Motorized dish quirk

[Mr Tony]

OK...finally got a 2nd motorized up and running.....well the dish was put up Valentines day but just got to working on making sure its on the arc today (been busy and getting snow doesnt help)

SG2100
GeoSatPro 36" dish
Sadoun .4 dual

Used my trusty Pansat 1500 and got my true south (93W) dialed in. Now the easiest thing to do is move to far west sat and see how it looks and then go far east sat...ok here goes
Moved to 125W and locked on PBS (12180) at 95 quality...rest are in the 50-60 range...so looks like we're on the western sats fine
Moved to 72W and locked the feed mux at 99 and GBN at 95....KFTL on H is at 60...ok good there
tried a few more sats in the middle and all looked really good with numbers in the 70's-80

then I moved to Horizon 2 and locked Ohio News at 75 BUT if I lightly push up on the dish elevation the meter jumps to 90...all other signals I've tried to push up on the dish and nothing happens. If I push up on the dish at true south or far western sats the signal goes DOWN...even on 79 it does the same thing

Looks like I'm on the arc just fine but it seems weird that one signal seems to make it look like I'm off the arc a bit.

Am I crazy or have others seen this before??

 

[Lak7]

Are you warping the dish when you push / pull.
That happened to me with an 80cm Fortec, flimsy

 

[Mr Tony]

I'm pushing up the arm of the dish on the bottom which moves the whole dish assembly

Like I say its just ONN that has the issue (well if its one)

 

[Tron]

Possible that there is an adjacent signal somewhere causing interference on that particular transponder, and pushing the dish off-peak away from the interference is helping reception of that particular TP...

 

[cracklincrotch]

I had the same issue when tweaking mine yesterday. I could get everything in the high 80s or better except for H2. I adjusted mine to split the difference. Get everything in the low to mid 70s at both ends of the arc. Though, Newspath on G16 still comes in around 90 on my CS5000.

 

[Mr Tony]

I think it might have been that signal because there were some feeds that registered really good on the 36" but if I nudged it up then I lost them

I guess I cant complain...mount dish up there on rigged up mast (had to add some length to the mast to clear the roof), aimed at 93W, adjusted elevation and boom done

 

[AcWxRadar]

OK...finally got a 2nd motorized up and running.....well the dish was put up Valentines day but just got to working on making sure its on the arc today (been busy and getting snow doesnt help)

SG2100
GeoSatPro 36" dish
Sadoun .4 dual

Used my trusty Pansat 1500 and got my true south (93W) dialed in. Now the easiest thing to do is move to far west sat and see how it looks and then go far east sat...ok here goes
Moved to 125W and locked on PBS (12180) at 95 quality...rest are in the 50-60 range...so looks like we're on the western sats fine
Moved to 72W and locked the feed mux at 99 and GBN at 95....KFTL on H is at 60...ok good there
tried a few more sats in the middle and all looked really good with numbers in the 70's-80

then I moved to Horizon 2 and locked Ohio News at 75 BUT if I lightly push up on the dish elevation the meter jumps to 90...all other signals I've tried to push up on the dish and nothing happens. If I push up on the dish at true south or far western sats the signal goes DOWN...even on 79 it does the same thing

Looks like I'm on the arc just fine but it seems weird that one signal seems to make it look like I'm off the arc a bit.

Am I crazy or have others seen this before??

Iceberg,

Nope, you are right on the level there. I noticed this same issue with three completely different setups in the same day last fall. 74W seems to be slightly off in elevation. If you peak on it, everything else on the arc suffers and especially 121, 123 and 129.

I detected the same signal level with my Coolsat on ONN last fall (about 74%-78% Q) and all the other sats were peaked fine. This was identical with my home dish and two installs that I did on that day about ten miles away.

I am a little skeptical about my home dish, remember that I have a problem with 83W AMC 9. But, there cannot be the same problem with 74W on three separate dishes. That would be too coincidental.

I believe that you detected precisely the same thing that I did. I just passed it off as sat 74W being a little off the arc, elevation-wise. I am kinda a fidgety nut when it comes to accuracy and I wanted the signal from ONN to be better, so I played around for a couple of hours trying to get it to pull up better, but no matter what I did, it always sacrificed ALL of the other sats, so as long as I could get it to come in at 74-76%, I left it alone.

Just checking the signal right now on ONN, I see that it is 87-88% Q and the signal level is 81% on my Coolsat 5K. I am near Omaha, NE. I believe you are not too far away, maybe further north of me and east, but I don't think you are far enough away to affect the footprint too much.

Mind if I change the subject? Please excuse me for this deviation, but I have to say something to someone!

As I was checking the signal for this discussion, ONN was reporting on some story that had to deal with a coal fired power plant somewhere and the local people and the news reporters were all dumb as the lumps of coal that they were burning!

They had video of the cooling tower in winter and they were all afraid of what health risks were involved! If they are worried about that, then they better stop boiling water for tea, hard boiled eggs, spaghetti and making coffee in the coffee maker!

It was all water vapor that they were looking at, nothing else, no CFCs, no CO2, no CO, no SO2, nothing! It was water! What a bunch of uneducated people we have to live with! Ha Ha.

It was turbine and boiler cooling water that was evaporating from the cooling tower and they think it is a nuclear disaster or something! OMFG!

A Coleman fuel camping lantern puts out more pollution (radiation) than a coal fired power plant! I know this because my Father ran a power plant and I grew up there and I know how clean the exhaust really is!

They weren't even filming the exhaust! LOL! They couldn't even see it and didn't even know where the exhaust was, because it cannot be seen! What a bunch of morons! That is the problem with the country today, people are becoming too stupid and they don't have the common sense to know when Al Gore is blowing smoke up their "stack".

Excuse me for the departure from satellite stuff, had to get that off my chest!

Radar

 

[B.J.]

OK...finally got a 2nd motorized up and running.....well the dish was put up Valentines day but just got to working on making sure its on the arc today (been busy and getting snow doesnt help)

SG2100
GeoSatPro 36" dish
Sadoun .4 dual

Used my trusty Pansat 1500 and got my true south (93W) dialed in. Now the easiest thing to do is move to far west sat and see how it looks and then go far east sat...ok here goes
Moved to 125W and locked on PBS (12180) at 95 quality...rest are in the 50-60 range...so looks like we're on the western sats fine
Moved to 72W and locked the feed mux at 99 and GBN at 95....KFTL on H is at 60...ok good there
tried a few more sats in the middle and all looked really good with numbers in the 70's-80

then I moved to Horizon 2 and locked Ohio News at 75 BUT if I lightly push up on the dish elevation the meter jumps to 90...all other signals I've tried to push up on the dish and nothing happens. If I push up on the dish at true south or far western sats the signal goes DOWN...even on 79 it does the same thing

Looks like I'm on the arc just fine but it seems weird that one signal seems to make it look like I'm off the arc a bit.

Am I crazy or have others seen this before??

Iceberg,

Nope, you are right on the level there. I noticed this same issue with three completely different setups in the same day last fall. 74W seems to be slightly off in elevation. .....
......
I believe that you detected precisely the same thing that I did. I just passed it off as sat 74W being a little off the arc, elevation-wise. ......

.......................

Not much chance of 74W being "off in elevation". This whole thing about one sat being off doesn't make any sense to me at all. Only 2 things come to mind to me. One, the suggestion above that perhaps there is some interferrence, and moving off aim decreases the interferrence more than the main signal is possible. Also, if I understand the data, all the transponders on 72W were pretty much maxed out, so there may have been the same behavior on 72W if weaker transponders were chosen. Ie it seems possible that the alignment is off a bit and is noticeable at the ends of the arc, but only noticeable on weaker signals???
But the sat cannot be off the arc, just not possible. It CAN be inclined where it drifts daily above and below the arc, but that would show up in the KEPS, and according to Space Command, that sat is not inclined.

........

A Coleman fuel camping lantern puts out more pollution (radiation) than a coal fired power plant! I know this because my Father ran a power plant and I grew up there and I know how clean the exhaust really is!
........

Well "radiation" wise, the ASH from a coal powered plant is actually moderately radioactive, because burning the coal concentrates a bunch of normally trace elements. And just because they weren't looking at the exhaust doesn't mean that the exhaust is clean. You wouldn't want to be breathing the undiluted exhaust from a plant like that. On the other hand, I agree that there should be more coal burning plants, at least as a short term alternative. I worked for a couple years helping in the development of a "clean" liquified coal substitute for oil burning plants, and it was all ready to go, when the oil prices dropped and the process was no longer competitive, and the company went out of business.

 

[Mr Tony]

Iceberg,

Nope, you are right on the level there. I noticed this same issue with three completely different setups in the same day last fall. 74W seems to be slightly off in elevation. If you peak on it, everything else on the arc suffers and especially 121, 123 and 129.

I detected the same signal level with my Coolsat on ONN last fall (about 74%-78% Q) and all the other sats were peaked fine. This was identical with my home dish and two installs that I did on that day about ten miles away.

sounds about right with what I was noticing

 

[Mr Tony]

Not much chance of 74W being "off in elevation". This whole thing about one sat being off doesn't make any sense to me at all. Only 2 things come to mind to me. One, the suggestion above that perhaps there is some interferrence, and moving off aim decreases the interferrence more than the main signal is possible. Also, if I understand the data, all the transponders on 72W were pretty much maxed out, so there may have been the same behavior on 72W if weaker transponders were chosen. Ie it seems possible that the alignment is off a bit and is noticeable at the ends of the arc, but only noticeable on weaker signals???
But the sat cannot be off the arc, just not possible. It CAN be inclined where it drifts daily above and below the arc, but that would show up in the KEPS, and according to Space Command, that sat is not inclined.

Its not the whole satellite. Just ONN is off. The feeds I had on 74 if I moved the dish up the quality would get worse.

72 I know is strong but KFTL isnt the strongest up there and that maxed at 60. 79W is maxed as best I could get

I guess the moral of the story is when checking 74W ONN even though its the only 24/7 TP will get you locked in but ya have to check more then just that signal.

 

[B.J.]

Its not the whole satellite. Just ONN is off. ...

Oh.... OK. I guess the only logical explanantion then is the interferrence thing mentioned above, however I don't see anything listed in Lyngsat with similar parameters on nearby sats. That's strange.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Not much chance of 74W being "off in elevation". This whole thing about one sat being off doesn't make any sense to me at all. Only 2 things come to mind to me. One, the suggestion above that perhaps there is some interferrence, and moving off aim decreases the interferrence more than the main signal is possible. Also, if I understand the data, all the transponders on 72W were pretty much maxed out, so there may have been the same behavior on 72W if weaker transponders were chosen. Ie it seems possible that the alignment is off a bit and is noticeable at the ends of the arc, but only noticeable on weaker signals???
But the sat cannot be off the arc, just not possible. It CAN be inclined where it drifts daily above and below the arc, but that would show up in the KEPS, and according to Space Command, that sat is not inclined.

Its not the whole satellite. Just ONN is off. The feeds I had on 74 if I moved the dish up the quality would get worse.

72 I know is strong but KFTL isnt the strongest up there and that maxed at 60. 79W is maxed as best I could get

I guess the moral of the story is when checking 74W ONN even though its the only 24/7 TP will get you locked in but ya have to check more then just that signal.

I truly did not think that the satellite was off the arc, and not really so much that it was inclined in its orbit - although I pondered that.

I should have clarified my thoughts more precisely. It was ONN that was off and I wasn't checking any other channels. I rely on ONN for installations because it is 24/7 and that was the first time I ever noticed the problem. I do not detect any other stations which are permanent like ONN, just the feeds and I never bother with checking them for installation purposes.

I have since noticed that the signal has improved, at least on my home system, although I have not investigated whether the dish could still be moved to improve it more.

The main point was that I observed the same exact problem that Ice did. I found the results rather frustrating and couldn't explain it. The satellite orbit being inclined was an easy way to explain it. But, perhaps the TP is aimed a little wrong or something.

I have never seen or studied the design of a satellite's antenna transmitter or transponder, so I don't know exactly how they are set up mechanically. But, if they can position them by remote to direct them and focus them into specific beams, then the transmitter could surely be off alignment unintentionally or accidentally. Either that or the satellite's inclination is not always perfect and maybe they have some control issues from time to time, just briefly and temporarily, but not enough to register the sat to have an inclination or be out of position.

Radar