Ku band problems

[determined]

I am using a General Instruments model 4DTV (that's all, no number) receiver and have been fighting Ku band trying to get it to work. I have a dual purpose feed horn and the proper LNBs for it. I even got a Ku band feed on X0 channel 2 over the weekend at a signal quality of 90. My problem is that I want to get satellite X4. I know that channel 603 is not scrambled on X4 but I can't get it. I even subscribed for a month to some channels on X4 but I can't get them either. I have aligned and set things up on the dish until I am going crazy, and I am making my wife crazy too because she helps me. However, I am determined to do what it takes to make this work. I just don't know what that is and I'm out of ideas. I am wondering if my receiver will work on those channels. It should because I can select them. Can anyone help me?

 

[Mr Tony]

welcome

I moved this to the C-band section. Hopefully one of our experts can help out

 

[tdti1]

Is your dish damaged or warped?

Sounds to me the dish is not peaked good, or is damaged you can take a look at this site it helps:
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp2.html

You can also try calling a dealer if one is in the area:
http://onsat.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=47764b526a828216f53bc1088cc33597

Is you dish solid steel, fiberglass or mesh?

 

[voomvoom]

determined,
I don't know how you have your X4 tuned in, but if you're trying to find it from G4, it's a little bit to the east. It's not in the same spot. If you don't have G4 tuned in, go to W4. Go into "Options", press #6, press #4, choose Satellite X4, now channel up or down to your desired channel, press #2, now move the dish east and see if you can hit X4. This should work. Luck to you.

Al

 

[determined]

Thanks for the reply. I have G4 tuned in and get a signal of 90 on the religious channel, 15 I think. I've tried moving east and west but no luck, but I'm determined to make this work. Only been working on it for 2 months.

 

[determined]

Thanks for the message. The dish really looks good, not much out of round, maybe .25 inches, looks good if you look across the edge to the far edge, lines up perfectly to my eye. It is a 10 foot prime focus dish. It tracks all of the c band stuff very well. The feedhorn is centered, I put small cables and turnbuckles on the buttonhook to move it to the exact center. I haven't done a lot with moving the horn in and out but I'm working on that now. The dish is a Winegard but I couldn't find mention on it at their web site. I know how to calculate the focal distance but it doesn't seem to agree with the best results point; that is an anomaly that I'm still working on. I've tuned the declination and polar axis angle and it is right by the numbers for my loacation. When I did this, my signals improved on C band. The dish is perforated aluminum with hole size of about 3/32. I know the LNB works as I did get an ESPN feed on channel 2 on X0. That's it so far. It's got to be something stupid that I'm not doing right. Been at it about 2 months, but I'm determined to make it work. Man is the master, not the machine.

 

[determined]

I'm new to this or any site of this type, I didn't figure out how to reply to you until just now. I did reply but it got posted as another message. Newbie problems, sorry.

 

[Diamond Jim]

I had a hard time zeroing on X4 when I got the 922. Make sure you have the polarity/skew set correctly, bump the dish around and as mentioned it's a tad east of G4. Also go up into the 800s and try to get some of the music services in. Keep trying, it will pop in.

 

[determined]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try what you said. Would the skew be much different than the setup for G4? Can you give me some idea as to how sensitive the setup was for getting the polar mount angle, the offset and the focal length was? I am at 39.93 N latitude and 81.16 W longitude. I know my polar mount angle should be 40.62 degrees and that the dish offset should be another 5.56 degrees. While I can't measure to a tenth of a degree, I can do a quarter degree pretty well. I think I lined up on nimiq 2 as south (had a 90 k band signal at about the right place). I also sighted at the north star and it looked pretty good. It really works well on c band. I don't know how to line it up better. I will try what you recommended with the music and the skew; I'm just trying to get a feel for what I'm dealing with from someone that's been there. Are there any other satellites I should try also, maybe something analog that might be easier to find?

 

[voomvoom]

You can try AMC 3 at 87 degrees. Both PBS (600) and GPTV (640) are in the clear. I sometimes have trouble with Georgia Public Television (640), but I'm always able to get PBS (600).

Al