SES-11 trouble obtaining lock

[NYengineer]

Hello,
We just recently got an old solid reflector operational again (adjustable) and attempted to lock onto SES-11 C-Band; NBC-East DVB-S2. I've had better luck with KU but I've never struggled this hard with C-Band. I'm also using a satbuddy A1 Turbo S2 to determine whether I lock or not. I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong. I can get a reading up to about 28-29 dBm and that's it; no lock. I'm still rather new at determining correct elevation; as far as Aziumuth goes, we have another dish locked to SES-3 KU so I believe the dish is in, or very near the correct westerly direction. We also lock to ABC and CBS C-Band and those dishes are much larger; I may very well have the wrong elevation and need to point it still higher. Any advice from anyone with experience with SES-11 would be greatly appreciated. I've also attached some images.

 

[Arion]

Cheap trick.

Just adjust your elevation to get the highest background noise reading even if your not locked on to a transponder and from there start moving from east to west to increase your background noise levels and you can be pretty sure your aimed at some sort of satellite. From there do a blind scan to see what you come up with and from the transponder locks and any channels you can do a scan and figure out what satellite your on and from there it's easy to jump over to where 105 west is.

 

[NYengineer]

Cheap trick.

Just adjust your elevation to get the highest background noise reading even if your not locked on to a transponder and from there start moving from east to west to increase your background noise levels and you can be pretty sure your aimed at some sort of satellite. From there do a blind scan to see what you come up with and from the transponder locks and any channels you can do a scan and figure out what satellite your on and from there it's easy to jump over to where 105 west is.

That's usually how I do it. I think my problem is elevation, my eyes are probably crooked. I just raised it up another notch and am about to try again. We locked at SES 3 on that dish at one point and I know SES 11 is about 2 degrees off from it, so I have a pretty good idea azimuth wise where it should be about.

 

[Need2learn]

Hello,
We just recently got an old solid reflector operational again (adjustable) and attempted to lock onto SES-11 C-Band; NBC-East DVB-S2. I've had better luck with KU but I've never struggled this hard with C-Band. I'm also using a satbuddy A1 Turbo S2 to determine whether I lock or not. I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong. I can get a reading up to about 28-29 dBm and that's it; no lock. I'm still rather new at determining correct elevation; as far as Aziumuth goes, we have another dish locked to SES-3 KU so I believe the dish is in, or very near the correct westerly direction. We also lock to ABC and CBS C-Band and those dishes are much larger; I may very well have the wrong elevation and need to point it still higher. Any advice from anyone with experience with SES-11 would be greatly appreciated. I've also attached some images.

Hello as nice as that is dish you could have NO trouble at all pulling in NBC on the C band side, I would try another C LNB and get rid of the by pass filter, what type of Feed horn are you using?

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

Just from looking at the photo it looks like the pole isn't plumb. Could just be the tilt of the camera though.

 

[NYengineer]

Hello as nice as that is dish you could have NO trouble at all pulling in NBC on the C band side, I would try another C LNB and get rid of the by pass filter, what type of Feed horn are you using?

I'm not sure what type feed horn other that it being a dual feed horn; there's a H and V LNB attached. I went out and tried again and randomly got a lock for a second so I'm darn close. Had to quit due to a storm. I think I have a tight window of opportunity between the elevation and azimuth.

 

[NYengineer]

Just from looking at the photo it looks like the pole isn't plumb. Could just be the tilt of the camera though.

Correct, it isn't. We hub for several stations and a sister station has the C-Band already locked but we would like to also lock it here. That dish has been around a long time and is 100% not level.

 

[Need2learn]

Correct, it isn't. We hub for several stations and a sister station has the C-Band already locked but we would like to also lock it here. That dish has been around a long time and is 100% not level.

Well that is the first thing you need to do. Before you do anything else.

 

[NYengineer]

I managed to lock on Transponder 16; issue was partly elevation and partly LNB skew. I appreciate all the comments everyone; the reassurance kept me from giving up -.-

 

[phlatwound]

I managed to lock on Transponder 16; issue was partly elevation and partly LNB skew. I appreciate all the comments everyone; the reassurance kept me from giving up -.-

You may want to guy and/or brace that pole to stabilize it but, as you know, there is no requirement for it to be plumb since it's a fixed az/el mount.

Glad you got it going.