Woo hoo! Wow, these six-footers can give you fits trying to tune in! Well, I assembled the dish off and on yesterday afternoon and early evening, trying to keep clear of the cold rain and wind by doing some under the porch and some in the basement -- got it put up. Then discovered how difficult it is to get it set right on the satellite.
First channel was "Movies!" on 101W. Later, I got the Lesea mux on 99W. But not much else. Then I recalled I could try connecting my cheap-o satellite meter. Later I found Classical Arts, Jewelry TV, Univision, and the scrambled CW mux on 91W. Finally getting somewhere, but it was 10:30 p.m. by that point, and since there's no way to mute the sound on that meter (loud beeps are probably not appreciated by neighbors in the middle of the night), I decided it was a good time to quit and try in the afternoon tomorrow with less mud!
Was able to get the GDMX on 99W but highly pixelated. Also got TBN mux on 125W. It's been a while since I did stationary dishes, so I had to remember to adjust the skew, rotate the dish, change the elevation, and also guessing (because I was too lazy to get my ruler out again) the f/D ratio to figure out how far down the lnb should go (trial and error method instead). All this in the gusty wind (and as of 7 p.m., the rain has returned -- fortunately, I finished up two hours ago).
My target and desired satellite to park on: 113W aka the Mexican channels! It is the day after Cinco de Mayo, after all! But since I'm fluent in Spanish, there are so many excellent programs I would enjoy. But there was one channel I valued above the rest. It was a station I was once able to receive via streaming, but by around 2005, countries started putting viewing restrictions on foreign viewers. And that's what happened with this channel -- oh, I really missed it, too! Canal Once! The problem is that this station broadcasts DVB-S2 mpeg4 at 5/6 FEC (8PSK). It would be hit or miss.
Oooh, then I got it! But I lost other stations. Unfortunately, I played around too much and lost the satellite and had to start over. As I slowly started to get signals back, it dawned on me that I was not exactly using quality equipment to "play around" with. My Openbox S10 was, for some reason, deciding it did not want to scan vertical transponders anymore. And it was quite a ratty piece of RG6 cable with a satellite meter in-line that connected to the lnb. Right -- so I just need to relocate the satellite and get Once's signal stabilized, like around 45% or so.
Whew -- took a while, but did it. I closed up shop and connected the Amiko Mini SE upstairs with a length of RG11 cable that had ran to a 76cm dish. Those dishes are pretty far out to get a view of 30W around the trees, so I'll be looking for some RG11 about half that length soon. As you can see from the photo, my stationary dish is probably going to stay near the house for now. Fingers crossed. If I can get just Once and a third of the channels, that'll be good (but naturally, I hoped for more). You can see the results of the scan. Three sports feeds were also picked up. Wow! Once came in stable at 60% and I received 3-4x the channels the Openbox had scanned in. Lyngsat is continuously outdated, but with around 45 viewable channels, I think I picked up all the stations except Conoce Mexico, if it is still on the air.