Ku Dish Difficulty

[cyberham]

I am attempting to get my 1.2-meter Ku dish working again after it went through Hurricane Dorian. The dish came down hard in the storm. I need the greatest satellite dish minds to provide advice.

The dish works. I can receive my closest to due south satellite: 72W. I blind scanned in 16 transponders today. Signal levels are similar (I think) to what they used to be before the storm. This proves a lot: good LNB, LNB is at the focal point, dish is in reasonable condition. But I cannot lock any tps from my next closest to due south: 87W. I use the CNN transponders or the Florida channel since they are the strongest tps and easiest usually to scan in. The best I get is that condition where signal quality is wiggling up to 10% and it appears a slight nudge in azimuth or elevation will bring in the signal. But it doesn't when I nudge.

I tried rocking the dish back and forth using diseqc commands after positioning using USALS. I checked several other satellites with same results. I disconnected the LNB from its supports and moved it manually in front of the dish. It seems to be in the correct position.

I guess the question is how can 72W be received normally but no other satellites? I'm quite familiar with this dish in this location. I can usually lock in 87W within minutes. Is it that the dish is just no longer the correct shape? It's a little tough to do the string test since it's now mounted at 7 feet high.

 

[Martyn]

Hmm. It sounds like the dish isn't tracking the arc properly. Did you trying rocking it up and down in addition to side to side? It might be pointing too high or too low, so no matter how much side-to-side nudging you do with Diseqc, the dish won't pull in a signal.

The hard fall is making me wonder if the mount was bent or something was knocked out of whack during so that it's not tracking correctly.

It might be that you need to either get up and check everything on the mount or bring the dish down and try to manually point it at other satellites to ensure you're getting a strong signal from them.

Make sure the LNB skew is correct and double check the receiver and make sure your coordinates are still correct in the USALS settings too.

 

[FTA4PA]

I am attempting to get my 1.2-meter Ku dish working again after it went through Hurricane Dorian. The dish came down hard in the storm. I need the greatest satellite dish minds to provide advice.

The dish works. I can receive my closest to due south satellite: 72W. I blind scanned in 16 transponders today. Signal levels are similar (I think) to what they used to be before the storm. This proves a lot: good LNB, LNB is at the focal point, dish is in reasonable condition. But I cannot lock any tps from my next closest to due south: 87W. I use the CNN transponders or the Florida channel since they are the strongest tps and easiest usually to scan in. The best I get is that condition where signal quality is wiggling up to 10% and it appears a slight nudge in azimuth or elevation will bring in the signal. But it doesn't when I nudge.

I tried rocking the dish back and forth using diseqc commands after positioning using USALS. I checked several other satellites with same results. I disconnected the LNB from its supports and moved it manually in front of the dish. It seems to be in the correct position.

I guess the question is how can 72W be received normally but no other satellites? I'm quite familiar with this dish in this location. I can usually lock in 87W within minutes. Is it that the dish is just no longer the correct shape? It's a little tough to do the string test since it's now mounted at 7 feet high.

Glad to hear you are able to get your dish back up after Dorian. Which transponders were you able to blind scan in? Last I heard Nimiq 5 was the only sat there. Echostar 23 is supposed to co-locate at 72w but was still parked at 67.9w awaiting approval.

Echostar 23 to co-locate with Nimiq 5

 

[KE4EST]

Did you trying rocking it up and down in addition to side to side?

This.

 

[kofi123]

Last I heard Nimiq 5 was the only sat there. Echostar 23 is supposed to co-locate at 72w but was still parked at 67.9w awaiting approval.

Eagle-1 (formerly AMC-3) is in an inclined orbit at 72 °W providing in-flight internet on transponders in the 11700-12000 MHz range.

 

[cyberham]

I did a lot of azimuth and elevation adjusting. My experience is when you get that niggling SQ signal you can usually peak it in by adjusting elevation up or down. This time this didn't work.

I did notice the reading on the motor azimuth seemed to be off. For example, 72W should be 12 degrees west of my 0 motor position. It reads 10 degrees. 87W should be 32 degrees west of my 0 motor position. The motor reads about 25 degrees. Because of this, I did a lot of back and forth using the diseqc commands.

I assumed the satellite is at 72W. Now I'm wondering if it is exactly. So perhaps it is Eagle-1. I think next I will try ignoring 72W since it may be pushing me in the wrong direction. I can simply rotate the whole assembly as though there is no motor and line the dish up on 87W as you do a fixed dish. Manually adjusting skew. This will be a good temporary test to remove the motor variables. If this works, I can go back to playing with the motor.

 

[Martyn]

I did notice the reading on the motor azimuth seemed to be off ... I assumed the satellite is at 72W. Now I'm wondering if it is exactly.

This would explain all your problems.

Send the motor to the zero location and visually check that it's there. Then with USALS send it to 87W and see how you do on the CNN transponder. If you were mispointed at first or not on 72W, then it's been throwing everything else off.

 

[cyberham]

Thinking carefully through what I did, I may have forgotten to switch power off to the motor after I manually zeroed it and pressed its reset button. I believe this removing power to the motor is critical in its reset procedure and could explain the error in its motion. I just have to find time to get outside to try this.

 

[jorgek]

Better hurry, snow comes early in the maritimes. LOL

 

[spongella]

Are you using a motorized setup? If so the skew is set to the zero position and left there.

 

[cyberham]

Better hurry, snow comes early in the maritimes. LOL

No worry. My tower blew down again today! This thread is closed. The gods don't want me to pursue this. I'm studying NPRM and I will come back when I have a new dish support.