Finally getting started in Cband!

[Dee_Ann]

dmx 242 is a dual output C band LNBF therefore is single with LO 5150 Mhz.

Dee-Ann , to move 2 BUD you need 2 controllers (V/G boxes), they could be conected in series like (was it crackt?) did very cleverly. 1 Vbox for say 10' BUD with odd numbered positions saved for up to 30 or 50 positions (some vboxes save 60 some 99 max positions). and then the other vbox for the 6 footer with up to 30 or 49 even numbered positions.

the small motor for 97W has to be before the switch , I mean between the switch and the receiver so the electrical current (ampere) demanded by the motor when moving wont damage the switch. Since you are using the Vbox as well I think the motor would have to be in USALS mode only (unless you use just a few DiseqC positions for the Vboxes therefore having a lot of positions to spare for the motor) .

like this, from pc card to first vbox then to second vbox then to motor on 97 west then to switch . then from every dish LNB 1 cable ( 8 cables total ) going to each input on the 8x1 switch. I have no idea if there is going to be conflict if you use an 8x1 DiseqC switch, I would imagine that the 8x1 commands are different than the Vboxes diseqC commands and that the vboxes will let them go through. I have never tried such setup.

OMG....

Well, I have no clue how to do all this so I bought like one of everything the other day.

So far, just one Gbox though, I didn't know if it could move two dishes or not. I wish I had bought two now.

I ordered some different switch type things after having read everything I could find in the forum here.

One of them is a "ecoda 22k switch", another is a "simple 22k switch" and two 3x4 switches. I have the 8way switch already in use. I bought that earlier this year, (I think. Or maybe last year. I can't remember.)

The 8way switch is set up so that each connection is "uncommitted", IE "uncommitted 1" -> "uncommitted 8"

Right now I have the PBS satellite connected to a 3x4 switch (found it in a box of junk) and then one wire comes from it into one of the switch connectors. You guys are the ones that suggested I do this.

I have another primestar dish just like the PBS one pointed at satellite 97 (for Fashion One) but because I don't yet have the second 3x4 switch I had to plug it's two wires into the 8way switch, one each on different switch connectors. It's like the horizontal is on "uncommitted 5" and the vertical is on "uncommitted 6". So one dish is taking up two connectors on the 8way. When the new 3x4 switch comes in I will duplicate what the PBS dish is setup like. That way 5 dishes use 5 connectors on the 8way rather than 6 connectors like it is now.

That will leave me 3 connectors to hook up other stuff.

What I can't grasp is how the BIG 10 foot dish will hook into all this, it, from what I understand, has TWO motors plus it will have two wires coming from the lnb. It is cband and ku band in one lnb but there are two wire connectors on it.

Looking at the instructions for the gbox (I downloaded them already) it looks like it only has a connector for one wire, cband.

My head is swimming from all this stuff.. Seriously, I have a huge migraine trying to make sense of all this. I kind of didn't know what I was doing so I just ordered a little of everything, hoping that somehow I'll get lucky and have enough of the right things to make it all work.

I read and read and read until I am too tired to read anymore and then I read some more after that..

I guess I've been trying to prove to myself that I can do this stuff when in reality, I don't understand most of it and it's really too complex for me. I really don't know why I'm doing all this, to be honest.

I think in the end I'm going to end up with a whole lot of junk I can't use.

I think I'm in waaaaaaaaay over my head now..

 

[trommy]

You're doing great.Oneday it will all start falling together and make sense.Don't get discouraged.

 

[FaT Air]

2 Gboxes run by 1 receiver, That's what I have planned when I get the 2nd 1.2M CM on a polar mount.
Receiver>>Gbox1>>Gbox2>>switch>>lnbf's. Time, I need more time.
Only problem I see is bumping E-W with receiver remote will move them both.

 

[Dee_Ann]

I don't understand about hooking the motors between the switch.

According to the directions for the little ku motor I have (not installed yet of course) and the gbox instructions I downloaded, you hook a wire from the tuner to the motor and then a wire from the motor to the lnb.

If I put the motors in the middle, what happens to the wires from the lnbs?

I attached a picture of the motor manual.

I also attached a photo of my new assistant. Maybe he can figure it out for me..

 

[Dee_Ann]

This is not going to work. I just realized this is a massively screwed up waste of time, effort and money.

I have a bunch of brand new Cband junk for sale..

 

[putney]

Sounds like you're on the right track and beating yourself down without putting what you've learned into practice.
Instead of going for the most complex setup on earth, start with one Cband and a few Ku (one 4x1 switch).
Grow it from there, all the time keeping an eye on the big picture.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Sounds like you're on the right track and beating yourself down without putting what you've learned into practice.
Instead of going for the most complex setup on earth, start with one Cband and a few Ku (one 4x1 switch).
Grow it from there, all the time keeping an eye on the big picture.

That stupid little gbox doesn't run the little motor on the lnb. The polarity changer. It would be stuck on one polarity and I could only get half the channels.

Wasted my money. Again.

This just goes to show I have no business messing with this stuff. I have no clue what I'm doing.

 

[Mikhel]

That stupid little gbox doesn't run the little motor on the lnb. The polarity changer. It would be stuck on one polarity and I could only get half the channels.

Wasted my money. Again.

This just goes to show I have no business messing with this stuff. I have no clue what I'm doing.

The GBOX is used just to move the motor on the big dish, if you have a LNB like in the following picture, to change polarities you need to move the servo of the LNB (that little blue box) and for that you need an analog receiver (like the HTS for example), for that you'd have to connect the three wires of the blue box to the analog receiver:

BUT... since you have this one you don't need an analog receiver to change polarities, your receiver (in this case your PC) changes it using voltage that sends up via the coaxial cable:

So... recaping:

a) Your GBOX will MOVE any of your dishes because you'll connect it to its motor.
b) The GBOX won't control the polarity in your PAUXIS LNB.
c) The polarity on your PAUXIS LNB will be controled by your receiver/DVB card for your PC.

=)

Take a deep breath Dee, we all have hit a rough patch while trying something new, an unexplored path if you will, but something i seldomly say to guys i've helped setting up their system: this 'game' needs lots and lots of patience.

I'm glad to read you finally are sooooooo close to setting up your C-Band system.

P.S.
Sorry if my ortography/grammar it's not so good right now, I just drank lots and lots of beer in my sister's birthday so... i'm a bit inhebriated =).

Cheers!

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, so I'm looking for an excuse not to pour gas on all this junk and throw a match to it..

First question. How do you figure out where hidden wires go?
Wires are run around inside of pipes and tubes and twisted all into rat nests and I can't make any sense of them. Do they make colored wires? It would be very, very helpful if they made these stupid wires in various colors so you can tell what goes where! Grrrrrrrrrr! Who ever thought that making them all black was a good idea, was a doofus!


Second question. Do they make plastic boxes to put all these switches and other things in? There's a plastic box with a door on it on one of the poles with the switch in it. I think it was borrowed from the house here as there seems to be a bare, unpainted spot on the wall on the side of the house here, I can see where it was painted around, that matches paint on the box on the pole. I'm pretty sure Mr. Genius liberated it from the wall to the pole. Well, it's too small to put everything in and it's falling apart. Time to put a new one that's bigger.

I have this "Zinwell SAM-3402 3x4 multi-switch" in hand. It's similar to but smaller than the one that's on the other primestar dish. The other one uses a similar switch to combine the two wires from the dish into one wire then into the 8 way switch. But the wires on the existing one are all tangled up and run through pipes and stuff. How do hook this thing up?

The lnb has two wires marked H and V. I can't tell which one is what or goes where how.


I also have a little switch looking thingie that says "Ecoda 0/22k EC-2111". I saw somewhere in some various posts you guys talking about using one of these in some of your more complex set ups.
I guess I should set this aside for awhile. I'm not ready to try to put motors up yet, I still don't have poles for the Cband dishes nor a way to put a motor on a little dish. I bought this thing as a "just in case" thing to have because I really don't know how I'm going to do this so I figured I would get one of everything and maybe get lucky and find something that works. It was cheap enough. I think it was 99 cents plus a few $ for mailing.


I gave my dad the little motor to take home and he came and measured some stuff on the back of one of the small primerstar dishes, I think it's the 75e dish. He says he can make an adapter to connect the dish to the motor. I hope so. I would love to have a ku dish on a motor so I can find the neato "golden nuggets" without having to go outside and change a dish around in the mosquitoes anymore.

It's beyond me though how this will all hook up.

I'm really not happy to learn that that little gbox thing won't work with the lnb that is cband and ku on one thing. It has a little motor on it for polarity but the gbox can't change that motor.

That means I have to use that cheap cband lnb that is C only on the big 10 foot dish. I wanted to have both C and KU on it.

I also want to have C and ku on the 6 foot dish and it seems I will have to buy an additional gbox for that dish..

I just can't understand how to hook it all up.

The instructions all say to hook an incoming wire to the box then a wire out to the lnb and that's it. But people say to put the motor before the switch. Well how can that be??!!

This all makes no sense to me and the harder I try to think on it the more confused I get and the greater the pain in my brain gets.

It looks like what I want to do is something there are no directions for.

Everything on the internet shows how to put either ONE MOTOR, ONE DISH or simply 4 dishes on a 4 way switch, period. Anything other than that is rocket science and you're on your own. How you guys figure all this out, I dunno. At least 80% of this I don't understand at all, I just get lucky every once in a while copying things I find here or in google.

Honestly, I'm an idiot here and I've bumbled my way through what I've done so far just by dumb luck. Back last year, I think it was last year, I had this silly idea that I would just put up one little dish with a motor and get rid of all the other junk out there. And before that, I just wanted to get back Fashion TV that I used to have a long time ago. Silly me. I don't know what happened or why but I got caught up in this, I guess out of boredom. Then I wanted to prove that I could do this. Then it became an obsession and now it's out of control. It's like crack. (I do not use drugs, I'm just saying..)

I'm half tempted to hook it up to my riding mower and rip it all out and drag it to the curb like I originally wanted to do.

Now I see why people get cable or the little pizza dish tv.

Maybe I need to just take a few months off.

 

[jaray]

Ahh the John Deere, what can't it do??? lol.
I wouldn't get too hung up on the g-box not being able to change polarity at the LNB. But, to simplify things...I would not even use an LNB, and instead use an LNBF (they're cheap). This way, the receiver will just switch polarity in the LNBF all on its own. They work just great and you can get them in dual C/Ku versions. Be aware though, that there is a bit of compromise to be made on signal to be able to do both on one LNBF and it might kill some C-band signal on a 6' dish. (but probably not TOO much to worry about)

I just kept things simple, I put up a 30" KU dish with motor and dual port LNB for KU band, and put up a 6' mesh dish with actuator and dual port LNBF for C-band.
When and if I have need for a second TV in the house to receive a feed from KU or C-band, I'll run a second cable to each. Simple, reliable and low maintenance.

 

[jaray]

I'll add that I use my plain ol DVB receiver (Traxis) to move the KU dish, and my V-box moves the C-band. Works flawlessly every time. 2 dishes, 2 cables..easy peasy.

 

[Mikhel]

First question. How do you figure out where hidden wires go?

There are various ways to know what cable is what, in your case since all of those are of the same colour, i'd hook a VCR on one end of a coaxial cable, then i'd go and test one by one to see which one is the cable that is receiving the video of the tape playing in the VCR, then i'd mark that coaxial with a piece of masking tape and a sharpie... and then i'd do the same with the next cable.

Of course there are different colours of cable, but most of us (or at least the ones i know) buy in bulk so everything always keeps being the same colour, altough i do like to mark my cables with something, anything would do it =).

Second question. Do they make plastic boxes to put all these switches and other things in?

Yes, there are boxes to put your switchs inside of it and there are even bigger boxes to put your boxes with switches inside of them, but if you have a lot of them maybe you'd be good to go with a little wooden cage (kinda like a doghouse) with all the switches fitted neatly inside, usually women have a better touch doing that sort of thing, more carefully, than men, we usually do it thinking everybody will know what switch does what without even asking of looking at a diagram LOL.

I have this "Zinwell SAM-3402 3x4 multi-switch" in hand. It's similar to but smaller than the one that's on the other primestar dish. The other one uses a similar switch to combine the two wires from the dish into one wire then into the 8 way switch. But the wires on the existing one are all tangled up and run through pipes and stuff. How do hook this thing up?

The lnb has two wires marked H and V. I can't tell which one is what or goes where how.

Sorry i'll have to think a bit about this so i don't end up saying something wrong LOL, with all the rain in here i've been having trouble with the internet and haven't been able to help you even a bit =).

I guess I should set this aside for awhile. I'm not ready to try to put motors up yet, I still don't have poles for the Cband dishes nor a way to put a motor on a little dish.

As a rule of thumb with all things new, try to go from simple to complex, and if the simple things seem like they are pretty hard, well, then go even simpler, you ask as many questions as you want to, there will always be someone to help you, don't worry if it seems hard at first, you'll be mastering pretty soon, i know .

I gave my dad the little motor to take home and he came and measured some stuff on the back of one of the small primerstar dishes, I think it's the 75e dish. He says he can make an adapter to connect the dish to the motor.

That'd be pretty neat Dee Ann =).

I'm really not happy to learn that that little gbox thing won't work with the lnb that is cband and ku on one thing. It has a little motor on it for polarity but the gbox can't change that motor.

The receiver will change the polarity in that voltage controlled LNB, don't worry about that, the GBOX will be pretty helpful to move any of your big dishes' motor. The one with a servo won't, unfortunately.

That means I have to use that cheap cband lnb that is C only on the big 10 foot dish. I wanted to have both C and KU on it.

The bright side is that there are a few brands of C/Ku LNBF voltage controlled (BCS621-2) that can be used with a 10 footer and will give you good readings, altough it's a pain to set up and adjust the Ku, the C band it's not that hard, but even going C band only will give you plenty of channels to choose from, like the ThisTV, FOX/NBC/ABC and family network (or something like that) at 99ºW, there are more channels at 121ºW for example, or AMG at 97ºW (it has like 3 or 4 movies each day and on weekends has cheesy B type movies presented by Mr. Lobo), if you decide to take the leap to DVB-S2 then you'll have like 30 or more RTV channels available, some with different programming, altough slightly but those can come in handy.

Oh by the way, i think i've mentioned tons of times, but at those SatMex satellites, there are a few channels with movies in english with spanish subtitles during the night (begin like at 10-11pm central time and end up at 4-5am) and sometimes national geographic/bbc programming that have so few commentaries that one doesn't even need to know what they are saying.

I also want to have C and ku on the 6 foot dish and it seems I will have to buy an additional gbox for that dish.

Yeah... =( or you could leave it parked somewhere.

The instructions all say to hook an incoming wire to the box then a wire out to the lnb and that's it. But people say to put the motor before the switch. Well how can that be??!!

it sounds weird, but i don't have much experience with little dishes motors, so, i can't help you a lot with it, sorry.

Honestly, I'm an idiot here and I've bumbled my way through what I've done so far just by dumb luck. Back last year, I think it was last year, I had this silly idea that I would just put up one little dish with a motor and get rid of all the other junk out there. And before that, I just wanted to get back Fashion TV that I used to have a long time ago. Silly me. I don't know what happened or why but I got caught up in this, I guess out of boredom. Then I wanted to prove that I could do this. Then it became an obsession and now it's out of control. It's like crack. (I do not use drugs, I'm just saying..)

It'll all make sense sooner... by the way at 97ºW there's a new fashion channel, it's not FashionTV but it's pretty similar, then again i don't know about fashions so it all looks the same to me. As soon as i get the info out of my receiver i can give you the info =).

Maybe I need to just take a few months off.

You need a bit of relax as this can get very stressing, i hope you don't desist, in the end it all pays off inmensely.

Have a nice weekend Dee Ann.

Mike

 

[Dee_Ann]

Being that I'm not even remotely close to having a Cband up I think I should set this aside for now and focus on what I do have, the little ku motor. I'm trying to go too man different directions at once and it's distressing.

I'll come back to this when it gets time to put those dishes up.

 

[trommy]

I put my KU motor set up aside to get C band but may go back to it if the weather dries up before my DMX741u arrives for the BUD.You might gain some insight and confidence by going the KU route.I'm amazed at how much you've accomplished with your inexperience.Don't give up!!G'luck

 

[Mikhel]

Being that I'm not even remotely close to having a Cband up I think I should set this aside for now and focus on what I do have, the little ku motor. I'm trying to go too man different directions at once and it's distressing.

I'll come back to this when it gets time to put those dishes up.

Most of the time i don't check this forum regularly, but when you feel ready to keep going in your hunt for C Band you can send me a PM to come and take a look at your progress Dee =).

By the way, I do agree with you, it'll be better to begin with what you have at hand, and that should be the motorized Ku, once that is done, it will be time for C, if weather permits (if i remember correctly you mentioned last year that the ground in Texas gets really messed up during rain time and winter... but can't remember if like in California/Low California, winter and rain season go hand in hand).

Cheer up!

Mike

 

[fastscirocco]

I may have found a mount for a primestar dish, if I can get it do you want it for your dish?

If you are interested PM me.

 

[Dee_Ann]

possibly. I would like to know more about it first.

I'm "out of order" for the next six weeks. Doc says I can't do anything except sit and watch tv. All my plans and projects have come to a dead stop for now.

 

[Mikhel]

possibly. I would like to know more about it first.

I'm "out of order" for the next six weeks. Doc says I can't do anything except sit and watch tv. All my plans and projects have come to a dead stop for now.

=(
Too bad... i too am trying to recuperate from a knee injury, but everything points towards a surgery in the next few days because i have not been able to put weight in it =(.

 

[Dee_Ann]

=(
Too bad... i too am trying to recuperate from a knee injury, but everything points towards a surgery in the next few days because i have not been able to put weight in it =(.

Oooo! I'm sorry to hear that..
My son had knee surgery when he was in high school and it took almost a year before things got right for him and then he was better than new.

But last year he went off like a goof and went snow skiing and fell. This time it was the other knee. So he had knee surgery about two weeks ago, they did the orthoscopic thing so it wasn't too intrusive. We're hoping he'll learn to stop showing off this time and take it easy on himself.
We won't know for 6 months or more if he will have to have another more intrusive surgery where they lay his entire knee open. OMG, I hope not!

I hope you don't have to have surgery, it's no fun and it really makes it hard to do anything after.
Get well soon!

 

[truckracer]

my mom had knee surgery and it took her a while to recover. best wishes for you to get better.