5200: Don't Buy One Before Watching This!
Ham Radio 2.0 Website
Ham Radio 2.0 on Facebook

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TWiT Tech Podcast Network

Today at 2:32 PM · posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network

Tech News Weekly 459

Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CELCVXF_wXA

Direct YouTube Link - Tech News Weekly 459
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed

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TheRatPatrol

Last reply Today at 2:13 PM · posted in TV Shows

NCIS

Anyone else watch this show? Any guesses as to what was in the box Gibbs gave to Abby that was on her desk? It look liked it was glowing.

I also heard that someone was leaving the show at the end of this season. Any guesses as to who thats going to be?

2129 Replies · 214624 views

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TheRatPatrol

Monday at 11:11 AM

Wait, Tony is the director now? Apologies, I stopped watching a while ago.

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Jimbo

Monday at 11:47 AM

TheRatPatrol said:
Wait, Tony is the director now? Apologies, I stopped watching a while ago.

Was Gibbs still there when you quit watching ?
If so, A Lot has happened ....

It's been pretty good all along , once you get use to Gibbs being gone.

Reactions: MikeD-C05

Jimbo

Monday at 11:41 PM