Just now installing my 48" Fortec dish with dg380 motor

[satellitedxer]

I am just now throwing this baby up there and gonna see what all I can get.

I installed it yesterday and am using an Invacom snh lnb. I have yet to fine tune it but will today and am anxious to see the difference in the signals from going to this setup from a 1 meter dish with a basic linear lnb, Before I was getting 80's to low 90's quality on most sats tracking the arc, I dont see how much I can improve as far as that goes, however I am curious to see what new feeds I can hit with this that I couldnt see before with the 1 meter.


I do have a question though, I have the sonicview because of the ability to record on the usb drive, however I have it hooked up to my pansat and have been blind scanning with the pansat and then just manually entering in the tps on the sonicview as they scan on the pansat, Is it my box or it is normal for a sonicview to take 12 mins per blind scan? My pansat takes 2 mins to scan usually, never over 3-4 mins! I read that sonicview was supposed to be the best blind scanning receiver but have yet to see that! Is there any trick to making this thing scan faster?

 

[Lak7]

2 minutes sound like a "sat" or "Transponder" scan vs. a true Blind scan.
I have never used a Pansat, but all other receivers usually had about 6 - 10 minute Blind Scan.

Try a scan of the same Sat from each of the receivers, do they find the same Channels?

 

[satellitedxer]

the Pansat blind scan is the fastest I have ever seen! I had used a coolsat before and It too was fast, about 4 mins, But the sv takes the longest I have ever seen! I was wondering if maybe it is just the software and if there is a update for faster proccesing?

Thanks

 

[Mr Tony]

Coolsat blind scan blows the Pansat one out of the water. I've used both and Pansat can be slow

 

[PANHANDLER]

I agree 10-12 mins for a blind scan on the pansat 3500 is not out of line for this unit ,it is a very good reciever i don't own a coolsat but i do have an Icon S550 and it blind scans under 5 mins . But what the heck,,,,,,,, whats the differance between a feww mins as long as you catch those birds .

 

[Tron]

Blind scan on a Pansat is called "Smart search".

 

[skysurfer]

I installed it yesterday and am using an Invacom snh lnb. I have yet to fine tune it but will today and am anxious to see the difference in the signals from going to this setup from a 1 meter dish with a basic linear lnb

it should make quite a difference if set up right. It did for me going from 90 cm to 1.2m - some of the G18/AMC21 signals became clean (no slight co-sat interference on some of them) and signal levels improved, allowing an easy, reliable lock of a S2 signal like LPB.

you may need to do a mod to the fortec star because the weight of the invacom pulls the LNB holder arm out of the focal point of the dish.

 

[phlatwound]

you may need to do a mod to the fortec star because the weight of the invacom pulls the LNB holder arm out of the focal point of the dish.

That's what I did when I put an Invacom Quad on my .9m Fortec.

The retro-tubes were lifted from a scrapped OTA antenna.

 

[AcWxRadar]

It has been a long time since I even looked at my SV receiver, but I do recall that the blind scan feature was extremely slow. I was thinking 12 - 15 minutes. And I don't recall that it was anymore reliable or accurate, actually I think it was less.

RADAR

 

[satellitedxer]

Well so far I have had some problems.


I have installed alot of motors before so I know how to do it accurately, well until now I guess!! lol!





I set it up and aimed at my south sat 95- g-3 and I was amazed at my signal! I hit 94-99 quality on the 11780 tp which I think is cctv, Before I was only getting 84-88 with a 1 meter dish! So I said cool, this is alot better. Well I dont know how but As I went to move the dish a bit, maybe to 79 the dish was going off to the side of the motor. I also noticed the motor sometimes will not move the dish! I had it go off to the side twice already and not move the dish several times.


I heard the dg380 was alot better than the moteck I am used to using, it looks better! But so far this isnt working well, With the moteck I would have to bump it about 5 times for each degree east or west, Looks like this thing is going about 3 times more than the moteck did, because after bumping it maybe 30 times from the 95 sat it went off to the side!!

I have it tightened down all the way on the motor, I am confused! The signal looks great! But I would like to get it tracking the arc well too!




So far I have had 99 pct quality on tons of the tps I have hit such as sats on 101, I hit low 90's on 97! So the thing is an awesome signal catcher!


Any of you have these problems before? I heard this motor should easily move this 48 inch fortec star, well they list it as 48 but I measured 52 by 48 so I will call it a 50 inch dish.

 

[Lak7]

Does it seem that the motor is traveling past the targeted Sat?
For Sats to the East, you are bumping back west and
For Sats to the West, you are bumping back to the East?
If so, in the USALS menu, add 5 degrees to you Lat.

 

[turbosat]

Sounds like he was describing the dish slipping on the motor shaft. Not sure that's what he meant by going off to the side. Shim that dish-mount up with a piece of split PVC or something to hold it tighter! Since I built my own dish-attachment, I used muffler clamps to hold the dish to the motorshaft. You can tighten those things down to where a train wouldn't move it.

 

[AcWxRadar]

I also wondered what he meant by "slipping off the side of the motor" and initially thought of the dish bracket slipping on the motor shaft.

However, after re-reading the initial post, I might know the answer.

The Sonic View 360 Premier is the model that I had all the trouble with when it came to motor control. This is the model that wouldn't drive to the proper satellite when commanded (it would go to some other satellite) or it would go to the reference (zero position) on the motor, or it wouldn't move at all or... or... or... you name it, it was very screwball!

I cannot say for certain, but this may just well be what Satellitedxer is referring to. If it is, there is nothing wrong with the motor or the dish, it is the receiver.

Try to locate satellites using DiSEqC 1.2 motor control with this motor ONLY and not USALS. If you can locate and store positions with DiSEqC 1.2 and return to them later, then I am probably right on this.

I found that I was able to make it work somewhat, but it was still too unreliable for me. This is the unit (receiver) that someone sent to me to beta test, so I never paid a dime for it.

I gave it to my brother to test, he found the same dissatisfaction and now it is in my closet.

RADAR