SAT additions to AZBox with DiSEqC

[AcWxRadar]

This is just a note of commentary on my observations for adding new satellites to the AZBox when using DiSEqC 1.2 motor positioning.

Because of my longitude coordinate, USALS does not function to drive my motor if the satellite I desire is further than approximately 59° east or west from my site.

Therefore, when it comes to satellite 30.0°W Hispasat 1C/1D, I must revert to using DiSEqC 1.2 motor control.

Additional comment: I did not personally care for the stock list of satellites in my AZBox. I had no use for the hundred or more satellites listed which were only viewable from Asia, Africa and Europe. I also did not like the naming and organization of the North American satellites.

Therefore, I set out to create an entirely virgin list of satellites for my own use by wiping the entire slate clean of all this "junk" and starting over with the intention of manually entering every satellite that I know that I can get and all their TPs.

I ran into a few problems in doing so.

The first problem that I should mention is that you DO NOT want to delete ALL the satellites from the AZBox! It does NOT like this and produces an error. Worst yet, it won't let you correct that error very easily. You want to leave at least ONE satellite remaining in the list.

To give you a humorous example of what it was like following the deletion of the very last satellite in my list....

AZBOX: ERROR! THERE ARE NO SATELLITES!

ME: Yes, I know this. I intend to add a satellite by going to the menu where I may add and edit satellites... This menu here...

AZBOX: ERROR! ACCESS DENIED! THERE ARE NO SATELLITES!

ME: Yes, I understand that there are no satellites, let me add one... HERE.

AZBOX: ERROR! NOT ALLOWED. THERE ARE NO SATELLITES!

ME: Listen HAL, let me explain. I deleted the satellites on purpose. Now I want to replace some of them. OK?

AZBOX: I AM SORRY DAVE. I CAN NOT ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT. THERE ARE NO SATELLITES IN YOUR LIST.

ME: OK HAL, I am just going to detach this cord from the wall socket to conserve energy, ok?

HAL 9000 (I mean AZBox): I AM SORRY DAVE. I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WAS A NECESSARY PROCESS. PLEASE, GO AHEAD AND INSTALL SOME SATELLITES INTO YOUR LIST NOW.

ME: Thank you, HAL. You miserable schmuck.

AZBOX: WHAT DID YOU SAY DAVE? I DIDN'T HEAR YOU?

ME: Uh, nothing HAL, nothing important.

Well, you get the idea. DON'T delete ALL of your satellites from the list! HAL will get you.

Ok, enough of that. Now here is the really glitchy problem, and I don't know if I would have discovered it without cleaning house this way.

97.0°W is my truest south satellite and the biggest one to edit. The second largest satellite (in regards to TP and channel numbers) is 30.0°W and this one requires me to use DiSEqC 1.2 to position it. So I wanted to get these two out of the way first. No problems. A very clean, easy and quick install and I was on my way to the third satellite.

Here is where the problem arose. No matter which stellite I entered next, it would change Hispasat's coordinates to the same as the newly added satellite.
So, if I added 43.0°W, Hispasat would then change its name and coordinates to "43.0°W Hispasat"! If I added 63.0°W Telstar 11, Hispasat would show up as "63.0°W Hispasat"!

I attempted all sorts of tricks to prevent this, like rebooting the AZBOX after adding each satellite, hoping that it would register properly and not alter any of the previously entered satellites. No joy. I tried several methods to "RESET" and "SAVE" the position of Hispasat in the DiSEqC 1.2 motor mode control, still no joy.

No matter what I did, it wanted to screw up the name and coordinate of the one atellite that I had set up using DiSEqC 1.2.

The last thing I tried, which appears to have worked. Is that after setting up Hispasat using DiSEqC 1.2. I then changed the motor selection of Hispasat to USALS while I added the rest of the satellites to my list.

Therefore, if you plan to use DiSEqC 1.2 for motor control of any of your satellites within the AZBox, be sure to set the motor control for each to USALS until you have all your adds and edits complete. Once you are done adding satellites to your list, you may return and set up any and all sats that will be using DiSEqC 1.2 back to that mode.

When I first received my AZBox and started playing around with adding satellites to the list, I detected all sorts of strange anomalies similar to this. However, I could not really explain what was going on. I now have a little clearer picture because I can see it with a smaller list of satellites and I can reproduce the same effect every time and correct for it every time as well.

There is no way to describe this in less words and you almost have to experience it yourself for the "light" to come on. But, somehow I need to get this glitch reported to OpenSAT so that they can diagnose why it is doing this and correct it.

What an experience! It seems that the AZBox does NOT like to have satellites set up with both DiSEqC 1.2 and USALS at the same time or at least it appears difficult to set them up this way.

RADAR

 

[Hindu55]

Good job figuring out what caused that. I had that problem with a sat. I would even
correct it in the editor, load it back to the AzBox and the darn thing would change the
coordinate back. I now have all motor control turned off and let my Dynamic do that duty
due to some of those problems so it looks like I'll have to start all over if I want to correct
it. Thanks for the info.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Hindu,

You are welcome for the information.

I have to add one more thing, something that I just discovered. If you try what I stated in my first post, make sure that you switch the satellites in question (such as 30W in my case) back to DiSEqC 1.2 before you power down or reboot your AZBox. If you power down or reboot, with a satellite set up the way I was describing, it will mess it it up again when the box comes back on line. Geez! What a pain!

Since I only have one satellite (30.0°W) that requires me to use DiSEqC 1.2 motor control, I think that I will leave that to the very last. I will enter the entire set of N.A. sats, regardless of whether I can view them or not, and then add 30.0°W after the fact.

I will tell you that my list (satellite list) looks much more presentable now. Better organized and none of the errors that came stock with the box initially. I am glad that I spent the time to clean this up. I spent almost a whole day figuring this BUG out, then I had to spend most of the next day entering in all the sats that I could. Very time consuming!

RADAR

 

[Mr Tony]

That is a good idea Radar!

I went through and removed all those Eastern satellites right away that I dont need. Since mine is slaved maybe I'll remove the rest of them I dont use.

 

[pedrogarcia]

Radar - I guess you just realised you are one of the unpaid developers /quality controllers for OpenSAT. I bet they don't even care. They are not hot on support like their competitive manufacturers.
All the same that was a brave project to delete all the sats. Thanks for the warning I appreciate it.

 

[Mr Tony]

Radar - I guess you just realised you are one of the unpaid developers /quality controllers for OpenSAT

kinda like some of us and the Sathawk then

 

[B.J.]

I know I'm probably using an older firmware version (3877 , which is the most recent official version) rather than one of the newer daily/weekly versions, so my experiences may be different, but the above seems to demonstrate why it is much easier to set up your satellites via an editor assisted by use of those .xml files. I've never seen anything like the above.
I downloaded one of those .xml files, then edited it myself, eliminating all the sats I didn't want, then with the help of a channel editor, put all these sats into the Azbox.
I run my Azbox slaved, so I don't need either DiseqC-1.2 or USALS, so I put the sats in with motor control turned off. All the sats are in there in the proper order, etc. If I then go in, and change the motor control parameters to either USALS or DiseqC-1.2, I don't seem to have any problems. I just now set one of my sats up as DiseqC-1.2, and it took it fine. Set up another sat as USALS, and it took that fine. Didn't mess up the position of any satellites in the list.
Anyway, unless the later firmware is significantly different, I really think that you'd avoid much of the problems you're experiencing if you'd first use a channel editor to set up all the sats with motor control off, THEN make whatever changes seem appropriate.
Although, it occurred to me that part of your problem might possibly be related to either the order of the steps you're using or/and the way you're saving. The reason I think this might be possible is that DiseqC-1.2 doesn't need or use a longitude parameter whereas USALS does. So I'm kind of guessing that if you set up a new sat using the remote (I didn't, since I set them all up using the editor), that IF you set them up in DiseqC-1.2 first, then it won't get a longitude entered properly, whereas if you set it up initially with USALS, then it might properly set the longitude. This is just a guess on my part though, since I haven't needed to set up sats via the remote. The other part of my guess, is that I'm wondering what save {command} mode is being used when saving a DiseqC-1.2 position? If AUTOMATIC mode is used, it's possible that you might be confusing the positions of sats. When I use DiseqC-1.2, I like to tell the receiver what sat position number I want to use, maingly because this allows me to switch the coax over to another receiver and then that receiver can be used to send the dish to satellites without actually finding them and saving them on that receiver. Ie I just enter the appropriate sat number for each sat, and that receiver is then set up, without any effort (assuming use of a channel editor).
Anyway, I think that most of the problems described here would be avoided it a channel editor was used. But perhaps if I were using the same firmware, and trying to do the same thing you are, I might experience the same behavior..... I don't know.

 

[AcWxRadar]

I know I'm probably using an older firmware version (3877 , which is the most recent official version) rather than one of the newer daily/weekly versions, so my experiences may be different, but the above seems to demonstrate why it is much easier to set up your satellites via an editor assisted by use of those .xml files. I've never seen anything like the above.
I downloaded one of those .xml files, then edited it myself, eliminating all the sats I didn't want, then with the help of a channel editor, put all these sats into the Azbox.
I run my Azbox slaved, so I don't need either DiseqC-1.2 or USALS, so I put the sats in with motor control turned off. All the sats are in there in the proper order, etc. If I then go in, and change the motor control parameters to either USALS or DiseqC-1.2, I don't seem to have any problems. I just now set one of my sats up as DiseqC-1.2, and it took it fine. Set up another sat as USALS, and it took that fine. Didn't mess up the position of any satellites in the list.
Anyway, unless the later firmware is significantly different, I really think that you'd avoid much of the problems you're experiencing if you'd first use a channel editor to set up all the sats with motor control off, THEN make whatever changes seem appropriate.
Although, it occurred to me that part of your problem might possibly be related to either the order of the steps you're using or/and the way you're saving. The reason I think this might be possible is that DiseqC-1.2 doesn't need or use a longitude parameter whereas USALS does. So I'm kind of guessing that if you set up a new sat using the remote (I didn't, since I set them all up using the editor), that IF you set them up in DiseqC-1.2 first, then it won't get a longitude entered properly, whereas if you set it up initially with USALS, then it might properly set the longitude. This is just a guess on my part though, since I haven't needed to set up sats via the remote. The other part of my guess, is that I'm wondering what save {command} mode is being used when saving a DiseqC-1.2 position? If AUTOMATIC mode is used, it's possible that you might be confusing the positions of sats. When I use DiseqC-1.2, I like to tell the receiver what sat position number I want to use, maingly because this allows me to switch the coax over to another receiver and then that receiver can be used to send the dish to satellites without actually finding them and saving them on that receiver. Ie I just enter the appropriate sat number for each sat, and that receiver is then set up, without any effort (assuming use of a channel editor).
Anyway, I think that most of the problems described here would be avoided it a channel editor was used. But perhaps if I were using the same firmware, and trying to do the same thing you are, I might experience the same behavior..... I don't know.

B.J.

You are exactly right regarding the use of an editor. I so much want to use one to avoid hassles such as this! But, there isn't an editor that I can trust just yet.

With the (beta) firmware that I am using, the editor that I think that you are referring to, doesn't work well. The other editors available have given me some rather troublesome and sporadic operation.

We need "CHANNEL MASTER" for the AZBox! Definitely.

You also hit on one item as a "procedural" matter that would probably be the best practice in any matter. That would be to ADD all the sats with the motor control set to OFF and then, after adding them to the list, change the motor control as required. It isn't too big of a deal for me since I only have the one satellite (30.0°W) that requires me to use DiSEqC 1.2, the rest all are set up with USALS and they don't interfere with one another.

it occurred to me that part of your problem might possibly be related to either the order of the steps you're using or/and the way you're saving. The reason I think this might be possible is that DiseqC-1.2 doesn't need or use a longitude parameter whereas USALS does.

B.J., to reply to your quote above, you will have to take my word for this, but I tried every way that I could possibly find to reorder the steps, try new steps, save the results and try them over and over again in various orders looking for a proper method. I think I spent about 16-18 hours, non-stop with only a short nap and a few distractions, trying different things over and over again looking for a solution and I still don't know if it is really perfect just yet. It is definitely a bug in the programming of the AZBox and not an "operator error". This is the strangest and most difficult glitch that I have seen with any receiver, other than one that just doesn't turn on.

In any respect, I did learn something about the AZBox and its programming.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar - I guess you just realised you are one of the unpaid developers /quality controllers for OpenSAT. I bet they don't even care. They are not hot on support like their competitive manufacturers.
All the same that was a brave project to delete all the sats. Thanks for the warning I appreciate it.

Pedro,

They need to pay me more! Ha!

I do this with most of my "toys". I disect them and probe them so that eventually I can really know how they work. It's not too much trouble if the firmware gives a guy a fit, but when physical components start to dent the chassis as they are blowing apart, then I have problems. LOL!

Regarding deleting the unused and unwanted satellites from the AZBox list... You will definitely know that you did something when it is all done. Put a new set of batteries in the remote and massage your finger tips for a while. There are more satellites in this list than you really realize! Doggone!

RADAR

 

[putney]

Maybe I missed it in an earlier post, but it must be mentioned; DO NOT USE the "RESETTING" option to clear a DiSEqC setting on a satellite! It will shuffle all of the other sat's locations and all will have to be relocated.

I went through this yesterday after cleaning up some sats that I no longer use DiSEqC on. I wish I would have left it alone.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Maybe I missed it in an earlier post, but it must be mentioned; DO NOT USE the "RESETTING" option to clear a DiSEqC setting on a satellite! It will shuffle all of the other sat's locations and all will have to be relocated.

I went through this yesterday after cleaning up some sats that I no longer use DiSEqC on. I wish I would have left it alone.

Putney,

In my case here, that did not matter as there was only ONE satellite which was using DiSEqC positioning, but I can easily see why this would be bad for this receiver if you were using DiSEqC 1.2 to set more than one sat.

There is an avenue to "relocate" the sats. I detected a drop down menu to relocate them "automatically" or you can set them manually to a specific position in memory. Since my only satellite (30.0°W) uses DiSEqC positioning, it shows up as 'P1' which I assume means "position #1". If a person had more than one satellite this way and were to be able to keep all this straight, you could probably avoid what you mention (so that it doesn't shift all the positions when you add a new sat) by using the features that they have included, but the problem is... I don't think it works properly.

Maybe more experimentation is necessary to evaluate this.

RADAR

 

[pedrogarcia]

Pedro,

I do this with most of my "toys". I disect them and probe them so that eventually I can really know how they work. It's not too much trouble if the firmware gives a guy a fit, but when physical components start to dent the chassis as they are blowing apart, then I have problems. LOL!

Regarding deleting the unused and unwanted satellites from the AZBox list... You will definitely know that you did something when it is all done. Put a new set of batteries in the remote and massage your finger tips for a while. There are more satellites in this list than you really realize! Doggone!

RADAR

I am with you there, I once used my compressor to get rid of the debris from a blown PS electrolitic capacitor and it worked great including lifting SM components.
I just did a factory reset on a Newwave NW7000 ucas receiver and it kept the satelites but deleted the all the TP data. It does not have blindscan so fingers become a blurr on the RC re installing.

 

[B.J.]

B.J.

You are exactly right regarding the use of an editor. I so much want to use one to avoid hassles such as this! But, there isn't an editor that I can trust just yet.

With the (beta) firmware that I am using, the editor that I think that you are referring to, doesn't work well. The other editors available have given me some rather troublesome and sporadic operation.

I agree that the editors don't work well for making changes, unfortunately, but I didn't really use it much for that purpose. I can't remember exactly the process I used, but basically, I took one of those .xml files you can create at some web page, then I put it into a regular Windows style text editor, one that has an option to use linux style 0D line termination, and used that to remove and/or add satellites. THEN, I used the Azbox editor to import that file, and convert it to Azbox format, and then send it to the Azbox. I did do some minor editing with the Azbox editor, such as perhaps deleting some entries, and perhaps something else {I can't remember}, but I definately did not try to change satellite parameters in the editor, because I had quickly learned that it didn't work very well, like you said.
Basically, I just used the editor to get a list of satellites into the Azbox in the proper order, then I did all setup of the sat parameters using the remote. It would be nice if they got an editor that allowed you to change all the parameters in the computer, but I agree that that can't be done yet. But at least with the version I have (and I thought that it would work with newer versions too, but maybe not), it would function with respect to the basic functions of upload, download, deleting sats, and I think changing the longitude perhaps.

You also hit on one item as a "procedural" matter that would probably be the best practice in any matter. That would be to ADD all the sats with the motor control set to OFF and then, after adding them to the list, change the motor control as required. It isn't too big of a deal for me since I only have the one satellite (30.0°W) that requires me to use DiSEqC 1.2, the rest all are set up with USALS and they don't interfere with one another.



B.J., to reply to your quote above, you will have to take my word for this, but I tried every way that I could possibly find to reorder the steps, try new steps, save the results and try them over and over again in various orders looking for a proper method. I think I spent about 16-18 hours, non-stop with only a short nap and a few distractions, trying different things over and over again looking for a solution and I still don't know if it is really perfect just yet. It is definitely a bug in the programming of the AZBox and not an "operator error". This is the strangest and most difficult glitch that I have seen with any receiver, other than one that just doesn't turn on.

In any respect, I did learn something about the AZBox and its programming.

RADAR

What you describe, relative to spending hours of trying to get the sats in there right reminds me of what I initially went through with the Azbox, because I found that the sat/transponder lists that came with the box, and were there even after upgrading firmware, were corrupted, and there was basically NO WAY to get the satellite list the way I wanted it. I had different problems than you did though, I think in my case, I was TRYING to delete all the sats, but it wouldn't LET me delete them all. There was one sat that I couldn't delete, and as long as that sat was in there, nothing worked right. I'd make changes, and the changes to one sat would cause other sats to be changed. It was a mess, and I spent days trying to fix it.
Finally, I gave up and tried that .xml thing, editing the file myself before feeding it into the editor. After I got a "clean" set of sat/transponder data in there, everything has worked well, and like I said, yesterday, I experimented, changing the setup of 3 or 4 of my sats, moving them from USALS to DiseqC-1.2, rebooted, and it retained the settings. I tried using the AUTO mode where the Azbox enters sat numbers starting with 1,2,3, etc, and also used the option to manually choose the sat number. The diseqC sat number then appears up with the sat name, to remind you which sat number you used, which is nice. I even tried setting diseqC-1.2 sat numbers in scrambled order of longitude, and that worked fine too. Everything seemed to work.
So again, it may just be that they broke the newer firmware versions (which I'll probably find out soon, as I'm thinking about upgrading soon, perhaps after the Olympics are over), but I really think that you might be suffering the symptoms of a corrupted sat/transponder data set, and that those symptom might go away if you'd start from scratch with one of those .xml files. My Azbox just seemed to have a mind of it's own, and was doing all sorts of weird things until I wiped that corrupted data out of there, which I was NOT able to do via deleting with the remote.
But I guess I'll see what happens when I finally switch to a newer firmware version. I've been waiting for improvements on either the streaming or PVR functions, and it looks like they are at least trying to do some things with the streaming, so I'll probably bite the bullet and try upgrading again.

 

[B.J.]

Maybe I missed it in an earlier post, but it must be mentioned; DO NOT USE the "RESETTING" option to clear a DiSEqC setting on a satellite! It will shuffle all of the other sat's locations and all will have to be relocated.

I went through this yesterday after cleaning up some sats that I no longer use DiSEqC on. I wish I would have left it alone.

I think that "resetting" command is just a simple "resync" command, which has been a function of just about every sat receiver I've ever had. What you describe is what is supposed to happen.
I wouldn't say "DO NO USE" it, but I would definately say USE IT WITH CARE.
What happens with any motorized TVRO system, is that sometimes the system gets out of sync. On a big C-band system this might be caused by the receiver missing or getting bogus pulse signals from the actuator. On the little H-H motors, it can be something similar, or it can be caused by the motor getting corrupted diseqC commands, or just getting it's memory messed up a bit.
But what often happens, is that sometimes ALL the satellites get shifted a bit, all by the same amount, sort of like the zero position has changed, so that when it's computing a move of X degrees from it's reference position, it will be off a bit. Often, the motor has just forgotten where it was, and you can fix the situation by doing a GOTO-ZERO command or GOTO-reference or whatever they call it, then things are fixed when you go back to your sats. But sometimes, the motor has completely forgotten where it's zero is, perhaps due to receiving a bogus hard reset command. If this happens, I think it's usually best to actually correct the situation by moving the motor to it's zero, and doing a hard reset, however you can also use a resync command, which is what I think this resetting thing is. To use the resync command, you usually go to a sat, then use manual controls to move to peak the sat, then if you do the resync, it will fix ALL the sats at once, so you won't have to peak each sat. Of course this makes things a LOT easier, however what USUALLY happens, is that before you realize that ALL the sats are off, you have probably already readjusted the positions of a few satellites just using the SAVE function, which only affects one sat, so then when you do the resync, it will fix sats that you haven't touched, but will mess up the ones you've changed with the SAVE. Since sometimes, one sat will get messed up, you're never quite sure whether to use a save or reset, so the odds are good that whichever you do, it's going to have a good chance of messing something up. Just a fact of life with sat receivers. But basically, if you thing that ALL the sats seem to be out of whack, then the resetting thing is a good command, but if you think it's just one sat, then don't use that, use the save instead.
The above is assuming that resetting is the same as resync, but it seems like it must be.

 

[putney]

I think that "resetting" command is just a simple "resync" command, which has been a function of just about every sat receiver I've ever had. What you describe is what is supposed to happen.

Actually I found that it deletes the DiSEqC position setting (P7). Something weird happens then. It's like if you delete P7, P8 falls in the gap and tries to fill that position. I doubt that is what is happening, but it definitely screws up the rest.

I wouldn't say "DO NO USE" it, but I would definately say USE IT WITH CARE.

No, I stand behind my statement "DO NOT USE", but hey, if you have multiple DiSEqC settings you just have an urge to redo, by all means, don't let me stop you!

The above is assuming that resetting is the same as resync, but it seems like it must be.

It's not. Go To 0 does a good job of re-syncing.

 

[B.J.]

...
There is an avenue to "relocate" the sats. I detected a drop down menu to relocate them "automatically" or you can set them manually to a specific position in memory. Since my only satellite (30.0°W) uses DiSEqC positioning, it shows up as 'P1' which I assume means "position #1". ...

I think that the "Automatic" thing you mention isn't related to the resetting thing, which is the resync thing that relocates all the sats.
The Automatic thing is one of two options that can be used when you FIRST save a satellite's location in diseqC-1.2 mode. When you first go into diseqC-1.2 mode for any satellite, it does not have any satellite position number assigned, and normally, the motor has not had the satellites position saved in it either. When you locate a satellite, and hit save, two things happen, (1) a satellite position number is chosen , and (2), the receiver sends a command to the motor to put it's current location in that storage location in it's memory. Ie the receiver never knows what the actual position of the sat is, it only knows that the motor has saved it in position number X.
Well, the Automating thing just means that the receiver will pick a sat number for you automatically, starting at 1. Ie the first sat you save will be position 1, the 2nd will be position 2, etc, etc. Now, say you've saved AMC3 in position 2, and you disconnect the coax, and go to another receiver, set up AMC3 to be position 2, and tell it to go to position 2, the motor will go to AMC3, without you ever manually finding it with the new receiver. On my little motor, I used to switch receivers all the time, so I had a list of what sat was on what position number, so that I could get all my receivers set up to use the same motor's positions.
I said above that there were 2 options. The other option is to not let the receiver choose the sat number by itself, like in my case, if I've already assigned positions via another receiver, I want to set it manually to that number. So if when Automatic is displayed, if you hit the right arrow, it will go to 1,2,3,4, etc, allowing you to select what position number you want to use for that sat. When I was experimenting yesterday, I set up a sat to position 17, and the little P17 showed up in the sat name. The only thing I DON'T know, is what the Azbox will do if you then start using Automatic, and it goes 1,2,3,etc and gets to 17, ie whether it is smart enough to jump over a number that it's already using. I'm certain, however, that if your motor already has numbers assigned, that are not used by the Azbox, that it will wipe out those locations in positions 1,2,3, etc.
I'm not sure how well the diseqC.1.2 function works with the Azbox, since I have only used it once. I used to use it a lot on my Fortec Lifetime, Fortec Ultra, and my Diamond 9000, and it worked well with those 3 receivers, but the Fortec Mercury had a mind of it's own. The diseqC 1.2 function was a complete mess with that receiver, and you needed to use a binary editor to fix things when they went south.

 

[B.J.]

Actually I found that it deletes the DiSEqC position setting (P7). Something weird happens then. It's like if you delete P7, P8 falls in the gap and tries to fill that position. ....

Well, if that's the case, then that's bad news. In my reply to Radar above, I mentioned the problem that the Fortec Mercury had. What you describe sounds exactly like what the Mercury did. Ie if you have saved a bunch of sats, and the mercury put them in positions 1,2,3,4,5, etc, then say you delete satellite 2, what would happen was there would be a shift of sat numbers, and you'd try to go to sat 3, but it would actually go to sat4, and if you tried to go to sat 4, it would actually go to sat 5, etc, etc. I finally wrote a program that allowed me to fix it with a binary editor, but it was a mess, and I finally just stopped using the Mercury. I hope the Azbox doesn't have THAT problem, but what you describe sound real similar.

No, I stand behind my statement "DO NOT USE", but hey, if you have multiple DiSEqC settings you just have an urge to redo, by all means, don't let me stop you!

Well now, I use my Azbox slaved to my C-band receiver, so I haven't needed to use it at all, but if I can ever locate a 2nd DVB-S2 tuner, then I'll definitely want to get diseqC-1.2 working. I may experiment with it a bit more next time I upgrade.

It's not. Go To 0 does a good job of re-syncing.

Well, the Go To 0 should resync if the motor has just lost track of where it is, but still has the proper location of the zero position, but a true resync would be used if the zero location has been corrupted.
A resync should NOT change any position numbers though, so if the "resetting" thing is doing that, then I'm not sure what it is doing. Perhaps it is simply wiping out whatever you've previously saved for that sat.... but it shouldn't affect the other numbers.

Maybe I'll play with that today. Since I don't actually have my Azbox connected to a diseqC motor, it won't hurt anything to try, and might be interesting to see what it does.

 

[AcWxRadar]

What you describe, relative to spending hours of trying to get the sats in there right reminds me of what I initially went through with the Azbox, because I found that the sat/transponder lists that came with the box, and were there even after upgrading firmware, were corrupted, and there was basically NO WAY to get the satellite list the way I wanted it. I had different problems than you did though, I think in my case, I was TRYING to delete all the sats, but it wouldn't LET me delete them all. There was one sat that I couldn't delete, and as long as that sat was in there, nothing worked right. I'd make changes, and the changes to one sat would cause other sats to be changed. It was a mess, and I spent days trying to fix it.

B.J.

I believe that I was having many of the same problems in the beginning for the same reasons - corrupted or inaccurate stock satellite and transponder lists. When I attempted to delete ALL the satellites, I was presented with a major ERROR and it said that the sat list was empty, but after fighting with it a bit, I found out that it actually had not allowed me to delete them all. It did retain ONE satellite, just like you observed.

I think the AZBox has a built in mechanism that won't truly allow you to delete everything. Almost like a self preservation mechanism. When I rebooted the AZBox, it showed me that there was really one satellite remaining. So, I added one sat that I knew that I was going to use and then deleted that last unwanted one from the stock list. That got me past those errors and menu blocks.

As I was adding all the satellites that I desired, I found another peculiar (but pleasent) function. It seems that the AZBox has a feature similar to "auto-complete" on a PC. After I entered one satellite and set up the switch and LNBF parameters etc. It automatically set these items up for every subsequent satellite that I added. This is really nice if you are adding a long list of satellites that use the same setup parameters, which is what I have.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Well, if that's the case, then that's bad news. In my reply to Radar above, I mentioned the problem that the Fortec Mercury had. What you describe sounds exactly like what the Mercury did. Ie if you have saved a bunch of sats, and the mercury put them in positions 1,2,3,4,5, etc, then say you delete satellite 2, what would happen was there would be a shift of sat numbers, and you'd try to go to sat 3, but it would actually go to sat4, and if you tried to go to sat 4, it would actually go to sat 5, etc, etc. I finally wrote a program that allowed me to fix it with a binary editor, but it was a mess, and I finally just stopped using the Mercury. I hope the Azbox doesn't have THAT problem, but what you describe sound real similar.

This would not be a good thing if the AZBox shuffled the positions in this manner.

Well, the Go To 0 should resync if the motor has just lost track of where it is, but still has the proper location of the zero position, but a true resync would be used if the zero location has been corrupted.
A resync should NOT change any position numbers though, so if the "resetting" thing is doing that, then I'm not sure what it is doing. Perhaps it is simply wiping out whatever you've previously saved for that sat.... but it shouldn't affect the other numbers.

One possible problem that might arise here is if you didn't realize that the home or zero position was off before you located and saved your satellite positions and then resynced the motor afterwards. If you rezeroed or re-synced the motor after adding the satellite positions, then it would throw them all off by the amount that the motor zero was off initially.

RADAR

 

[putney]

Well, the Go To 0 should resync if the motor has just lost track of where it is, but still has the proper location of the zero position, but a true resync would be used if the zero location has been corrupted.
A resync should NOT change any position numbers though, so if the "resetting" thing is doing that, then I'm not sure what it is doing. Perhaps it is simply wiping out whatever you've previously saved for that sat.... but it shouldn't affect the other numbers.

I guess what I meant to say is that Go To 0 re-syncs the motor well and sets USALS in the proper place. It can sometimes retrain a DiSEqC location. It's all really buggy though. Works great on one update, goes to hell on the next. The last two I have found to be very buggy. Lots of memory type of random things going on.

BTW More problems with DiSEqC today... I'm in the process of setting up dummy USAL sat locations for my Cband and Circular LNBs, which are 10º off center in either direction. (see pic)

The thing I like on my CNX is that it allows you to edit Sat locations after the fact. So if Using USALS if 91º would gain a couple of Q points at 91.1º, you simply type that in instead of using DiSEqC. I have a couple of sats that benefit from a slight tweak.

I'm cool with the dummy sat set up. The problem I am seeing is that I will soon (hopefully) be using DiSEqC to control a GBOX and my problems will return.