Any trouble getting AMC21/125W?

[mr_rye89]

Hello there, this is my first post on the forum. I got into FTA satellite back in March so I'm pretty green yet, but have been able to successfully get 89w, 97w, 99w, 101w, 103w, 117w, but not 125w. I'm using a 39" Geosat Pro offset dish with the supplied 10750mhz LNBF and a GTmedia v7Plus receiver, I understand skew, azimuth, and altitude, but I am using one of those cheap analog beeping satellite finders. Anybody else here have trouble with that bird?

 

[KE4EST]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys mr_rye89!!!!

I have not heard of anyone having issues with that bird lately. Personally I have not tried a couple weeks. Other guys will be along later or in the morning as it is late.

 

[swyman18]

I am a newbie myself with a very similar setup. I didn’t have great expectations considering I am in Hawaii and I didn’t think I would pick up much on a 36” dish.

Regarding 125w, I am able to pull in 2 transponders, the ones with Montana PBS and the East/West main PBS feeds.

12180/V/30000 seems to be a pretty strong transponder, so I recommend using that one on your meter.

I almost gave up several times, but I finally got it. Lots of patience needed.

 

[Magic Static]

125W is a very popular satellite. Many folks have problems at first for various reasons. First, the transponders are DVBS2 not DVBS and this excludes them from many meters. Second, is the V7 receiver. While they do well for the most part I have noticed some "weird wonkiness" with my V7 when it comes to locking weaker channels. If the receiver is booted up and not on a channel it won't pick up anything even when it gets a strong signal until rebooted. You mention you know about skew, azimuth and elevation, but do you know how the dish offset and declination of a motorized mount figure into this? Having issues on the ends of the arc sometimes are a declination problem.

 

[TRG]

I have the same dish. My wife and I watched Masterpiece on PBS last night on 125W. I had a solid signal. That is not always the case on this satellite. Sometimes I wish I had a 1.2m for a little extra gain. In my experience you need to fine tune very precisely for somewhat reliable reception on 125.

 

[mr_rye89]

I had suspected my receiver because it does weird things like getting stuck on a transponder while blind scanning and things like that. I'm not using a motor/mover so I don't know anything about that. I may try pointing the dish at 125w tonight and manually adding that transponder and see what happens

 

[comfortably_numb]

Which receiver?

 

[mr_rye89]

Which receiver?

GTmedia v7 plus I think

 

[KE4EST]

manually adding that transponder and see what happens

This is what you should have been doing all along. Otherwise you are shooting in the dark.

 

[comfortably_numb]

GTmedia v7 plus I think

The reason that receiver chokes on blind scans is due to its inability to handle the large number of services in several of the audio feeds. There is an NPR one on 91 and an Orbital Media mux on 103 that come to mind. I have a GTMedia V8 nova and it chokes on both of those. There is a work-around but I can't remember at the moment.

 

[mr_rye89]

This is what you should have been doing all along. Otherwise you are shooting in the dark.

Heheh I knew there was something I was missing.....

 

[mr_rye89]

Okay I got 125W this afternoon . I just eyeballed it with the satfinder app and peaked with the analog finder.......oh and I punched in the transponder freq/symbol rate

 

[ZetaMale]

I just got my 90 cm Ku dish aligned today and I'm getting 125W just fine (8.5 to 9.5 dB C/N). I wish my C-band dish lined up this easily. But, I might just upgrade to a 1.2 meter for Ku even though there isn't much to watch on Ku.

 

[mr_rye89]

Any one notice somewhat garbled audio on the East/West HD PBS feed? I'm at 91% Signal/74% quality. I also have Montana PBS with no issues. Bad up link perhaps?