Is it possible to setup USALS using a satellite that is 30 degrees away?

[Pianoman]

Setup: Fortec 90cm, Sonicview 4000, Invacom Quard
Location: 41.5 North, 71.7 W

I have been trying to setup using (AMC6)-12143 V 2573 since it is at 72 degrees (almost due south from my location). I am able to get 90% signal strength, but the quality is still at 0% even when I try to tweak the elevation and LNDP skew (I should not have to do this with a motorised system, and Invacom quad does not have skew unit son it).

I have however been able to get spectacular quality (85-90%) when I make the receiver turn the motor to the right angle, and then move the pole to find good strength, and tweak the LNB to get quality.

My Question
Since the motor is twisted to the right angle, and the elevation and direction are correct as well as the skew to get 101W - AMC4,

- Can I tweak and adjust these settings to the highest quality and be able to use the satellite as a reference for USALS setup?

- Does the reference satellite for correct USALS setup have to be due south or near there, or does USALS just require any fixed reference point in the sky to be able to properly map the locations of all the other birds?

* I am wondering about these questions because I have so far only been able to get any quality from AMC4 and no other satellite

 

[lumpkin666]

First check your lnbf arm. The invacom quad is heavy, and it may be causing the arm to droop, thereby causing you headaches in reception.

Second, yes, if you have the elevation, azimuth, and skew settings 100% accurate for AMC4, you can send your unit to AMC4 via USALS and dial in your quality and use it as your reference point. You'll obviously need to check some other sats and make adjustments as required to dial in the best quality on the whole spectrum of sats before tightening everything down.

 

[stogie5150]

Pianoman, I am telling you, do NOT trust USALS on that Sonicview 4k! USALS on mine is USELESS! If you set up for a new satellite, select USALS on the motor setup menu, then press ' goto position' it just sits there like a dummy. You have to set the motor run option on 'continuous', then run the motor east/west and watch the signal meter for signal on the correct aiming TP for that satellite. THEN you can bump the motor back and forth to peak the signal. Then press 'store position' and it will lock it in, and it will return to that position.

I just started over with mine last Monday, I did a factory reset, and started re-storing all the sat positions. I am having trouble with AMC6 too. Seems like the satellite TP that is in Iceberg's list is there....can anybody confirm for us that the strong TP on AMC6 is still there?

Also if you can move the pole to find signal, something isn't level still. The pole HAS to be level in ALL directions even with the load applied to it from the dish/motor hanging off it. Maddening I know...I went through it too. I am on constant lookout for 3 inch pipe now in case I want another 1m dish to replace my 84e, because I know I will need that strength.

 

[Mr Tony]

yes the strong TP I posted is still there

12143 V 2573...just checked a minute ago and shes at 99 on the Pansat

 

[Pianoman]

I concur that Sonicview 4000 (at least at the moment), is not proving to be as good with USALS as the fella at the store said it would be. I have been able to get AMC4 at 60+ signal and 90% quality. I get all the channels on the list at http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-ai...ive-got-fta-setup-now-what-can-i-pick-up.html I have a new level to try and get this thing plumb and I am currently doing that. Since I am a little pessimistic that I will get goo aim at the band and be able to get quality from more than one bird at a time, I am going to aim at 97W Galaxy 25 and if I do not gett eh band afterwards, I think that Galaxy has enough channels for me to watch this week before I get time to install a new pole (I have a 1.5 inch alluminium pole next to the house with just about 3.5 f above the wall height). Is getting a steel pipe a better idea to avoid the pole swaying in the wind from the weight and size of the 90cm dish?

Is there a well established way to support large dishes without worrying about strong winds swaying it? I live at 42N, and I do not want to place the pole ont he ground just incase a car is parked next on the street and blocks my signal

 

[Pianoman]

What am I doing wrong? Not getting more than one satellite

stogie5150, even without USALS, are you able to manually move a second or subsequent satellite and immediately fall on a good signal and QUALITY?

I just updated my SV4000 firmware and software just to make sure that the USALS issue is not fixed in the software... I am considering paying an installer to get the thing setup because I have so far spent more time advancing this thing, than I would pay if I had someone else worry about it (I know that it defeats the hobby idea, but I need to watch some TV

Today I went out again and setup a series of bolts to fine-fine-tune the level and get it plumb with a Johnson level. I got everything level, and I get 62% strength and 100% quality on AMC4. However, when I move the dish to the next satellite using the motor, I get good signal (76% on Intelsat/Galaxy 25 - 97W), but I still cannot get any quality. I tried to go out and tweak the LNB skew and elevation (Although I should not do so for motorised systems after the reference satellite is setup), it has proven impossible for me to get anything. Is there something I am doing wrong?

 

[stogie5150]

From what you have been describing, my unexpert opinion says your dish mounting pole is flexing. FTA is VERY VERY VERY dependent on that pole being exactly plumb and STAYING that way. The ONLY way to keep that from happening IMO is to put the pole in the ground with some good ol fashioned concrete.
I saw that you mentioned that you have a LOS problem....be aware that the dish is NOT looking directly at the satellite. The satellite is about 22 degrees above ( more vertical than the dish is looking) . So what you probably need to do is get that pole in some concrete!

But to answer your specific question yes, once I manually tweak the satellite positions and store them the SV-4k will reliably go back to each position. Just not like it works with USALS on,say, my Coolsat 5000.

Don't go hiring a tech just yet....the fellas here talked me through my first and second install just fine. we can help you you just have to go one step at a time. You may take a look at my posts from the beginning ( just so a search with my nickname in it and it'll bring up all my posts). You'lll see what I had and how much trouble I had and what I did to fix it.

Take some pictures of your dish install area and post them here so we can have a look at what you are dealing with. Also someone may have some ideas for you if you HAVE to have your pole on your house and trying to get it to stay plumb. I just do not see how you could...Ku band is VERY unforgiving when it comes to aiming.

 

[Pianoman]

Got it working, I think, 6 satellites and counting

Thanks for your advice, and I did not get to read your post in time, and the FTA hobby was eating into time that I normally dedicate to making extra money for my hobbies. I called around and most satellite techs shy away from anything that is not Dishnetwork or DirectTV. One of them even told me (without my asking), to return my motirised system cause those things never work, and I should just get a stationary dish and several LNBs. One older installer was frank and he told me that the last time he attempted a motorised system, it took him days, and he could not get it work well. Then I talked to Andrew at Don's Satellite in Worcester, MA. He promised to send a tech today (and he sounded like he knew FTA/what he was talking about) but when I called him last evening to confirm, he said that his Tech had the day off today and I would have to wait for 2 weeks (true or excuse). So I got so mad at the idea of depending on unreliable people, did some good reading last night on why we have every unit (direction,elevation,motor etc), I did some mathematics and even used the motorised dish elevation calculator on fortec's website (Fortec Star Dish Elevation Calculator) which gave me 35.4 elevation as opposed to 38.5 from Sadoun, and 37.1 from my calculations.

Also, I noticed that when I was previously able to get AMC4, the motor was at 0 degrees (that is why I had to manually skew the LNB), which is wrong. I also read that the LNB should never be manually skewed for motorised systems because the motor does that. Someone joked in a forum that it worked form him when he remembered that "When all else fails, read the manual".
- I set the dish/motor to the origin, placed my johnson level on the LNB and made sure it was not skewed at all
- I already came up with a way to make the pole plumb after going to home depot and creating a system of bolts that I can tweak ever so finely to get the thing plumb.
- Since AMC6/Nahuel has not been giving me any quality, Isent the motor to AMC4 at 101W, then I moved the mounting until I had good signal strength
- I set the elevation to 35.4 (estimate), and there it was, I had quality on AMC4 with the right settings. I drove the motor to Galaxy25/Intelsat IA5, and I had very weak quality 1-15
- At this point I found out that my motor elevation was at 43 degrees and my latitude is 42.52, so I moved it to 42.5 and I noticed on the small TV I had that there was more quality (50-60) and the system had positively identified IA5 (it has the most channels anyway).
- I did not want to mess with it too much although I know that it needs some more tweaking to get higher quality. I locked everything down and went into the house to announce that I had conquered it, and to get a permanent marker to draw lines on the mountings so that I can know which settings work. I set the receiver to search for channels
- When I got back, I had more than 150 channels, granted that most were in Arabic, but I had it, and made sure the TV was visible to the neighbours that have been wondering why I keep climbing and playing with the dish.
- I got into the house and I have been able to move the motor using USALS to 6 other satellites so far and I have some amount of quality and channels. The quality is sometimes under 30%, and so I will need to make one more climb tomorrow to set everything in order and put seals on the settings.
* I already drilled through the pole to prevent it from rotating. I intend to drill the azimuth clamp and put a bolt though so that it will never ever move

Lessons learned
+ READ MANUALS and understand why you are doing what you are doing
+ I am ashamed of having almost given up so early. FTA and motorised systems require patience and resilience
+ I am confident that I can realign the thing if the wind messes it up (if I had paid a tech to do it, I would have lost $200, and would be dependent on the guys for a long time)
+ When the instructions say 35.4 degrees, they mean just that. DO not impatiently plant the settings at 35 degrees and expect it to work. Mine works at 35.4 or 5, but at 35, there is nothing

Sorry for my long rant, but I have learned a great deal in the last 2 weeks with you guys. You have a new convert and an evangelist. I think I will now not shy away from installing a fixed system that one of my buddies bought last year and has not installed yet.

 

[mastermesh]

Welcome to the gang of diy satellite folks. Now just keep it up and make sure you WAF (Wife Approval Factor) ratings are high and all should be well.

 

[Tron]

If you've successfully set up a motorized system, you should have no problems installing a fixed dish Just remember to skew either the dish or the LNBF (if the dish does not skew) on a fixed system.

 

[stogie5150]

Congrats on getting it whipped! Feels good don't it?


You just learned what we all did when we first got started. First thing is that most manuals for FTA are best used to light a fine, imported, premium handmade cigar.
There is NO substitute for experience when dealing with a motor. Without the fellas here I would STILL be piddling with mine....and realize that for mine, I used Primestar dishes with homemade mounts with NO elevation scale, so I was simply dead reckoning to find the satellites. All I could do is set the latitude on the motor, make sure it was plumb, and just 'use the force' until I find the sat.

Iceberg, especially, has the patience of a Saint, he listened and, I know it was hard, but he gave non smartassed answers. For that, I got his back should he ever need it. :up

Now, an update. For some reason USALS on my Sonicview 4000 just started working, kinda. I set up AMC6 and hit 'go to' and it went there fine. I was flabbergasted. COOL!
Problem was, very few other sats worked. I did hit a Ku sat that Sky uses in Mexico ( I forgot which one). So I did figure out that I can hit satellites over to about 50 degrees west. So I guess I need a Universal LNB now....

 

[Pianoman]

Killed it, but confidently tweaking again

I went out yesterday to tweak my setup just a little more to get more quality in intelsat5, and I killed it, now I can't get quality on IA5. It got dark before I could finish but I am confident that I can get it working again (Wife approval is not an issue, and we actually canceled Comcast 2 days ago since we not have more channels than we can surf in a day, and in languages we cannot understand).

Funnily enough, when I stopped tweaking last night, I had about half the quality I previously had on AMC4 (my reference), but when I used USALs, I was able to go to a few other sats without issue, and actually got 110W - Dish Network woth 309 channels all in quality higher than 85%. Too bad that there are not FTA channels and I can only see 8 previews and welcome channels. I just have to go out once the sun cools down and tweak to get IA5 and Anik1 at their sweet spot so that I can get what I watch most while I hobby in the coming weeks to get all the channels 40W to 130W in perfect 100 quality (nice dream).

 

[Pianoman]

Choice of Receiver. SoniceView 4000 or other

I recently got a SonicView 4000 because it was touted to be flexible and easy for motorised systems (anything is easy once you install the dish and aim it right). I have noticed that although there are many free FTA channels, I may want to pay Discovery or National Geographic or some other channels owner so that I can access their content. I see that some receivers have a place for a card so that I can purchase a subscription if I want access to paid content along with FTA.

I still have a few days before my return period expires for my current receiver. What is your opinion of paying for commercial content along with FTA. Does the cost make it just as expensive as getting my Comcast Cables subscription back along with FTA or is it worth it to have a pay-capable box for a few channels that I may like so much and want to buy?

If I called dishNetwork, can they open a subscription for me for certain channels or will they require me to buy one of the big packages they offer?

 

[stogie5150]

No. the card slots in the US are not used. Only way you can sub is to use D* or E*'d receivers.

That's the exact reason I bought the SV4K. It was supposed to be good on a motor. I now know that's BS.

 

[WyrTwister]

Pianoman, I am telling you, do NOT trust USALS on that Sonicview 4k! USALS on mine is USELESS! If you set up for a new satellite, select USALS on the motor setup menu, then press ' goto position' it just sits there like a dummy. You have to set the motor run option on 'continuous', then run the motor east/west and watch the signal meter for signal on the correct aiming TP for that satellite. THEN you can bump the motor back and forth to peak the signal. Then press 'store position' and it will lock it in, and it will return to that position.

I just started over with mine last Monday, I did a factory reset, and started re-storing all the sat positions. I am having trouble with AMC6 too. Seems like the satellite TP that is in Iceberg's list is there....can anybody confirm for us that the strong TP on AMC6 is still there?

Also if you can move the pole to find signal, something isn't level still. The pole HAS to be level in ALL directions even with the load applied to it from the dish/motor hanging off it. Maddening I know...I went through it too. I am on constant lookout for 3 inch pipe now in case I want another 1m dish to replace my 84e, because I know I will need that strength.

Go to the scrap metal dealers & buy the pipe by the pound .

Wyr

 

[WyrTwister]

stogie5150, even without USALS, are you able to manually move a second or subsequent satellite and immediately fall on a good signal and QUALITY?

I just updated my SV4000 firmware and software just to make sure that the USALS issue is not fixed in the software... I am considering paying an installer to get the thing setup because I have so far spent more time advancing this thing, than I would pay if I had someone else worry about it (I know that it defeats the hobby idea, but I need to watch some TV

Today I went out again and setup a series of bolts to fine-fine-tune the level and get it plumb with a Johnson level. I got everything level, and I get 62% strength and 100% quality on AMC4. However, when I move the dish to the next satellite using the motor, I get good signal (76% on Intelsat/Galaxy 25 - 97W), but I still cannot get any quality. I tried to go out and tweak the LNB skew and elevation (Although I should not do so for motorised systems after the reference satellite is setup), it has proven impossible for me to get anything. Is there something I am doing wrong?

If you can only get one sat with a moter , w/o re-tweeking the dish , it sounds like the angles are wrong .

Is the angle on the motor / pole bracket set to your latatude ?

Is the dish and motor both pointing due south when you tell the motor to go to zero / reference position ?

Is the total angle of the dish , at reference , at the angle shown for due south for your latatude ?

Get all that correct ( along with the pole being plumb in both directions ) and try to hit the first sat east of due south and west of due south .

Keep tweeking and keep moving one more sat east and one more sat west .

Wyr

 

[Pianoman]

Glad to say that my confidence kinda helped. I went out last evening, and found out that pulling the disk a little anti-clockwise made it rise a little, and move to the left. so I loosened the elevation and bumped it just a little (probably 35.6 as opposed to 35.4), I lost all the quality on Russia Today (IA5), then I released the mounting and turned it a little to the left, and I got 3 times the quality I previously had (35-55 as opposed to 0-18). Obviously it was not as quick and easy as implied in my few lines here. It took me about an hour with rumbling thunder and approaching rain; you know how scary that can be when you have an extension cable, and a TV and Receiver in the yard... a sudden storm and you loose your equipment and get electrocuted trying to unplug cables. I believe that once the clouds clear, (still grey and gloomy even now), I will be able to get even more impressive quality levels. I blind-scanned overnight (FTA channels only), and I so far have 700 channels in clear from all kinds of satellites (yes, I used 97W to tune the system (I am located at 71.7W 42.5N), but I am able to jump to about 10 other satellite and get quality the first time, or at worst have to tweak a little E/W after USALS).

I agree with stogie5150 that SonicView 4000 has not yet proven (to me or to him) that it is that wonderful with USALS although our salesmen said so, and FTAPRO Reviews the Sonicview 4000 thinks it's the best receiver to bless the sky.

Personally, I think that USALS works between +-64 degrees from your origin (it works for me), but I have nothing to compare to since this is my first FTA system

 

[stogie5150]

FTAPRO Reviews the Sonicview 4000 thinks it's the best receiver to bless the sky.

Is that where you bought yours? ftapros.cxx? That's where I got mine. I got both of my motors there too. Can't beat the prices but they don't want to hear from you once the sale is done ....I emailed them a question about the USALS TWICE and never got an answer. I called...I couldn't understand the person on the other end of the line, spoke no English. Or if he did a Southern Boy like me couldn't understand it...

USALS is all over on mine. My TS is Galaxy 11. I cannot go past 110w or so because of a tree issue... East I can hit Panamasat ( whatever that is now, I forget) and from 91 eastward the USALS is right on. from 91 westward however the USALS is totally wrong. I have to tweak every position and store them. And if I have to do that I might as well drive the motor and look for good signal.

Coolsat 5000 WILL spoil you when it comes to USALS. If you ever get to see one work, do it. You'll throw rocks at your SV4K...if the SV was all I had right now I'd put it on ebay. Since the SV isn't my primary receiver I can deal with it.

 

[WyrTwister]

Is that where you bought yours? ftapros.cxx? That's where I got mine. I got both of my motors there too. Can't beat the prices but they don't want to hear from you once the sale is done ....I emailed them a question about the USALS TWICE and never got an answer. I called...I couldn't understand the person on the other end of the line, spoke no English. Or if he did a Southern Boy like me couldn't understand it...

USALS is all over on mine. My TS is Galaxy 11. I cannot go past 110w or so because of a tree issue... East I can hit Panamasat ( whatever that is now, I forget) and from 91 eastward the USALS is right on. from 91 westward however the USALS is totally wrong. I have to tweak every position and store them. And if I have to do that I might as well drive the motor and look for good signal.

Coolsat 5000 WILL spoil you when it comes to USALS. If you ever get to see one work, do it. You'll throw rocks at your SV4K...if the SV was all I had right now I'd put it on ebay. Since the SV isn't my primary receiver I can deal with it.

My old Fortec works fine with USALS .

Wyr

 

[Anole]

. . . so far as I know . . .

... What is your opinion of paying for commercial content along with FTA.

If I called dishNetwork, can they open a subscription for me for certain channels or will they require me to buy one of the big packages they offer?

Dish has a very low-end package.
Similar to pay-as-you-go cell phones.
Maybe $20, but not your choice of channels.
You'd have to use their receiver and dish, but the good news is, install would be a breeze!
Scroll down to Dish Family for $20 per month.
That web page page came from a link on DishStore.net, one of our sponsors, so call them for more info.
I've bought a lot of equipment from Claude Greiner at DishStore, and can highly recommend them.

Dish, DirecTV, BEV, StarChoice, GlobeCast (have I left anybody out?) all require you to use their receivers with their cards.
I'm sure someone will post that an obscure foreign-language service is available using your card slot, but not likely anything you'd want.