FTA newbie requesting some advise!

[cyunquer]

Hello guys!
As I said before I'm new at all FTA matters but willing to take some new challenges. I've been reading around, you know doing my homework on what these FTA deal was all about until it was time to get my hands dirty and my behind numbed

. I've already set everything up; post (plumb), dish with motor, LNBF and receiver, now, after setting latitude, longitude and azimuth I'm still getting a 45% of signal Int. and 5% of signal quality, moved it bit by bit east to west and up and down without having much result.

Questions:
1. I would like to understand better how to deal with the transponders (active or dead and where do I get this info.) and LNB freq. when trying to acquire one of these birds.
2. Is my dish elevation correct and does it vary depending on the sat I'm looking for?
3.Which satellite should I start with that has a good strong transponders?

Location Info.
Newark, NJ 07104
Latitude: 40.78°
Longitude: -74.17°

(Sadoun-Satellite Dish Look Angle Heading Calculator)
Motor Latitude: 40.8°
Declination Angle: 6.4°
Dish Elevation: 39°
Elevation: 42.9°
Azimuth (true): 180.0°
Azimuth (mag.): 193.1° using compass

The equipment:
Openbox S9 HD-PRV
RG-6 coax cable
33" Dish
Stab HH90 motor
JSC322-2 Universal KU LNBF - Twin

Okey guys, I don't want to over do it for now, although I know I have a lot more questions.
Any suggestion, guidance, instruction or help will be more than appreciated.

​

 

[sergei]

I've found KU signals to be the hardest to find so I always try for a c band signal first to setup a dish and then go for the KU. Do you a signal meter of any type to help local the signals?

 

[Tron]

For active transponders, you can check The List, which is hosted here at SatelliteGuys. Setting up a motor is very different from setting up a fixed dish.

Set the MOTOR elevation using the LATITUDE side of the motor bracket scale to your latitude. Point the motor/dish assembly to the South. Make sure your motor is at '0', then, in your receiver, set up a satellite close to due south of your location. 74W or 72W would work, as would 79W. Select USALS for motor options, then enter the latitude and longitude of your location. The receiver will move the motor to where it should be to receive the satellite you select. From there, move the entire dish/motor assembly by hand SLOWLY East to West (azimuth), and the DISH elevation SLOWLY up and down until you receive signal quality on an active transponder. If everything has been done properly, you should, at this point, be tracking the arc. You will want to make fine adjustments to azimuth and DISH elevation on far Eastern and far Western satellites until you get everything across the arc at maximum quality levels.

 

[Anole]

When you go for your first FTA setup, there are about 100 variables which all have to be perfect.
Here's one nobody seems to have mentioned.
That LNBF you chose (which no longer shows up on the Sadoun page linked) is Universal, not Standard.
Here's the first site I found with info on it.
JSC322-2 Ku Universal Twin Output 0.2dB LNB

You'll need to set your receiver for Universal LNB, or 9.75 and 10.6 GH Local Oscillator frequencies.
That may be more like: 9750 and 10600, depending on how the receiver wants it.
But you do NOT want the Standard setting of: 10750.

I'm sure this is not the only tiny error, but it's just one of those things.
Best of luck.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Try reading this (my personal help file for Ku motorized setups):

http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-mpeg2-faqs/190527-how-set-up-motorized-ku-band.html

RADAR

 

[cyunquer]

Hello guys!
First, I'm very grateful for all your comments and help!
Second, I caught my first birds this weekend.... ..... It was a real rush seeing that signal freq. spiking up from 45% to 89% and from 5% to 72% hmmm great feeling! Well, I’m happy report that I've got the 97w, 89w and strangely enough 30W. Now I’m having trouble tuning other satellites without having to fine tune every time I stop on other sat locations, questions:
1-Does the dish have to be fine tuned for every sat? And if so, won’t that disarrange</SPAN> the rest of the sat's already in sync?
2-Symbol Rates lower than a 1000 can't be marked on the receiver, only higher than 1000. Could someone explain?
3-Is there a list of sat's than can or can not be found from my location?

Well, hope everything is fine with everyone and again, thanks very much for your words of advice, take care y’all!!!

 

[Tron]

To answer your questions, once the motorized dish is correctly adjusted on the arc, no further fine tuning is necessary. Assuming you have your motor elevation correctly set on your latitude, and the dish elevation and motor assembly azimuth are adjusted for maximum signal across the arc, you're set. Just lock down all of your bolts.

I'm not sure I've ever encountered a symbol rate under 1000. That would be a very low quality signal. Symbol rates below 3000 often are not found by a blind scan, and sometimes must be entered manually.

From New Jersey, you should be able to see at least from 127W on the Western end of your arc to 15W on the Eastern end. However, not all satellites (especially the ones toward the Eastern end of the arc) beam a signal toward North America.

 

[AcWxRadar]

1-Does the dish have to be fine tuned for every sat? And if so, won’t that disarrange</SPAN> the rest of the sat's already in sync

Cyunquer,

I don't know what city you live nearest, so I will just pick Newark for an example to help explain some items for you.

There are three limitations as to how much of the satellite "field" or arc that you can use.

First, the curvature of the earth limits the maximum satellite arc that you can possibly view to approximately +/- 76° away from your site's longitude. Any satellite beyond that will be below the horizon and you just cannot see it no matter what. So, if you were in Newark, NJ with a longitude of 74°W, then with a FIXED point dish you could theoretically view satellites with orbital positions between 2°E through 150°W.

When you attach a H-H motor, you decrease the usable span of the satellite arc because the motor and mechanical brackets have physical limitations as to how far they can turn. This is approximately +/- 67°. Therefore, from Newark, NJ the maximum satellite field with a H-H motor would be from 7°W to 141°W using DiSEqC 1.2 motor positioning.

Now, if you adopt the use of USALS motor positioning, there is a software limitation within the USALS program that tightens this arc further. This limitation is aproximately +/- 60°. Therefore, from Newark, NJ your maximum satellite field would be from 14°W to 134°W.

As TRON mentioned, not all satellites beam a signal that can be received in your location. The satellite might be within your range of LOS, but if they don't project a signal your way, it doesn't do you any good to look for it.

Now to address the question of "fine tuning" the dish and motor assembly for each satellite. This depends upon what you mean by fine tuning. If you are using DiSEqC 1.2 motor positioning, you do have to LOCATE each satellite and store their position in the motor's memory. That is not exactly "fine tuning", it is actually just "locating" them on the arc.

When using USALS, you don't have to locate each individual satellite in this manner. The USALS program does this for you.

However, in either method of motor control, DiSEqC or USALS, you need to have your dish and motor assembly calibrated to the arc. Since you have achieved reception from 30.0°W and 97.0°W with fair quality signal levels, you must have your dish and motor aligned fairly well to track the arc. It may not be as optimimum as it can be yet, but you are covering a wide portion of the arc.

The other satellites in between 30 and 97 may be sparse. You should be able to acquire signals from 61.0W Amazonas, 63.1°W Telstar 14, 72.0°W AMC 6, maybe 74.0°W Horizons 2 if they are broadcasting anything (mostly sporadic feeds nowadays), 83.0°W AMC 9, 85.0°W AMC 16, 87.0°W AMC 3 and 89.0°W Galaxy 28. I think you should also be able to acquire signals from 99.0°W Galaxy 16, 101.1°W SES 1, 103.0°W AMC 1, 107.3°W Anik F1, 123.0° Galaxy 18 and 124.9°W AMC 21.

If you cannot dial in on these sats that I listed above, then you probably need to fine tune your dish and motor to the arc. But NOT to any one particualr satellite. As you pondered early on, if you try to peak the signal for one specific sat, you may degrade the signal from another satellite. You are right on there! What you need to do is start from the near center of your arc (somewhere near 74W) and work your way out towards the ends of the arc. In the guide that I posted, I paraphrase a procedure to do that.

There are probably more sats in there that you should get, I just browsed quickly through the ones that I found active right now. Other sats are either not beaming signals to you, are not broadcasting 24/7, are encrypted or are broadcasting in a different band.

RADAR