Primestar Offset Angle

[navagator]

Hello,

I recently acquired a Primestar dish from the neighbor and I'm in the process of trying to aim it at G10R. It's a Mold# 1X0.7-1, and appears to be in good condition. I've been working with it for the past 3 days now and haven't found G10 yet. I'm planning on a trip to the local hardware store tomorrow and I'm going to pick up an inclimeter while I'm there.

My question is, what is the offset angle of a Primestar dish? According to the corrodinates I received from GeoSatFinder the elevation setting for my location should be 33.2 degrees. I would need to minus the offset angle of the dish from the elevation setting of 33.2 degrees to get the correct inclimeter angle value, is this correct?

Thanks

Doug

 

[turbosat]

Is that a round dish? Not familiar with that Mold# lol. The difference is 22degrees I believe. If you have the primestar on its original mount, and on a pole. and you have 33 for the elevation, start by putting the primestar dish at about 45 and go up, it can vary depending on the mount.
Gotta sweep the dish right and left very slowly, watching the receiver for any sign of signal . Or use a signal meter. G10 is tough for a first timer, its even tough for me after a yr and ahalf of tinkering.. Sometimes its easier to hit 121, a dishnetwork satellite, and once you find that, move dish ever so slightly west. About 1/4 turn on that elevation bolt may mean hit or miss, its very touchy, so don't raise it much each time you adjust it.
edit to ask : It'd help if we knew where you are!! and what kind of receiver/lnbf you have

 

[navagator]

I think it's the lesser known model of the elliptical types, I did find a reference to it at this link: Setting up a Voom receiver for OFF AIR HDTV . As far as I can tell it has the original mount and lnbf, it's mounted on a pole and I have it hooked to a Visionsat receiver.

I'm located in Iowa, 52501.

I've been sweeping from 30 to 40 degrees, so thats probably been a little too low. I'll have to try higher.

I hope to start working on it again the day after tomorrow depending on the temperature, it's been fairly cold here the last few days and I'm afraid I don't work to well in the cold.

Thanks

Doug

 

[Tron]

The Primestar dishes have a very accurate elevation scale stamped on the original AZ-EL mount that comes with the dish. All you have to do is loosen the side bolts and use a socket wrench to turn the top bolt. Use the stamped elevation scale, no need to factor in offset.

 

[primestar31]

The Primestar dishes have a very accurate elevation scale stamped on the original AZ-EL mount that comes with the dish. All you have to do is loosen the side bolts and use a socket wrench to turn the top bolt. Use the stamped elevation scale, no need to factor in offset.

Some of the elliptical Primestar dishes have a built-in declination of 5 degrees. I've owned about 20+ of them at different times, and have seen this more than once. So, you need to aim that dish 5 degrees higher than what it says on the elevation scale. Now why a fixed dish would have built-in declination, is something beyond me.

 

[lumpkin666]

navagator, I have no other real helpful advice.. but noticed that you're only about 25 miles from me! And yeah, it's gonna get colder here this weekend

 

[gpat]

I think it's the lesser known model of the elliptical types, I did find a reference to it at this link: Setting up a Voom receiver for OFF AIR HDTV . As far as I can tell it has the original mount and lnbf, it's mounted on a pole and I have it hooked to a Visionsat receiver.

I'm located in Iowa, 52501.

I've been sweeping from 30 to 40 degrees, so thats probably been a little too low. I'll have to try higher.

I hope to start working on it again the day after tomorrow depending on the temperature, it's been fairly cold here the last few days and I'm afraid I don't work to well in the cold.

Thanks

Doug

Humm
52501
Hometown of Radar o Riley ;^)

Have many relatives there,parents were born and raised there,I lived there for a while on Marion and later on McLean.
Good luck in your venture with the dish.

 

[gpat]

navagator, I have no other real helpful advice.. but noticed that you're only about 25 miles from me! And yeah, it's gonna get colder here this weekend

And ditto to you too

Really OT but isnt it strange that characters in MASH correlate to the area.
Radar O Riley,Hawkeye Pierce?

 

[Mr Tony]

I have 2 primestar dishes and they are balls on with the elevation meter. I would take what geosatfinder tells you and start there and go SLOW when moving the dish.

When I aimed my dish at G11 it says 38 degrees. I set the elevation to 38 degrees and found G11 in about 10 seconds. Took a couple cranks to get it to optimum signal but it should work just fine. Also you need to skew the LNB

 

[Corrado]

When I pointed my Primestar at G10 last August, I hit it the first time just setting the angle gauge on the mount. I turned on the receiver I had out there and G10 was on already. That elevation adjustment bolt is the best. I just needed to tweak it the slightest bit to get the max quality and tighten the bolts.

 

[navagator]

Hello,

First of all thanks for all your replies, they've been very helpful. And yes we are know as the hometown of Radar O'reilly, however he's actually from Bristol Conneticut. I often wondered where they came up with Ottumwa and I came across this article: The Ottumwa Courier - 'Radar' has come home , that kind of shed some light on it.

I decided to read over Linuxman's post on how to set up a 1 meter Primestar for G10R: http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/100714-how-1-meter-primestar-g10-ku-123w.html once more and I believe I have found out where I goofed up . When I checked the photo of Linuxman's mount I noticed this time that he had a line marking where the mounts elevation was currently set and 2 lines above showing where the installer should should sweep to find the correct elevation. I noticed this time that the line below was directly accross the metal piece on the inside of the mount and was essentially the pointer for the elevation guide. I've been drawing an imaginary line across the bolt and using that as my pointer. So I've been sweeping between 20 and 30 degrees rather than 30 to 40. Silly mistake . I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention the first time I checked the photo.

Well, hopefully I can get her aimed right now. When the weather permitts anyway.

Thanks

Doug

 

[netbuilder]

When I first started out with this hobby I had a Primestar dish and tried to get that bird and was unsuccessful after many, many tries. I ended up getting a slightly larger dish (DirecWay with skew) and I nailed it but only after I figured out that when you are aiming the dish you need to make sure that you are aiming with a strong transponder programmed into the receiver. By the way after I purchased a motor for my Primestar it did pick up that bird, guess I wasn't too patient to begin with. Hope that helps.

Got some pics here...

 

[SATisfied]

Wow, Netbuilder, I am impressed with your blog, and the pics. The mounting strap that you have attached to the lnb arm on the direcway dish is cool.
How did you figure out where to place the lnb's on the strap, and where did you point the dish? I currently have a 36" fortec dish with a Stab HH100 motor I'm using with my Captiveworks cw600s reciever, but I have yet to get G10R. I also have a P* dish, a direcway dish ( like yours, but no lnb arm), and a Starband internet sat dish kinda like the direcway, but it has the lnb and the arm. I intend to get a dish pointed at G10R, but I still need to locate a discrete mounting area so as to keep the wife happy. You have given me new inspiration with your blog and the pics.....thanks

 

[netbuilder]

SATisfied - and everyone

I got the "mounting strap" sheet metal strip from Lowe's and I bent it to match the curvature of the dish. From there I just slowly slid each LNBF until I tuned in the bird I was looking for and got some signal. The birds pushing circular polarity are pretty strong and the signals are pretty forgiving for free-hand tuning even though they are sensitive.

What is funny is how I found 148W. I was totally not expecting to get that one. I was just trying to tune in anything along the belt and to my surprise I saw it was 148W. I think the larger dish contributes to this result. G10R is hard to hit for sure which is why it is my center focus LNBF but I wouldn't try to find it without a dish of AT LEAST this size.

If you attempt this with similar equipment I could help you out by providing measurements or closer pictures.