Installed dish motor. Can get everything but RTN

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laseradam

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May 11, 2006
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Goshen, OH
I just installed a motor on my dish and it seems to track the entire arc with signal quality about the same on every satellite. But for some reason I can't get RTN. About everything else I have tried to scan on every other satellite has worked.
Any ideas?

I thought I had come up with a great new way to aim a dish and I had the whole thing done in less the 45 min. from opening the box the motor came in! Hitting every satellite right from the start.

What I did was attach a 50 foot rope to the satellite pole. Then holding the rope tight at the far end with a compass I got the rope pointing to my true south. Then I took a laser pointer, set it at the notch at the top of the dish. I aimed the laser at the top center of the LNB grazing the top of the LNB so the half the laser beam was hitting the top center of the LNB and the other half was hitting the ground by the rope. I then move the move the motor/dish assembly until the laser was also hitting the rope.

I used the receiver to instruct the motor to move to a satellite and then adjusted the elevation until I peaked the quality. After that, every satellite I motored to was comming in fine.

But no RTN. I get the other TPs on the satellite RTN (83W) is on.

Do you think it is elevation?
 
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Are you using USALS or DiSeQc to move your dish? You may just need to bump a little east or west to get RTN (RTV on AMC9 at 83W I assume?). How is your SQ on the different TP's on 97W? Do you need to go west some to peak SQ on 11842?

By the way, sounds like you came up with an excellent way to line things up!
 
I tried bumping the motor a little east and west and still could not get any quality signal for RTN. But I did loose the signal for the other TPs on AMC9 satellite when I bumped.

The other TPs on the RTN satellite are in the Q60 range. Most of the rest of the arc ie: 97w are also around Q60. I don't need to bump to peak the other TPs on 97W. This Q range is about as high as it gets with this receiver (fortec star) as that is what it was when I had the single dish before the motor.

I am not at home now and these numbers are from memory. I might try a slight elevation change because I really want RTN but I hate to mess up everything else.
 
Did you get RTV before you motorized? You might want to go into your setup menu and make sure you even have the TP freq etc. for RTV and that it's set up correctly. Look for 11735 H 4440. Just seems strange that you would get everything but RTV.
Sky
 
I got RTN before but on a different dish (I am still getting it on the other dish). Those are the parameters I was using to scan.

Everything else went so smooth that is what has me confused. When I try to scan RTN the signal strength and signal quality both read around 0% which is weird.

I thought the signal strength usually reads something no matter what your aimming at.
 
On my receivers, I have most sats set with USALS, however when RTN sat was at a lower power, I switched 83w to DiSeQc and then bumped it east/west finding the highest quality level. I would assume you can set each sat to None, USALS, DiseQc on your receiver also. With 83 set with DiseQc, the other sat positions are not effected.
 
laseradam said:
I just installed a motor on my dish and it seems to track the entire arc with signal quality about the same on every satellite. But for some reason I can't get RTN. About everything else I have tried to scan on every other satellite has worked.
Any ideas?

I thought I had come up with a great new way to aim a dish and I had the whole thing done in less the 45 min. from opening the box the motor came in! Hitting every satellite right from the start.

What I did was attach a 50 foot rope to the satellite pole. Then holding the rope tight at the far end with a compass I got the rope pointing to my true south. Then I took a laser pointer, set it at the notch at the top of the dish. I aimed the laser at the top center of the LNB grazing the top of the LNB so the half the laser beam was hitting the top center of the LNB and the other half was hitting the ground by the rope. I then move the move the motor/dish assembly until the laser was also hitting the rope.

I used the receiver to instruct the motor to move to a satellite and then adjusted the elevation until I peaked the quality. After that, every satellite I motored to was comming in fine.

But no RTN. I get the other TPs on the satellite RTN (83W) is on.

Do you think it is elevation?
Click to expand...

Laser,

If you are using USALS for motor positioining, you might just be a smidgeon off in your azimuth or elevation. RTN used to be a difficult signal to dial in, but it has been improved.

However, I still find that in order to cover the entire arc, you must be willing to sacrifice some of the signal or quality strength on a few satellites in order to get the majority of the satellites across the arc to come in.

For instance, if I pick the TP on 97.0°W which carries the Al Jazeera News channel and PEAK that signal to 98% or 99% quality, then I am unable to pull in a signal from half a dozen other satellites, including RTN on 83.0°W.

Moreso, if I go to RTN and peak it, then I cannot get the Al Jazeera channel with as great of quality as I desire.

However, if I split the difference between the two, then ALL the satellites come in just fine.

The trick that I incorporate for aligning my motorized dish is to NOT BE GREEDY on the signal quality of any one particular signal or TP or SAT. Don't strive for 100% Q on any signal, strive for the MOST satellites with an "above the threshold reading" and let it go at that.

This is a difficult thing for anyone to do or follow. Everyone wants to peak the signal to the maximum on the specific sat or TP or channel that they are currently able to view. This is the mistake many of us all make in our pursuit to track the arc. It is just human nature to want to do it this way, but it is incorrect.

The goal is not to get one satellite to perfection, it is to get as many satellites as we can to come in with above average quality levels. 75% to 85% quality is sufficient. And, of course, everyone has a different receiver to use so these quality values are only arbitrary references. You must judge your scaling based upon the meter readings of the receiver that you are using.

When you think in your mind about tracking the Clarke Belt where the satellites are orbiting, imagine that belt as a rainbow across the southern sky. At the top of this rainbow, the color is red and at the middle the color is green and at the bottom, it is purple or violet. If you align your dish with the band of GREEN, then you are aligned as best you can be. If you align to the band of red, you might be too high to pick up what is in the violet band and if you are too low and aligned with the violet band, then you may have a weak signal from the satellites in the red band.

Although this is just a simple analogy, it creates a vivid and accurate picture in your mind. Ponder it for a moment and then realize that I am only talking about tenths of a degree or smaller differences here.

These miniscule degrees of error can change your reception quality. This is why I say that you need to split the differences between all the satellite signals. If you are aimed +0.3° or -0.3° it makes a big difference.

RADAR
 
I tried blind scanning 83W and the stations I got were TP 12052/V/13359

LETN
FETN
HSTN
LTCN

Just audio of something

Any idea where I am?
 
Wow,
Just looked at "The List" That is where I am. I have the other TP listed there also.

Wonder how that happened?

I know I'm OK at 72W because I have KFTL scanned in from there. Any more to the EAST and I think my house blocks the arc.
I think I have 79W with KTEL but I can't remember since I'm at work.

I guess I should go to a known satellite position switch to RTN TP then bump over to 83 while watching the Q then resave the position somehow?

Does that sound like the right plan?
 
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laseradam said:
I think I have 79W with KTEL but I can't remember since I'm at work.

I guess I should go to a known satellite position switch to RTN TP then bump over to 83 while watching the Q then resave the position somehow?

Does that sound like the right plan?
Click to expand...
Yes, if you have KTEL at 79, then select 83 and use DiSeQc to bump your dish west until you find the RTN TP (11735 H 4440) and save the position. Or you may want to use the data TP's at 12140 V 30000 and 1260 H 30000.

Or from 79 use USALS to find 83 then switch to DiSeQc to fine tune it in.
 
Solved

Found out what the problem was. A tree! I took an analog signal meter out and watched the signal while it was windy. I could see the signal moving as I watched the wind blow a certain branch.

I have another dish at a different location that gets RTN so I plan to use a switch to combine it with the motor dish.
 
laseradam said:
Found out what the problem was. A tree! I took an analog signal meter out and watched the signal while it was windy. I could see the signal moving as I watched the wind blow a certain branch.

I have another dish at a different location that gets RTN so I plan to use a switch to combine it with the motor dish.
Click to expand...

Looking at your current set up if you are using the 36" dish this is marginal for RTN without the tree. I believe 1.2m is the minimum
 
McGuyver said:
my 36" motorized dish gets RTV at 83% quality just fine in So Cal.
LOS may be a factor
Click to expand...

Interesting we are all in the same band according to Satbeams but on my 1m I can get the NBC feeds and Hughes net in the high 80s but RTN only ccassionally when conditions are excellent. I put it down to low TP output on RTN
 
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