Tweaking Motorized Dish

[ChuckBoozer]

Quick question for the group - how often do you normally have to "tweak" your motorized dish set-up?

The reason I am asking is because I had been cruising along with my current set-up for 5-6 weeks with no issues, tracking the belt perfectly using USALS.

However, last night I noticed that my signal strength on G25 seemed low. I went in to the receiver settings and, using Diseqc 1.2 to adjust, found that I was now 2-3 steps off on all of the satellites.

Seems strange - checked the dish and everything looked normal. Pole is plumb, brackets are tight, motor moves normally. No wind or other weather variables have been present recently. Nothing has changed.

I'll go out tonight and "tweak" as necessary, but I was just curious if others have experienced similar issues...

 

[mastermesh]

I'd just tweak in the receiver and forget about hand tweaks if you are getting everything in the arc really good and just need to change your 1.2 or usals settings a degree or two off of where they are. Sometimes wind can blow motorized dishes a little to the east or west on occassion. Most of the times, if the motors and pole are still all ok, it should just be fixable in the reciver settings instead of in actual physical dish tweaks. I think I've got mine 3-4 degrees off, but I just readjust everything in the reciver... so 110 w is now 107.5 w, etc. It's much easier to fix in reciver than going out to tweak all day...

I will say that that is under the assumption that you are on the arc all the way across... figure out if you are by maybe going to 148 or something, do your reciver tweak, then go over to the opposite side of arc near 30 and do same exact tweak... and in middle of arc near your true south... If you were able to tweak with exact same amount of 1.2 or usals nudges I'd stick with a reciver tweak... if there's more to it than that, manual tweak.

 

[iafirebuff]

I have the exact same issue. After 3-5 weeks or so it is off by 1 or 2 bumps. I retweak and it is all good again. Then a few weeks later back to having to tweak a bump or 2. I just leave it now and it stays fine.

 

[TiminMb]

If the wind turns the motors gears, (if that's possible) does that go unregistered, and change zero?

 

[ChuckBoozer]

I have the exact same issue. After 3-5 weeks or so it is off by 1 or 2 bumps. I retweak and it is all good again. Then a few weeks later back to having to tweak a bump or 2. I just leave it now and it stays fine.

Not sure I understand your last sentence - are you saying after a couple of tweaks you do not need to adjust again?

 

[iafirebuff]

I start with a fully tweaked signal with USALS on my motorized setup. After about 3-5 weeks, I i have to go in on 1.2 and "bump" the dish 1 or 2 "bumps" on each satellite. I am then fine, and do not need to do anything else. So after repeaking the setup a time or 2, I now just went in and "bumped" everything and leave it alone. Been good since Easter now. Weird, it is like it "settles" a bit

 

[john green]

Every couple of weeks it needs a few bumps one way or the other. No big deal really.

 

[qwert1515]

What type of motor do you have, I have used the SG2100 and the GS120, both I have had to reset the zero position a few times with a paper clip.

 

[iafirebuff]

I have the sg2100

 

[ChuckBoozer]

What type of motor do you have, I have used the SG2100 and the GS120, both I have had to reset the zero position a few times with a paper clip.

I have a STAB HH100 motor.

 

[TiminMb]

My SG2100 needed resetting this week. I hadn't done it in 2 years. Its was over 5 degrees of rotation off, and would no longer follow any sat's to the east. Something I'm going to watch for if I ever find it needing a lot of tweaking.

 

[bloomdog]

How do you tweak the motor with a Coolsat 4000 Pro?

 

[Tron]

If you are tweaking the receiver to adjust for the motor/dish being off, you'd just use DiSEqC 1.2 to "nudge" the dish by bumping it a little east or west. You'd have to go into your motorized settings to do that.

This thread got me wondering, and since I was up on the roof wrestling with aiming a Square Shooter DTV antenna already, I figured on checking my motor accuracy while up there. I got into my Pansat 2700s motorized settings and instructed the dish to goto reference (0). Then I went up on the roof and looked at the motor/shaft. After not having touched the assembly for well over a year, it still went to EXACTLY zero. My dish, however, might be a tad off. I believe windstorms are responsible for that.

 

[bloomdog]

How do I nudge it using a Coolsat 4000 Pro? Where do I find the command?
Thanks

 

[gabshere]

if its like the 5000
goto menu / installation / motorized settings
then set the diseqc motor to 1.2 this will add these buttons to the screen
move fine limit goto & save
move (for me moves it all the way east or west)
move fine (moves short steps at a time used for fine tuning)

the other two are just what they say, if you try to leave the screen and you made changes it should ask if you want to save .

if you arrow up to freequency it will allow you to step through the stored frequencies.

if setting up for USALS
its about the same except you have to enter your long & lat
and save.