problems on set up

[AcWxRadar]

so then I make sure that I am on 79W, then.....

tp frequency=11900

symbol rate is 2170,

what is the polarity?

or am I missing something?

Horizontal

Giovanni,

Make certain that you excercise patience while aligning your new, larger dish. If you are setting up a dish of this size for the first time, you might wish to remember that larger dishes, although they have greater gain, are also more focused.

What this will mean to you as you are trying to align the dish is that you will want to move the dish very slowly, in very small increments and very methodically. You can pass over the signal or the "sweet spot" of your dish alignment too fast and your receiver won't lock on soon enough for it to inform you that you have found the signal.

I see that your location is Canada. I looked up the signal strength of this satellite (79.0'W) and depending upon how far north into Canada you are, you should be fine with a 1.2 M dish. On the SatBeams.com site, it appears that a 1M dish is sufficient for quite a fair distance north. A 1.2 meter dish should be acceptable way futher north - and I don't expect you reside that far north.

This is, of course, based on SatBeams data. I beleive it can be trusted quite highly as I have found that they tend to overate the dish size required in most cases. For my personal location, I find that I can get by with a much smaller dish then they recommend for nearly all satellites. I believe that they are figuring in rain fade and such to ensure that your signal will nearly always be good with the dish size they recommend as a minimum.

RADAR

 

[giovanni1]

I understand what you are saying about patience... thanks!

I do have some good news, my Viewsat has that specific transponder for 79W (11900), so I dont need to store it in.

I have tried again tonight with those settings and found nothing. I believe I am moving the dish with small enough increments.

I am about 1 hour drive north of the Buffalo border for location (south of Toronto). I hope my 36" Fortec dish is enough. Most around here have the same size, so I belive it is.

As it is right now, when I set the Viewsat to AMC5 79W, 10600, 9750, @11900, swith is correct and motor to USALS..... I get about 55 on the 'S' scale. No matter where I put the dish, the 'Q' never moves.

 

[Mr Tony]

What info is on the LNB?

If you have the wrong info entered the receiver wont pick up anything

 

[giovanni1]

BeSat Universal Single LNB

Input:10.7-11.7, 11.7-12.75GHZ
Output: 950-1950, 1.100-2150MHZ
Local Freq.:9.75, 10.6GHZ
gain:50db
Noise:0.3db

this is the info on the LNB.

If I had the info incorrect, would I still be getting about 55 on the 'S' scale?

 

[Mr Tony]

yes you would still a signal...I did that tonight. Had the wrong info on the receiver (had 10750 listed when it should have been 9750/10600) yet still showed at 77 signal...0 quality

but what you have is a Universal LNB so the settings to say "Universal" 9750/10600 is correct as noted above

 

[Dale_Gribble]

Have you tried adjusting the elevation setting? I used to have the SG2100 motor, I think the directions say to have the pole level and set it according to your latitude. I over-tightened the bolts and this threw my elevation off by about 3 degrees, more than enough to miss a satellite completely. I ended up having to set it at 47 instead of 44.

 

[giovanni1]

I have tried pointing the dish in almost every direction....

Obviously, I started with the proper directions, set my motor elevation to 43.2 and my dish elevation to 23.4, set the motor drive to zero, point it to what I believe is true south, set the receiver up to go to my closest sat (79W) with 11900 as a TP, set 10600 and 9750, set the proper SW21 switch Dish 2, I hear the motor move ever so slightly, and there is no signal. Move the dish up and down, left and right, and still nothing!

At first I thought it was my settings in the receiver, but from what I am understanding now, my settings are correct for the equipment that I have.

If I see decent 'S' signal, does that mean that my LNB is working good?
I do not know what else to try.

Also, just curious....

If I run my location and the location of 79W through "dishpointer", (without the mention of a motor) and it tells me that the dish should be at a 40 degree angle. Does this mean that the actual dish itself should be at a 40 degree angle (read from the top) tilted backward in order to read 79W?

If this is so, all the settings on the motorized dish do not get the dish to that particular angle when you stand back and take a good look at it.

 

[Dale_Gribble]

All your settings look right to me, and the S meter displays something, so yes the LNB most likely is working. Here's what I would try: move the dish around until you get the highest S meter signal, then do a blind scan. Hopefully it will receive some TPs and channels, then at least you could figure out what bird it's actually pointed at, then you'll know which way to move the dish to set it correctly.
If durring the blind scan it eventually starts picking up some TPs above 12.2 ghz, then the dish is actuallky pointed at 77 or 82 instead of 79. You don't need a circular LNB to get circular signals, the universal LNB will pick up at least some of the TPs. You would need a circular LNB to get all of them. Also even if your LNBsettings are wrong, if the dish is pointed at a KU satellite the blind scan will still find TPs and channels, but the channels frequency will be displayed incorrectly.
This is how I used to set up a dish with my coolsat 5000 when I first started this hobby. I had the LNB settings wrong, the default settings for the LNB were: universal, 10600/9750 but my LNB was a standard 10750. I just left the default settings as-is and hit blind scan and moved the dish around until it found something. I didn't see any reason to change the default settings, hell I didn't even know what they were for. All of the channels displayed the wrong frequency (I didn't notice), but other than that everything was fine, I had free TV channels to watch and that was OK with me. If not for that blind scan function though, I would not have been able to find a thing becauase I had the LNB settings wrong.
Not all FTA boxes have the blind scan function, and I've read that some have it but it does not actually work. According to the manual your Viewsat does have a blind scan, so why not give it a try, hopefully it will find something for you.

 

[Lak7]

set the proper SW21 switch Dish 2

I would not use a switch until you have locked your first Sat, no need to complicate things.
Receiver---->Motor---->LNB

 

[giovanni1]

The 'S' scale does not move, unless I change the actual transponder in the receiver, then it moves mostly down.

Does not matter where I point the dish, the scale meter always reads around 50-55.

The 'Q' never jumps.

Can anyone tell me what kind of 'tilt' angle that the dish should be at when pointed to generally 'true south', standing back and taking a look at the dish only. An angle read from the top, and then down. The angle that I am referring to will obviously be less that 90 degrees.

As I stated before, my dish is set to all the intended angles, and the actual 'dish' part to me looks to be too perpindicular to the ground.

Lak7.... if you are near Chicago, you are not too far south than where I am in Ontario. Can you tell me what kind of an angle you see on your 'dish' when you stand back and take a look at it from the ground?

 

[Lak7]

Lak7.... if you are near Chicago, you are not too far south than where I am in Ontario. Can you tell me what kind of an angle you see on your 'dish' when you stand back and take a look at it from the ground?

Not quite sure what your asking, but not at home either.
Remember, you are using an Offset Dish, the "offset" is about 22 degrees - meaning that the Dish is actually looking 22 degrees higher than it appears. For a rough idea, do you have a BellNet Dish to compare to?

Use Dishpointer.com, enter your exact address, select your Motor from the Sat list, and click Go.
You can zoom in on the Map to get a pretty good idea where you should be pointing.
Set the Motor Latitude Scale to Your Lat.
Set the Dish Elevation to recommended from Dishpointer.com
(the Dish elevation Scales are know to be a "little" inaccurate, +/- 5 degrees is not unheard of)
No LNB Skew if Motorized.

To me, pointing accurately to your True South (Azimuth) is most important.

 

[Lak7]

Can you post a Pic you your setup?

 

[Lak7]

Can you tell me what kind of an angle you see on your 'dish' when you stand back and take a look at it from the ground?

If I understand what you are asking, my Offset Dish at True South is about 25 degrees.

 

[giovanni1]

I will have to take a pic of my set up later tonight, I am at work now....

As for the proper procedures, I have gone through the dishpointer mapping many times. It seems like a great site with the visuals that are given. I am just not having much luck.

I think it is better if I have someone on the phone with me as I am going through the setup. There must be something that I am not noticing that is throwing things off.

 

[AcWxRadar]

There are several angle calculators you can utilize to determine your dish and motor setup.

I prefer to use Satellite look-angle calculator

If I select your motor (SG2100) and Toronto for your site location, I obtain the following information for your setup:

Motor Elevation (latitude) 43.63'

Dish Elevation 23.33'

True Azimuth 79.4'
(this is the direction from a true north map reference)

Magnetic Azimuth 89.88'
(this is what would be read on a compass)

Note that the true azimuth and the magnetic azimuth do not agree. This is due to the magnetic declination for Toronto. The magnetic north and True North are usually different since the magnetic pole and the True North pole are not the same. Therefore a compensation has to be made which is referred to as the magnetic declination angle. For Toronto, this compensating angle is ~10.5'.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

I would not use a switch until you have locked your first Sat, no need to complicate things.
Receiver---->Motor---->LNB

I very much agree with Lak7's recommendation here. One less item to doubt.

RADAR

 

[Lak7]

2 things that come to mind with setting up the SG2100
1) Set Your Latitude to the "Latitude" scale, not the "Elevation Scale.
2) Understand where the indicator is, it is not the center of the bolt. There is a little raised "arrow" to indicate what degree you are set to.

 

[AcWxRadar]

2 things that come to mind with setting up the SG2100
1) Set Your Latitude to the "Latitude" scale, not the "Elevation Scale.
2) Understand where the indicator is, it is not the center of the bolt. There is a little raised "arrow" to indicate what degree you are set to.

Both very good points to iterate!

Especially the notion regarding the "arrow" pointer vs the center of the bolt. I remember now that many folks have made that error in the past. It is an easy error to make, and can really throw a person for a loop and leave them scratching their heads wondering why they are not detecting a signal.

Of course, using the elevation scale as opposed to the proper latitude scale would be equally detrimental. I don't understand the history of why the motors had two scales (elevation and latitude). The more new PowerTech motors (DG-XXX series) have abandoned this practice as they have both scales marked off for Latitude.

Be cautious and aware of these possible errors.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Another point to be aware of is to ensure that the vertical axis of the dish itself is square and aligned with the center, vertical axis of the motor tube.

If you do not have these two vertical axis aligned, it will throw off your alignment to follow the arc (Clarke Belt) and your motor will not track the satellites throughout the arc properly or at all.

A dish such as the GeoSatPro 1.2M is especially prone to this error since the dish is not pinned to the motor tube. Here, you could actually set the dish on the motor tube with quite an error.

Other dishes, such as the Winegard DS-2076, have a bolt that pins the antenna to the motor tube and fairly well aligns the two axis together. Although there can be some error, slop or play in this as well.

I personally had an SG-2100 motor tube that did not have this bolt hole drilled through it square, or centered properly. This placed my antenna about 1-2 degrees offset from where it should have been. This threw me off for quite a spell until I happened to notice that it didn't appear square to me.

I just caught this accidentally by looking at the dish from a certain angle and something did not look right to me, so I set the motor to the zero degree position and checked the verticality of the dish with a level and found it to be off quite a bit. I could not eliminate this error until I milled the hole through the motor tube out and made it oblong so that I could center the dish assembly on the motor tube. This is a very rare problem, but a person should be aware and concerned with this alignment of the dish and motor tube axis.

RADAR

 

[giovanni1]

The mast is plumb on all sides, I am sure of that.

The scale on the motor does have 2 sides, as you are aware, and I have set the 43 degrees to the latitude side using the pointer in behind, and not the bolt.

The other scale at the back of the dish does not have a pointer as you mentioned. The area behind the bolt is simply a rounded piece of metal where the bracket ends. Up to now, I have been using the centre of the bolt, as there is no pointer.

Nonetheless, even if I am off on this scale, it wont be far. I know I am bang on the other scale to get me pretty close. I have tilted the dish far beyond what is called for (on the scale behind the dish) and found nothing so far.