Dish1000 Aiming/Peaking Question

[dboreham]

Loosing some hair here trying to aim my new Dish1000.

The instructions say to use a peaking meter. Is this because
it's impossible to peak with a receiver, or just more convenient?
I ask because my receivers both fail to see a signal no matter
how much I play around with the aim.

I have a cheapo unpowered generic meter. Will that work
if I power the LNBF from a receiver ?

Thanks !

 

[Stargazer]

You do not need a peaking meter in order to peak the Dish1000. It just makes it more convenient. Making sure the mast/pole is plumb on all sides will make your elevation and skew numbers true. Try to tune in 119 first and make sure you have your cabling at the dish hooked up correctly as you have to hook up the 129 lnbf to one particular port on the DPP twin. Does the cheapo unpowered generic meter have a needle? Set it on 5 where there is no signal coming in and see where you have gain on the needle when it hits 119. Put it on transponder 11. The meter powers from the receiver. Do a check switch after you peak 119.

A thing that I have found when trying to peak a satellite in is that you may hear the beeping then all of a sudden you will not hear anything. STOP moving the satellite dish immediately as it may be scanning for new satellites (one of them being 129) after it found the signal.

 

[dboreham]

Thanks, more questions...

Hi, I have the cabling correct. Or at least I've tried a couple of
variations. The install doc says to disconnect the 129 lnb for
pointing and I've done that for now.

The receiver refuses to see any sats or any signal level at all.
It's as dead as a post.

The peaking meter I have has a needle. I will try that later
tonight and see what it does.

I have the mount nice and plumb : it's attached to an old C-band
post which is very solid and vertical.

One problem with aiming here is that the declination is all crazy.
I guess we have a giant iron metorite under the ground or something.
It's way out from what the USGS says we should have here (12 degrees).

So I've been working from my existing (functioning) Dish500 install
and guaging the Dish1000 azimuth relative to that.

 

[Stargazer]

You can tell if you are getting juice from the receiver to the meter if you see that the needle is in between 0 and 1 (some have a backlit light). If you are not getting juice from the receiver then you have a cabling/connector issue.

 

[dboreham]

You can tell if you are getting juice from the receiver to the meter if you see that the needle is in between 0 and 1 (some have a backlit light). If you are not getting juice from the receiver then you have a cabling/connector issue.

Thanks. Right now I have the receiver on my truck a few feet from the
dish, so no cabling problems

I just discovered another annoying issue : zip code areas are vast around
here, and it looks like the az/el/skew quoted in the Dish1000 guide for
my zip code is significantly off from reality (I checked another zip code
that is only 10 miles away and it's several degrees off for az and skew).

Is there any easy way to convert from a 'real' sat aiming position
(from one of the many web sites that will take lat/long and an
orbital location) to the aiming direction for the Dish1000 ? I'm assuming
that it's some inbetween location since it is looking at three sats.

 

[Stargazer]

Hmm, that could have something to do with it if the zipcode is off a bit. That will throw your settings off a bit. Find zipcodes for other areas around you and compare them. Give me your zip code and I will see what I get on the settings. Tell me what settings it says for you. I will compare with other zip codes around you.

 

[SimpleSimon]

OK. It seems like conditions are such that you need to do the PITA fail-safe.

Remove the DPP-Twin. Move the DP-Dual to the center (119) hole. Shoot for 119.

It's hard to say more without knowing your location. For me, it's easy to swing and hit anything - because I KNOW which birds are going to show up for any given elevation - 129 screwed me up until I knew it was there.

 

[dboreham]

Hmm, that could have something to do with it if the zipcode is off a bit. That will throw your settings off a bit. Find zipcodes for other areas around you and compare them. Give me your zip code and I will see what I get on the settings. Tell me what settings it says for you. I will compare with other zip codes around you.

ZIP is 59047.
My physical location is 45.65 110.73

 

[dboreham]

Working

OK. It seems like conditions are such that you need to do the PITA fail-safe.

Remove the DPP-Twin. Move the DP-Dual to the center (119) hole. Shoot for 119.

It's hard to say more without knowing your location. For me, it's easy to swing and hit anything - because I KNOW which birds are going to show up for any given elevation - 129 screwed me up until I knew it was there.

Ok, I think I have it aimed. Using the peaking meter was 1000 times easier.
What I didn't realize was how slow the modern receivers are at showing a
sat signal. The older box that I have was much quicker. So I was swinging
way past the signals no matter how slowly I went. The meter picked them
up no problem. Having done that I found a couple of incorrect sats but
they were useful in determining that my elevation was 2 degrees too low.
I guess gravity is not vertical here
Once I corrected that I found 119 and 110.

Time for bed I think...

 

[Stargazer]

You have to move the satellite dish slowly without making modifications to the skew at any time in order to find it. The newer boxes should be a bit quicker than the older ones unless you have a DVR then it might not read quite as fast. There are so many satellites up there that you will always find some "innocent" ones. The meter sure does help sometimes. You can use the meter to help peak the signal by turning the knob to make the needle to go back towards 5 and adjust it left and right until you get it peaked then up and down. Never adjust the skew! Do not forget to do the check switch when your done.