I'll take "Name that satellite" for $500 please! HELP!

[Magic Static]

Does it have to be a Pansat? ADL or Chaparral do for you?

 

[primestar31]

Does it have to be a Pansat? ADL or Chaparral do for you?

I'd prefer the Pansat feed for this application as they appear to work the best from what I read, however I could probably also use a Chaparral dual C, dual KU feed just as well. I hear the ADL's of this type aren't very good, so I don't want to bother with one of those as I need to optimize this to the max for the 7.5' dish. I also don't want to deal with a servo setup, thus why I want the dual orthomode type.

Otherwise I'll either just go with a Titanium CK1S, or use the Chaparral 11-1329-1 Dual C-Band Feed Horn I previously had on the 10 footer, & forget about KU for now.

 

[primestar31]

So, I've been scratching my head the last few days figuring out how to set the mount on the Sami, so it can go from 30W - 125W without "flop" issues. Anyway, while I was mulling this over, I suddenly thought: "That is STUPID!". "Why bother setting the big dish for a sat so low, that would cause a LOT of travel and wear, even IF I could pull it off"? Then my thought was: "Hummm, I still have the eve mount on my garage, that is bad for my Western sats because of the tall and close maple trees that way, but MAYBE it can get 30W" pointed East!! "Time for a TWO dish setup, and this one will be fixed"!

Here's what I ended up doing with a 3ABN $50 1 meter special dish, and it works perfectly!:

This is facing the BACK of the dish, and shows the "V" notch of neighbors tree's it has to beam through. The elevation for 30W at my site is only 16.6° degrees!

This one is a side view and shows just how low the dish is
pointing. Oh, and you can see the WALL of maple trees on the West side of the lot, that is the reason why I have to install the C-band dish in the North-front of my lot, 17' in from the road.

This one shows the "V" notch it's aiming through, but taken from the ground (since the dish is 14' in the air on an eve mount) See that branch in the foreground from my front yard crab-apple tree that looks like it's sticking out of place to the left middle of that pine tree? YEP, 30W is coming in from just right above that!!!

 

[primestar31]

Ok, I got some new pics. It's now Friday, 6 days after I planted and cemented the pole 4ft deep with 960lbs of cement. Pole is now repainted, and I have a yellow-colored string line strung up from the pole pointing a bearing to where my 'True South' is at this house. I installed the SAMI offset polar mount on the top of the pole, and it's leveled, and the initial modified elevation and declination settings are done.

That WALL of maple trees behind my garage, is my WEST property line border. The 3ABN dish you can see on the garage eve mount, is aimed at 30°W Hispasat, which is at 16.6° elevation at my location. The closest maple tree to the West, is about 150ft~ away from the pole, and they are tall trees. From the pole, to a bearing of about the middle of the garage roof, is where 129°W satellite is. I don't think I can get this, as the trees are just a bit too tall right there, and I can't get further back without being off my 1/2acre lot. Though I could for sure get to 121°W (because of a "notch" between two trees) with the KU dish at this same pole site, well different pole that was only a 3" with a chainlink fence corner post pipe out of the top to take the DG-380 HH motor, but right here in the same hole just 1 foot shorter.













Incidentally, those OTA tv antennas you can see on the mast pipe above the eves of the garage, the top one is a high vhf antenna pointed directly at my local channel 12, and it goes unamplified into a UVSJ joiner. The next one down is a uhf yagi antenna on a Dish 500 J pole mounted to the mast pipe with muffler clamps to get to the left of the pine tree that's also the tree that the 30W dish is pointing towards. 30W sat is about 10° to the left of where RF46 channel tower is. That's pointed at a single local station that's at RF46, and hard to get. I'm using a Join-tenna device cut for this channel. The "all-channel" input on the Join-tenna, goes to the other UHF yagi you can see, that's pointed "in-between" my local towers, and gets everything BUT channel 46. The output of the Join-tenna, goes to a Kitztech KT-200-Coax preamp and then into the uhf input of the UVSJ. I have another Join-tenna cut to another frequency sitting in a box getting ready to swap out the other one, as the present channel 46 will be changing frequencies next year due to the latest spectrum sale.

 

[Titanium]

Nice clean install!

Kitztech amps are incredible! Wish I had bought it years ago!

 

[primestar31]

Here's some more photos from today. I got the dish into the garage, and as you can see, all the lichen was cleaned off of it while it was hiding behind the dog pen so the wife wouldn't suspect anything too early. No, redoing the pole and all the work in the front yard isn't enough to make her wonder whether or not I'm up to something, such as installing a dish that's slightly more than twice the size of the ku one it's replacing. It's been raining since last night, so I dried it off with a box fan, as it'll need some paint in a few areas. There's a split rib on the bottom and torn off power coat paint because of that, where they did NOT drill the weep hole(s) that should have been done to keep caught water from freezing and splitting. I used my body hammer and a block to fix that. I removed the old Norsat lnbf that was full of wasp nests. I cleaned the scalar (which almost seems like it's made out of white porcelain, instead of steel, but it's an old-school-very thick, well made one) with a little steel wool to get off the wasp stains. I'm partial to leaving that scalar on the dish, versus using the new exceptionally thin metal one that came with the Titanium CK1S lnbf. I stringed the dish, and it came out perfect. The strings just very lightly touch in the middle.

I measured 4 spots around the dish, and the scalar is exactly in the middle and properly leveled, what a shock!!!, LOL. My laser level says it's aimed dead center. I installed my new Titanium CK1S C/KU lnbf, and set it for .38 (dish is .375) and the KU "V" probe is set exactly at 12 noon, top of dish. Set at .38, the focal point measures .25 inches into the feed at exactly at 33.75", which is exactly where the SAMI specs say it should be. I'm amazed this dish seems to have been originally PROPERLY installed and aligned. It must have been done by pros, and they didn't screw it up. I didn't bother asking the original owner where he bought it from, and there's no dealer stickers on it.

 

[primestar31]

Reflector has just now been installed! Not sure how much more I'll get to today, as it's a scorcher out there, and I'm already beat! Though after saying that, it's only 2:35pm, and you guys know how it goes when you have the fever... LOL.

 

[primestar31]

I'm not sure what's going on as of yet, but it appears my MicroHD receiver won't control Diseqc switches anymore. The 30W ku dish works fine hooked directly to the back of the receiver. It will NOT work connected to the Diseqc switch lnb2 port that's right off the back of the receiver with a jumper, neither will the c-band dish, which also has a 22k tone switch in the nosecone. The c-band combo c/ku lnb is LNB1 22kOFF, and the ku is 22k ON. I was hoping to use that to set everything up, as I'm used to it. I haven't used it in 2 years though, except to watch dvr'ed stuff.

 

[Magic Static]

This may not sound logical but replace the 22khz in the C/Ku LNBF with an external one and try again. Or don't hook up the switch in there and try again.

 

[primestar31]

This may not sound logical but replace the 22khz in the C/Ku LNBF with an external one and try again. Or don't hook up the switch in there and try again.

The 22khz switch I installed on the Titanium CKS1 lnbf IS an external switch. It's a brand new one I just took out of the box, but I have had it for 6 years now. The wife is watching tv now, so I'll play around later to see what happens.

It's possible there's something going on with the coax wiring setup from the new BUD dish c/ku lnbf, that goes down to the wiring box now mounted on the pole under the polar mount. So, there's TWO 17' coax jumpers installed on the Titanium feed (1 spare), going down to the wiring box. The 22khz switch (I located inside the nosecone) ON side is screwed directly on the end of the ku lnb using a dual male connector. Then the OFF side is screwed to the C lnb using a new 4.5inch coax jumper I made up. The 22khz switch receiver port has one of the 17' coax jumpers screwed onto it. Down in the wiring box, I just have that coax jumped to one of the 3 coax runs into the house with a female/female 75ohm connector for right now. So, I didn't test the switch before installing it on the c/ku feed, and I didn't individually test the 4.5inch jumper, OR the 17' coax jumpers. Though I have no reason to believe any of those are bad, but you never know...

 

[Magic Static]

Ahh, didn't realize it was a no switch unit. The older ones with a built in switch had peculiar issues with DiSEqC calls.

 

[primestar31]

It's too dark outside to mess around inside the nosecone, while standing on a ladder. Anyway, I unscrewed the 17' coax jumper wire that goes to the nosecone 22khz switch, at the female/female coupler inside the wiring box. The diseqc switch now can see the 30W dish's lnb on the diseqc lnb2 port, and I can watch Cubavision just fine.

So, there IS something going on with the wiring, or the 22khz switch setup in the nosecone that kills the switch tones. I'll sort it out tomorrow.

 

[primestar31]

Well, we got thunderstorms last night, and about 2" of rain, so everything got real wet, and there's a lot of power outages nearby, but not us so far. We are supposed to get more storms and rain for a couple days. Anyway, I've been playing with this a little bit. Reset the mount to True South as it bumped a little when bolting the reflector onto the mount, and checked & tweaked the modified elevation and declination settings slightly. For now, I also removed the Chieta 22khz switch I had in the nosecone that's shorting out the tone, and hooked the ku and c-band lnbs to separate coax's going into the house, since I ran 3 coax's originally anyway. I have a diseqc switch in the house, and wired them all up to it, and they are on the MicroHD receiver. I also wired up my G-box as stand-alone with the remote for right now. I reset everything to 0000 on the G-box when it was pointed True South, top of arc.

Of course, there hasn't been enough time since the reflector was put on the mount, and it's NOT all set perfect as of yet. However, I've been moving the actuator, writing down the counts when sats are peaked, and scanning in a few sats so far both KU and C, and it IS working, albeit not perfectly yet.

I love the fact that with the Titanium CK1-S lnbf, I can use this dish for BOTH C-band and KU, I can only imagine that once I get everything perfectly peaked, and the G-box mated to the receiver, all should work acceptably for my needs. IF all goes well and I can get my hands on a dual ortho feed for a trade or something, I'll have C and KU that way.

Here's some more photos for now. The one back of the dish so you can see where it's aimed, it's pointing at 97W G-19 right then. It's still very overcast and dark, so hopefully these photos are good enough for now.

 

[primestar31]

Anybody have any idea why pressing the INFO button on the MicroHD remote, will no longer bring up the INFO screen? It brings up the initial screen with the channel name, sat name, time, and what looks like a dvr time bar, but a second press does NOT bring up the Signal/Details screen anymore. Real odd, as it was working before I hooked up this additional BUD.

The yellow SIGNAL Satellite Meter button at the top still works fine... Not sure what's up with this now...

The last firmware that's loaded on this, is dated 2013-6-26, which I believe was the "fixed" one so you could get Metv, Heroes, and Decades, as they were so close in frequency or something like that. Was there ever anything newer than that put out? Dare I reload this same firmware over the top, and do a factory reset?

 

[primestar31]

I ordered a replacement new 22Khz switch from Hypermegasat since he had the best price on one, and it's a Geosatpro model. So I trust this one to replace whatever's wrong with the Chieta one I tried using that shorts out the tone. Then I'll only need to use a single coax going to the dish, and can leave the other two coax runs for future use. If I find or can trade for the dual band ortho I'd like, one of those coax's will need to be used to power a switch.

 

[a33]

So, there IS something going on with the wiring, or the 22khz switch setup in the nosecone that kills the switch tones. I'll sort it out tomorrow.

Thinking out loud:
Are your 22kHz switches Power-through and Diseqc-through on all ports, like the Ecoda switches?
Or do they also switch Power (and diseqc)?
Maybe that could be of influence.

Greetz,
A33

 

[primestar31]

Thinking out loud:
Are your 22kHz switches Power-through and Diseqc-through on all ports, like the Ecoda switches?
Or do they also switch Power (and diseqc)?
Maybe that could be of influence.

Greetz,
A33

I doubt that they are power-through. They are the first switches I bought way back in 2012, before I knew better, and promptly went to diseqc switches instead. I bought about 5 of them, and I don't think they are very good ones. I remember one went bad nearly right away, and I've read since that others have had these be DOA right out of the box. The only thing is that NOW, I need a 22khz switch to cascade from a diseqc switch...

 

[primestar31]

Anybody have any idea why pressing the INFO button on the MicroHD remote, will no longer bring up the INFO screen? It brings up the initial screen with the channel name, sat name, time, and what looks like a dvr time bar, but a second press does NOT bring up the Signal/Details screen anymore. Real odd, as it was working before I hooked up this additional BUD.

The yellow SIGNAL Satellite Meter button at the top still works fine... Not sure what's up with this now...

The last firmware that's loaded on this, is dated 2013-6-26, which I believe was the "fixed" one so you could get Metv, Heroes, and Decades, as they were so close in frequency or something like that. Was there ever anything newer than that put out? Dare I reload this same firmware over the top, and do a factory reset?

So, I finally bit the bullet and saved my userdb.udf file, and reloaded a new flash of the same GSPMHD_20130626 firmware it has been running, did a factory reset/power plug pull reboot, then reloaded the userdb.udf file, then another power plug pull reset. Now, the full INFO screen comes up again when you press the INFO button twice, and all my settings and channels I've been scanning in are there. There's probably some other things that had gone a little wonky, and should now be fine again.

I also borrowed a 16ft extension ladder and extension saw/lopper from the neighbor, and trimmed a few more branches from the cedar tree that's right behind the dish. Some of the ends of branches were overshadowing the dish from the middle West part of the arc. I then turned my dish into a sundial, waited until 13:38:18 when the Sun was at solar noon for my location, and pounded in a 5ft stake behind the dish in the middle of the pole shadow, so I can double-check that the mount is aimed True South by sighting along both of them to a pole further out in my lawn. It's got to be aimed almost perfect now before this, but can't hurt for another check.

Dish still isn't completely tweaked and peaked as far as it can be, but I can scan in the Luken RTV DVB-S2 channels on SES2 87w, and go as far as 113w at the moment. Watching FETV Perry Mason on G16 99w right now.

We are supposed to get yet another serious thunderstorm and flooding tonight, so things are progressing, just a bit slower then I'd prefer. I'm in no great hurry though. My Hypermegasat Geosatpro 22khz switch is in the mail, so I'll probably get that tomorrow. I'm only 80 miles North-West of where Hyper lives...

 

[primestar31]

Just received a new satellite toy in the mail a few minutes ago from Magic Static, THANKS!

A new reed sensor pickup, and a 6 magnet wheel. This will triple the counts on my present 24" Venture actuator, from 32 per inch, to 96 per inch! That should make a BIG difference in KU reception for sure. We have rain storms going on right now though, so I'm unable to install it at the moment. I'm sure I'll get it installed soon though. Things are progressing, albeit slow due to the near-constant rains we've been getting in mid-Michigan that started right after I put the reflector on the polar mount Sunday. I wonder if my installing this dish caused them? LOL!

Original:

Upgrade:

 

[Magic Static]

I wonder if my installing this dish caused them? LOL!

When I put up my first C-Band dish it blew hard for a week straight. Record winds and my dish was unusable the whole time. I know how you feel. I was sure I was getting a dose of Instant Karma.