Leaky DiSEqC Switch?

[moesy2k]

I have 2 dishes connected to a DiSEqC 2.0 switch and have a weird issue.

When scanning the satellite for the dish connected to port #2 I tend to pick up vertical transponders located on the dish on port #1, is this normal?

I have Dish1 on E* 119 W and dish2 on Galaxy 3C/Ku. (95 W)

Dish1 is a 18" dish w/ a standard dish Lmbf and Dish2 is a Oval Starchoice dish w/ the "Beer can" California Amplifer lmbfs.

I have the SC lmbf set as a Single Stacked lmbf on the FTA receiver pointed at G-3C.

When I blindscan the G3C sat, I get vertical TPs showing up from 119. I know it's not being captured by the dish itself, because if I disconnect the dish from port 1, the chennels disapear.

Is this normal, or is the switch defective?

I got suspicious when I started seeing audio channels on 119 show up on G3C.

Any ideas?

 

[Das Hammer]

What receiver are you using?
Did you double check the diseqc settings in your receiver? You have to tell the receiver which sat is on which port.

Edit: There doesn't appear to be anything free on G3 Ku on Vertical. Have you tried scanning horizontal only?

 

[moesy2k]

Yeah, I have told the receiver which dishes were on which port, and it's easy to tell if it's right because the signal level is slightly different for each dish.

The receiver is a Pansat 2700 Clone (It was free ).

And no, I just did a blind scan, I know very little about the Sat, I was bored and decided to mess around with the SC dish to see what I could get, I just came across G-3C by a fluke, and surprised I got what I did seeing it's sitting right beside two HUGE pine trees. (My neighbor is a tree nut apparnetly...)

Some day I might either pick up a universal lmbf for the *C dish or a regular dish (30" or something). But from the trees and stuff around me, I don't hold much hope to find most sat's.)

 

[Mr Tony]

The SC dish is either the equivalent of a 24" or a 30-32"

If its 37x27 inches, then it will be fine for KU band. The smaller dish is 32x18

What happens if you set it up (the G3 dish) as Single with a LO of 10750? Just a thought

 

[Mr Tony]

Das
Sometimes there are feeds on G3 Vertical

 

[123tim]

Hope that this is related to the original question...Would terminations on unused ports help with this problem? Probably shouldn't post this, considering that I don't even know if you have any unused ports.
I was just wondering what happens to the leakage if ports aren't terminated.

 

[Mr Tony]

very possible tim (especially if rain or snow gets in there)

 

[moesy2k]

Well, I think the DiSEqC switch might have issues. Might have to take it back. It appears (if I watch the signal meter) that it keeps switching between the 2 lmbfs.

The signal goes from 72 to 80 (The SC lmbf's Signal Level is the 72% and the Dish lmbf is the 80+% level).

I've got a SC 22Khz Multiswitch, I'm gonna try that for the moment seeing I'm only hooking up 2 dishes. I'll try the Lmbf frequency change and letcha know what I get Iceburg.

Edit:
123Tim: I just read your reply that came in as I was writing the original one, The switch is a 4x1 switch, and there are 2 unused ports. Unfortunately, I have no 75 Ohm Terminators, but if you guys feel this might help, I could probably get some.

But on the other hand, I have the switch inside the house near the receiver so weather isn't an issue.

 

[Mr Tony]

I've got a SC 22Khz Multiswitch, I'm gonna try that for the moment seeing I'm only hooking up 2 dishes. I'll try the Lmbf frequency change and letcha know what I get Iceburg.

that might work, but you will need to change the settings from Diseqc 1 & 2 to 22k ON and 22k OFF...Diseqc qould be set to off

Make sure you turn unit off (with switch on back) before unhooking or hooking up switches as to not blow the unit or switch

 

[icstephen]

Unfortunately, I have no 75 Ohm Terminators, but if you guys feel this might help, I could probably get some.QUOTE]

Just an fyi if you need some in a pinch some of the home depot's stock them in the antenna section of the electrical department.

 

[moesy2k]

Using the SC Switch, I have 119W on Sat A, and G3C 95W on Sat B. I'm only using 1 of the 2 SC Lmbf's, the other didn't seem to give me anything when I was playing around the other day so I stuck with the one only.

Blindscanning G3C, as 10750 Standard, I get 4 Horizontal TP's donno how many vertical, but not many, all at various Symbol rates and No channels Found.

As A Stacked Lmbf, I get 11 Horizontal and 6 Vertical TP's all at various symbol rates. (18 Total).

Doing a channel scan gives me 102 channels. Most of them belong to Roberts Direct To Home network (and The Race Track Network) which are encrypted w/ Nagra2. Some really LOUD church channel called AON and 4 CCTV channels, one in spanish, one in english and a couple in chineese or japanise. The scan stopped finding channels at 94%. Perhaps if I had a universal LMBF which was capable of both linear and circular ku I might find more?

Going to the Race Track Network site (http://www.rtn.tv) says you can use a primestar dish and dishnet receiver. I have to wonder how old that website is. .

THis time around tho, I'm surprised, I think I found more channels on there this time then when I had the diSEqC switch hooked up. It's curious as to why. And no 119 channels.

However, some of the channels are duplicated, like the CCTV, AON and PTVN and PSTV.

But CCTV AON and a couple of DTH banner channels are the only free ones.

 

[Mr Tony]

Using the SC Switch, I have 119W on Sat A, and G3C 95W on Sat B. I'm only using 1 of the 2 SC Lmbf's, the other didn't seem to give me anything when I was playing around the other day so I stuck with the one only.

Blindscanning G3C, as 10750 Standard, I get 4 Horizontal TP's donno how many vertical, but not many, all at various Symbol rates and No channels Found.

As A Stacked Lmbf, I get 11 Horizontal and 6 Vertical TP's all at various symbol rates. (18 Total).

Doing a channel scan gives me 102 channels. Most of them belong to Roberts Direct To Home network (and The Race Track Network) which are encrypted w/ Nagra2. Some really LOUD church channel called AON and 4 CCTV channels, one in spanish, one in english and a couple in chineese or japanise. The scan stopped finding channels at 94%. Perhaps if I had a universal LMBF which was capable of both linear and circular ku I might find more?

OK..so it has to stay as stacked to work right...that is correct for what you are getting
UNiversal won't help here...Universals really arent used here much (PAS9 at 58W is the only reason for one)

Going to the Race Track Network site (http://www.rtn.tv) says you can use a primestar dish and dishnet receiver. I have to wonder how old that website is. .

Race Track Net is new but you do need a receiver and a card for that

THis time around tho, I'm surprised, I think I found more channels on there this time then when I had the diSEqC switch hooked up. It's curious as to why. And no 119 channels.

oh crap...the switch is stacked too...so there may be an issue since the LNB is not.

 

[moesy2k]

oh crap...the switch is stacked too...so there may be an issue since the LNB is not.

Oh, Sorry, should have clarified that a little more. No 119 channels during the scan of G3C.

A scan of 119 gives me the 119 channels only, so the switch appears to be working just fine as a standard 22Khz switch.

Maybe once I get bored again, I'll try and move the SC dish to another sat and scan. My major problem is, there's too many trees in the direction of all the western sats.

As it was, for 119, I had to mount the dish on the front of the house above my door as the back yard and even the top or side of the house would have been futile. In the back yard I got 43ish %, and even that was shoddy at best.

I guess I'll have to see about replacing this switch or trying the terminator dealy.

 

[Mr Tony]

oh ok...so its workig then. Thats good

See if you can move right next door to G3 (95W) which is IA6(93W)..lots of news feeds there or IA5(97) lots of ethnic & church stuff.

For IA6, if you can get Doc Scott in it will work. He is at
11865 freq
V polarity
3516 symbol rate

You should be able to manually enter that (the 2700 might have the IA6 satellite as Telstar 6...same sat)

 

[moesy2k]

I might have to try that just for something to do. Hopefully the weather will be good on the weekend I might do it. Have to drag the monitor and receiver outside. Also, as mensioned, if you look in the same general direction as the dish is pointing, it's right beside a stupid pine tree but I think 93W should be ok seeing it's the opposite direction of the tree, there's just a tree w/ no leaves on that. one; )

Would the elevation be the same, or does that need to change too?

I'm not the greatest at this stuff but It's fun trying. As mensioned before, finding G3C was just a fluke. I was trying to see if I could get Anik with my Starchoice receiver (First off) then use the Pansat to scan and see if there was anything on there, but couldn't find it, and ended up getting a signal for G3C instead.

It gives me something to do however.

Thanks Iceberg.

 

[Mr Tony]

I might have to try that just for something to do. Hopefully the weather will be good on the weekend I might do it. Have to drag the monitor and receiver outside. Also, as mensioned, if you look in the same general direction as the dish is pointing, it's right beside a stupid pine tree but I think 93W should be ok seeing it's the opposite direction of the tree, there's just a tree w/ no leaves on that. one; )

remember...the offset is 22 degress so the signal comes 22 degrees above where the dish looks

Would the elevation be the same, or does that need to change too?

depends on your location. For me (MN) its the same elevation...even if you're on one of the coasts, the elevation is real close

I'm not the greatest at this stuff but It's fun trying. As mensioned before, finding G3C was just a fluke. I was trying to see if I could get Anik with my Starchoice receiver (First off) then use the Pansat to scan and see if there was anything on there, but couldn't find it, and ended up getting a signal for G3C instead.

It gives me something to do however.

Thanks Iceberg.

Thats the answers I like to hear (fun trying)..that is the best part of FTA..the fun in working on it

 

[sharris]

as for the switch. after I cooked one a year ago, the new one I bought got a healthy shot of clear silicon around the back side to hopefully avoid a water leak. Nasa is the only one FTA along with a few dish banners on 119. Kind of a useless sat for us FTA'rs, with the exception of finding a good solid signal to re-align your dish. I would just do an FTA search. NASA has some pretty interesting stuff on it. I put it on for teh kids every once in awhile (beats cartoons)

 

[moesy2k]

however, Echo 7 (119W) also has some FTA audio channels aside from the NASA chanel.

Music can be just as good as TV at times.

 

[moesy2k]

Welp, I did finally get around to it around 6:30pm, drug the monitor and receiver outside and began to hunt for IA5 and after some playing around, and I believe I did have to raise my elevation a little, don't remember exactly, but I weakly found IA5. Most of the channels that do come in, are between 30-45% signal qualty due to those damn pine trees!

Did a blind scan and found 38 TPs, and almost 300 channels and 250ish music channels (I can't remember the exact count), but after sorting and rummaging through the channel list, almost all of them were duplicated on both H and V TP's.

Most of the channels are foreign ( non english ) but there are some english and a few english music stations. It'll give me something to explore.

Thanks for the suggestion Iceberg.

Cheers!

 

[Mr Tony]

Welp, I did finally get around to it around 6:30pm, drug the monitor and receiver outside and began to hunt for IA5 and after some playing around, and I believe I did have to raise my elevation a little, don't remember exactly, but I weakly found IA5. Most of the channels that do come in, are between 30-45% signal qualty due to those damn pine trees!

bummer....at least they are sort of coming in. Your elevation may havre had to slightly be adjusted depending on your location. Where I am in MN (Minneapolis) G3 and IA5 (and IA6 and G11) are all the same elevation.

Did a blind scan and found 38 TPs, and almost 300 channels and 250ish music channels (I can't remember the exact count), but after sorting and rummaging through the channel list, almost all of them were duplicated on both H and V TP's.

I wonder why it did that?

Most of the channels are foreign ( non english ) but there are some english and a few english music stations. It'll give me something to explore.

Fashion TV is interesting
There's a few church type channels there but the audio is pretty good (supposedly its music choice)

Thanks for the suggestion Iceberg.

Cheers!

always glad to help...bummer about the trees