Hello all.
I am new to the C band world but been in the KU world for years. I am also new to this site. So far it has been very useful and full of information and I thank you all for that.Sorry for the lengthy post.
Here is my question and the long paragraph after will give you more info on how I got there (if you choose to read it.)
After getting my dish aligned, the furthest west I can go is 133.0w hitting a mechanical limit. Actuator arm is all the way retracted. I know there are a few more further out, 135 and 137. I have about 3 inches between the actuator arm saddle bracket and the end of the outer shaft. Can I move the actuator arm closer to gain a few degrees on the dish?
(My thumb is where the outer shaft ends)
I picked up a 10 ft fiberglass dish a couple weeks ago. It is very old but seems to work.
I got the 4 inch pole in the ground and mounted the dish with some help.
I had to order a dish mover (vbox7,which is junk in my opinion) so I couldn't do any alignment until it was delivered. I got it a week ago and it didn't work right from the start. The connections on the back broke as soon as I put wires into the speaker clip jacks but I managed to make a connection. Once I was able to get power to motor, to my amazement, the dish moved to the west! Unfortunately, the button on top of the box to move it east didn't work. Luckily the remote control did work. I immediately was going to point the dish to south to begin alignment but the east movement with remote lasted about 4 clicks. So I thought the actuator arm was stuck or something or the motor was dead. I tried west and the motor worked and arm moved. Tried east again but nothing. I was looking for a reason to tear the actuator apart anyway because I was curious how it worked.
So I did. It must be really old because the videos and pictures on the web were different than what I have. Anyway I was able to remove the motor and turn the gear by hand to see if there was anything stopping the shaft from extending. Nope. The shaft, with out any effort, extended out a good 18 inches or so and retracted just as easy. I was trying to understand the read switch and it seems it is a star wheel mounted at the end the the drive gear that hits a micro switch which has 3 wires.There are no limit switches that I can see.
Anyway the arm seemed to move fine , especially for its age. I reassembled and tried again. No east movement. I decided to reverse the wires on the vbox7 and the dish now moved east only. I moved to dish so all was aligned to peak. Now I could at least do my alignment. I reversed wires again to track to the west. Got my latitude and declination set and pointed south. I do not have a dvb-s2 receiver but I have a Genpix skywalker and an old Veiwsat Xtreme. I was able to track about 11 satellites all the way down to 133.0 w. I was hoping to get a few more satellites. Vbox7 is on its way back and I am going to get one of those Titanium ASC1 when funds are available as they seem like a solid piece of equipment. Also looking into a TBS6983 pci-e card for dvb-s2 reception. Any recommendations on equipment would be appreciated. Thanks.
I am new to the C band world but been in the KU world for years. I am also new to this site. So far it has been very useful and full of information and I thank you all for that.Sorry for the lengthy post.
Here is my question and the long paragraph after will give you more info on how I got there (if you choose to read it.)
After getting my dish aligned, the furthest west I can go is 133.0w hitting a mechanical limit. Actuator arm is all the way retracted. I know there are a few more further out, 135 and 137. I have about 3 inches between the actuator arm saddle bracket and the end of the outer shaft. Can I move the actuator arm closer to gain a few degrees on the dish?
(My thumb is where the outer shaft ends)
I picked up a 10 ft fiberglass dish a couple weeks ago. It is very old but seems to work.
I got the 4 inch pole in the ground and mounted the dish with some help.
I had to order a dish mover (vbox7,which is junk in my opinion) so I couldn't do any alignment until it was delivered. I got it a week ago and it didn't work right from the start. The connections on the back broke as soon as I put wires into the speaker clip jacks but I managed to make a connection. Once I was able to get power to motor, to my amazement, the dish moved to the west! Unfortunately, the button on top of the box to move it east didn't work. Luckily the remote control did work. I immediately was going to point the dish to south to begin alignment but the east movement with remote lasted about 4 clicks. So I thought the actuator arm was stuck or something or the motor was dead. I tried west and the motor worked and arm moved. Tried east again but nothing. I was looking for a reason to tear the actuator apart anyway because I was curious how it worked.
So I did. It must be really old because the videos and pictures on the web were different than what I have. Anyway I was able to remove the motor and turn the gear by hand to see if there was anything stopping the shaft from extending. Nope. The shaft, with out any effort, extended out a good 18 inches or so and retracted just as easy. I was trying to understand the read switch and it seems it is a star wheel mounted at the end the the drive gear that hits a micro switch which has 3 wires.There are no limit switches that I can see.
Anyway the arm seemed to move fine , especially for its age. I reassembled and tried again. No east movement. I decided to reverse the wires on the vbox7 and the dish now moved east only. I moved to dish so all was aligned to peak. Now I could at least do my alignment. I reversed wires again to track to the west. Got my latitude and declination set and pointed south. I do not have a dvb-s2 receiver but I have a Genpix skywalker and an old Veiwsat Xtreme. I was able to track about 11 satellites all the way down to 133.0 w. I was hoping to get a few more satellites. Vbox7 is on its way back and I am going to get one of those Titanium ASC1 when funds are available as they seem like a solid piece of equipment. Also looking into a TBS6983 pci-e card for dvb-s2 reception. Any recommendations on equipment would be appreciated. Thanks.
to the site. Glad to have you aboard 
