motorized dish questions

[dkdakota]

setup:
coolsat 7000, sg2100 motor, Invacom QPH-031 LNB and a direcpc dish 39" wide by 23" tall with an an lnb bracket/holder
My first question is will this dish work (it was free) or am I better off biting the bullet and buying a dish. I've read a little about focal point and aiming the lnb, enough to be confused. Is the included bracket set to the correct distance or do I need to modify that. I think the dish was orginally used for internet access. And for the lnb type should it be set to "single" in reciever set up? Also the diseqc switch setting 1/ off /off (thinking about keeping a fixed dish with the motorized reason for the sw)
thanks for all the help in advance

 

[turbosat]

You can prob find some other threads about the direcpc or direcway dishes used for fta by doing a search.. They will work, they may not pick up all the (weaker) satellite feeds but you can certainly get a ton of tv for free with it. I used the lnbf that came on it, worked just fine. I have no experience with rigging a fancier lnbf on that dish, but I would say stick with the focal distance on the orig lnbf/ feedhorn support, you can measure it, then tweak the other lnbf until you get the best gain.
Don't know if that dish will be optimum for you but it will give you a good taste of what is available on free to air. And yes, I believe your lnbf would be set to single, LO freq of 10750. AND, you may have to judge whether that lnbf you want to use is going to be supported well enough by the existing feedhorn support-may want to brace it somehow. I have a direcway dish, I used a month or two which had a good strong feedhorn support but I never tried any other,heavier lnbf on it.
Post your questions, someone here will help you as you get it going.

 

[dkdakota]

ok, I got things working sort of. The dish does work. thanks for the reply Turbosat. Now here is the problem. Take the lnb and hook it straight to the reciever, bypassing the motor altogether and it works. Run it through the motor and I get no signal or quality. I can however move the dish. So then for fun I decided to hook up the switch. The fixed dish and the one with the motor both run to the switch and then through the motor to the reciever taking care to match the correct switch number in the reciever. The Fixed dish works but again the one with the motor won't pick anything up. I was wondering if someone might know what I'm overlooking. I'm wondering if the coolsat is the problem. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again

 

[gabshere]

try a different piece of coax on the motorized dish between the motor and lnbf

 

[Anole]

that does not compute

How 'bout bad connectors/cables?

You have conflicting info asserting that the dish on the motor works then doesn't.
So, it must work.

You have conflicting info asserting that connecting through the motor works then doesn't.
So, it must work.

I'm not too sure about your switch, and they are quite delicate, so I'd remove it from the equation.

This leaves little but the wiring and the receiver settings (which I assume you have worked out).

Of course, if you have wiggly/wobbly motor mount or something we don't know about . . .


edit: oops, George posted same answer while I was screwing around.