Hello,
Please, we are lost, lost, lost on trying to set up our Viewsat Extreme. I can relate so much to kaatskill! We're just now trying to switch to FTA from DirecTV adn we feel like we're about to go down for the 3rd time. I'll try to keep this as short as possible but it's really kind of a chocolate mess.
This is our equipment:
Viewsat VS2000 Extreme
90-cm Fortec Star FC-90 dish
STAB HH-90 motor
Invacom QPH-031 Quad LNBF
4 x 1 Diseqc
Upgrade Cable
Our lat/long is 33.1 N 94.1 W (zip 75551)
According to the STAB installation calculator at Sadoun, our dish elevation should 39.6.
So: we have our motor elevation at 33.1 and our dish elevation at 39.6.
Again with the help at Sadoun, we're understanding that our True South is -3 degrees of magnetic south, or 177 degrees, yes?
FIRST QUESTION: Does all of that sound OK so far?
Based on all that, we've made sure our mounting post is perfectly plumb, all the dish-related equipment everything is perfectly lined up, and followed exactly (as far as we can tell) all of these totally unrelated and uninformative manuals that came with the equipment, and we're still having difficulty (a)getting our first satellite, and/or (b) finding any viewable channels on other satellites we finally manage to find.
Problem is that we can't get a reasonable signal on any of the sats that are close to us -- no more than 60% or so on what we think is the signal strength column and hovering around 0% on the quality column. At least we think that's what they are because we can't find what these two columns are.
Finally, we decided to just pick a satellite (any satellite!) We decided to go with somebody's suggest to kaatskill and try for G10R. Same story -- about 60 strength and zero quality.
Finally, based on other reading, we decided to hook the new dish up to our old DirecTV box for the sake of the signal meter.
While we were looking at the DTV box, it gave us entirely different dish elevation info. It said we had been at elevation 48, azimuth 24, and tilt (whatever that is) 68. Hmm, that was interesting.
Anyhow: The DTV box picks up 101 and 119. So we motorized over to what we thought was 119, switched boxes, and went through the signal testing. The DTV box told us it had actually found 101, but it gave us a good strong 100% question.
THIRD QUESTION: We must have made an aiming mistake somewhere or other, but where?)
FOURTH QUESTION: Why would there be such a big difference in recommended elevations between the calculator result (39.6) and the DTV setting (48)?
Back to the story .Switched boxes again back to the ViewSat. We told it it was at 101 and set that position. Tried some other satellites. The only one we could really get good signal and quality on was one of the EchoStars (6, I think). Tried a scan of it anyway and got a lot of locked channels. No surprise, pay TV.
Tried some of the other satellites, including G10R. Got some more locked channels.
Tried a blind scan. Made it to the channel guide, which shows a bunch of locked channels and a few supposedly open ones, but the guide says "No Info" about all of them, even the open ones.
When we try to select one of the open channels, we still sit there at this increasingly aggravating Viewsat screen. No picture, no sound, no channels that we can actually get to.
We've started over about 5 times on this thing now and we're just about to throw it out the window. The dealer is zero help. The one good thing they did is refer us here.
THE REST OF THE QUESTIONS:
Are we skipping a step somewhere? I keep reading about downloading .bin files and Loader files and this file and that file. Is that something we're supposed to do before we even try the very first scan?
Also: Is there ANYBODY who can tell us how to figure out the Viewsat screens and icons? The manual seems to think you already have some knowledge about what it's talking about and of course it assumes everything will go correctly. Maybe it's something that's easy to understand if everything IS going correctly, but since it's not -- well....
We've tried so many things that I don't even remember them all. We're perfectly willing to start over again but we really need to find away around this brick wall before we bash our brains out on it. Any help at all, stated in kindergarten terms if possible, would be MOST appreciated.
Many thanks!
Please, we are lost, lost, lost on trying to set up our Viewsat Extreme. I can relate so much to kaatskill! We're just now trying to switch to FTA from DirecTV adn we feel like we're about to go down for the 3rd time. I'll try to keep this as short as possible but it's really kind of a chocolate mess.
This is our equipment:
Viewsat VS2000 Extreme
90-cm Fortec Star FC-90 dish
STAB HH-90 motor
Invacom QPH-031 Quad LNBF
4 x 1 Diseqc
Upgrade Cable
Our lat/long is 33.1 N 94.1 W (zip 75551)
According to the STAB installation calculator at Sadoun, our dish elevation should 39.6.
So: we have our motor elevation at 33.1 and our dish elevation at 39.6.
Again with the help at Sadoun, we're understanding that our True South is -3 degrees of magnetic south, or 177 degrees, yes?
FIRST QUESTION: Does all of that sound OK so far?
Based on all that, we've made sure our mounting post is perfectly plumb, all the dish-related equipment everything is perfectly lined up, and followed exactly (as far as we can tell) all of these totally unrelated and uninformative manuals that came with the equipment, and we're still having difficulty (a)getting our first satellite, and/or (b) finding any viewable channels on other satellites we finally manage to find.
Problem is that we can't get a reasonable signal on any of the sats that are close to us -- no more than 60% or so on what we think is the signal strength column and hovering around 0% on the quality column. At least we think that's what they are because we can't find what these two columns are.
Finally, we decided to just pick a satellite (any satellite!) We decided to go with somebody's suggest to kaatskill and try for G10R. Same story -- about 60 strength and zero quality.
Finally, based on other reading, we decided to hook the new dish up to our old DirecTV box for the sake of the signal meter.
While we were looking at the DTV box, it gave us entirely different dish elevation info. It said we had been at elevation 48, azimuth 24, and tilt (whatever that is) 68. Hmm, that was interesting.
Anyhow: The DTV box picks up 101 and 119. So we motorized over to what we thought was 119, switched boxes, and went through the signal testing. The DTV box told us it had actually found 101, but it gave us a good strong 100% question.
THIRD QUESTION: We must have made an aiming mistake somewhere or other, but where?)
FOURTH QUESTION: Why would there be such a big difference in recommended elevations between the calculator result (39.6) and the DTV setting (48)?
Back to the story .Switched boxes again back to the ViewSat. We told it it was at 101 and set that position. Tried some other satellites. The only one we could really get good signal and quality on was one of the EchoStars (6, I think). Tried a scan of it anyway and got a lot of locked channels. No surprise, pay TV.
Tried some of the other satellites, including G10R. Got some more locked channels.
Tried a blind scan. Made it to the channel guide, which shows a bunch of locked channels and a few supposedly open ones, but the guide says "No Info" about all of them, even the open ones.
When we try to select one of the open channels, we still sit there at this increasingly aggravating Viewsat screen. No picture, no sound, no channels that we can actually get to.
We've started over about 5 times on this thing now and we're just about to throw it out the window. The dealer is zero help. The one good thing they did is refer us here.
THE REST OF THE QUESTIONS:
Are we skipping a step somewhere? I keep reading about downloading .bin files and Loader files and this file and that file. Is that something we're supposed to do before we even try the very first scan?
Also: Is there ANYBODY who can tell us how to figure out the Viewsat screens and icons? The manual seems to think you already have some knowledge about what it's talking about and of course it assumes everything will go correctly. Maybe it's something that's easy to understand if everything IS going correctly, but since it's not -- well....
We've tried so many things that I don't even remember them all. We're perfectly willing to start over again but we really need to find away around this brick wall before we bash our brains out on it. Any help at all, stated in kindergarten terms if possible, would be MOST appreciated.
Many thanks!
