Need Help with Motorized Dish Setup

[cliffhanger31]

Digiwav SG-2100 motor
Fortec 33" dish
Captive Works CW-2100S

For Tucson, AZ, the values for 97W are:

Elevation 49.6
AZ 155.3
LNB Skew -20.7
Latitude 32.2
Longitude -110.8

Without the motor, on a fixed mount, I had an installer use a birdog to dial in 97W so I know it works.

Now the fun part. I attached a post to the side of the house and made sure it was plumb (that took quite awhile). Actually, I used the post from one of the pay services that I no longer subscribe to.

The elevation can be affected in two ways. First, the motor assembly and second, the hardware associated with attaching the dish to the motor arm. According to the Digiwav instructions, the elevation angle setting for the motor assembly for Tucson, AZ is 58. My understanding on how to use this number is with the motor and dish pointed due south, then set the elevation to 58, is that correct?

The second part is setting the elevation associated with the attaching the dish to the motor post (arm). What do I use? How is that calculated? Do I set that with the disk pointed due south?

Once that is done, I understand I am supposed to use the motor to move the dish to approximately 97W (155.3) and then fool with both AZ and elevation till I get 97W dialed in?? Yes? Then at that point I have an established known point should be able to use the dish motor to get to 123W yes??

Thanks.

 

[cliffhanger31]

One more thing. Just re-read the instructions again and there is a value for the "Declination Angle" of 5.241. This is apparantly associated with the angle setting between the motor and the dish. The scale marked on the side of that assembly goes from 30 to 70 so not sure what to do with 5.241 ???

 

[brentb636]

1. The motor scale should be set at 32.2 on the latitude scale and left there. You'll notice that 90 deg minus 32 is the elevation 58 deg. They mean the same thing, clearly .

2. The dish elevation bracket should be set at 30 deg - a 5.2 deg declination angle ( according to my SG2100 manual) , so set that at 25 degrees to start out.

3. Manually swing your whole dish assembly to point at what you believe is true south ( motor should be at it's zero point) . Snug it up so it's firm but you can still move it.

4. Use your receiver , and USALS mode for your location, and select an active TP on 97W in the antenna settings menu, and tell the motor to move to position. It should move slightly. Now it's your job to shift the whole assembly East or West until you acquire some Quality on the receiver. Then you adjust the dish elevation bracked and azimuth to optimize the Quality .

 

[turbosat]

Set your motor bracket elevation to your site elevation (32). Remember that may need adjusting up or down a little bit later on, once you start tracking the satellite arc. Pick a satellite that is closest to your longitude, to make it easier, since 110 is a Circular sat I'd forget that unless you have a circular/linear lnb like that QPH-thing. Might just use AMC15 at 105, that's pretty close to your due south. Position the dish/motor as close to south as you can. Then, once you've entered your lat/longitude into your motor setup screen in your receiver, try moving the dish over to 105. (you might have to enter that satellite manually in your list if it isn't there already). Then adjust the dish elevation scale to your site elevation+that declination amount--yours is pretty close to mine, somewhre around 39.
Put this channel info into your receiver under AMC15 " 11930H, SR3979, VPID 1021, APID 1022 PCR 8190. That is Echostar's color bars, test screen. You should be pretty close to it with that info. Remember the angles are close but not perfect so you may need to adjust up or down a small amount to hit the signal. Once you find it, then you are ready to start looking for other satellites and checking out how the dish tracks the arc.

EDIT: Brent beat me to it!! AND CORRECT MY SETTING ON DISH ELEVATION ANGLE, YOU SUBTRACT THE DECLINATION ANGLE from the Motor Bracket Angle, not add it!! Thanks Brent.

 

[brentb636]

One more thing. Just re-read the instructions again and there is a value for the "Declination Angle" of 5.241. This is apparantly associated with the angle setting between the motor and the dish. The scale marked on the side of that assembly goes from 30 to 70 so not sure what to do with 5.241 ???

The 5.241 is the declination angle. You are supposed to subtract that angle from 30 degrees ( according to my SG2100 manual) and use the resulting number for the setting on the dish elevation bracket( not the motor elevation scale ).
The small Fortec dish is renowned for an inaccurate scale, so expect to have to adjust it extensively. My old Fortec 80cm scale was about 7 degrees off.

 

[Lak7]

My old Fortec 80cm scale was about 7 degrees off.

Yep, same here.

 

[cliffhanger31]

Beautiful. Thanks for the detailed instructions. Will be out there with first light tomorrow am to try these. Where can I get a SG2100 manual? It sure didn't come in the box. Download from the manufacturer site perhaps??

This afternoon I locked on to 110 w (due south of me) I believe. When I scanned for channels it didn't produce any since I scanned for FTA only (at least I think that was the reason). That was my first small success. However, after I saved the location and told it to go to 123w, it found it but no quality therefore no picture. If I read the rest of the posts correctly, one of my setting is a little off so will fool with it tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[brentb636]

Scanned manual attached:

 

[guapoharry]

If the installer dialed in 97º you probably have a linear LNBF. A linear LNBF will not pick up 110º properly. 110º uses circular polarization, not linear.

It might save some time if you told us (or posted a picture of) what kind of LNBF you have, if you are not sure.

Your motor compensates for skew. So unless you are fine tuning skew, I would start at zero.

If you run into trouble, you might try setting a known good transponder in your receiver and adjust the dish until the quality is peaked. If it was me, I would start out doing that.

 

[cliffhanger31]

Yes, the LNBF is dual linear.

This morning I had both 110 w and 97 w dialed in but could not get 123w. I have reset the receiver and the motor twice again this am but am trying to resolve the following issue. Before I reset the motor, I could select a satellite from the preset list and the motor would rotate to it. After resetting, it will rotate to some but mostly it no longer will auto rotate to the selected satellite. The second issue this morning, which the resetting I thought would eliminate but does not seem to have is the motor is rotating in the wrong direction for some satellites. I start at 110 and when I set via the receiver to go to 119 w, it rotated to the left vs the right. So it seems to be confused as to where the zero reference point is. In one of the previous posts, a recommendation was made to enter the USALS latitude and longitude which I did but couldn't tell if that made a difference to anything. Thoughts?

 

[brentb636]

When you reset your motor, it is necessary to have it at ZERO at the time. Resetting it is telling the motor to load its default sat positions, and use the current position as ZERO, or true south.
Once the motor is initialized at ZERO, it should respond to USALS commands and go to that position.
Make sure that your longitude is WEST and your Latitude is NORTH . The receiver may well default to EAST longitude and you'll have to change that.

 

[cliffhanger31]

Ok, thanks for all the input and the speed of the input. I got 97w, 123w and a couple of others so I would say I am good for the time being. Quite the learning experience. Thanks to all for input.

 

[brentb636]

I've been doing this for just over 3 years now, and at first, there was a TON of things to keep straight. Once you get confidence in your receiver, and how to troubleshoot, you'll sleep better.