using Direcway dish/lnb for Telstar 5 (IA5) ??

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wtfover

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Original poster
Jan 9, 2006
10
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Argh! Much angst.

I acquired two used direcway rigs last week and am trying to put them into service for FTA.
Looking at the picture the dishes are:
top row, left to right --> 121w, 91w, 110w/119w
bottom row, left to right --> 97w, 82w

I am getting 121 just fine on the upper Direcway dish using the factory LNB, I only removed the xmiter amp because of weight/wiggle issues.

The others are fine too, no help required with them.
The lower Direcway dish is what I'm having a tough time with.

I'm pretty darn sure I have it aimed the right direction, skewed pretty close and a good angle on it. I used a sat finder program to get me az, el & skew then I used an inline meter to try to close in on it.
I got a good tone and level on the inline meter so I went inside and tried for hours to get anything out of it. (using my Nexus that works great on other birds)
I'm using MT 3.33.8 and no matter what I set the lof's and sw to it finds nothing. So, I drug up another PC and stuck a twinhan in it and loaded ProgFinder on it. I set ProgFinder for my general area, Telstar 5, Linear KU (lof1-10600, sw-12700 lof2-0) and power on to LNB..
I get a signal level of 60% but the signal quality is ZERO.
I assume this means that I'm onto a bird but what bird?

I ran through the transponders and nothing. Also the "Locked:" section is empty. I've tried to change it to other birds that are in the general area of the sky thinking it might lock on if I hit the right one but still nothing.

I've tried all sorts of LOF settings too.

If someone can tell me what the settings must be then I'll have a starting point to work with. As it is now, I have no one to help me align them so I do a lot of guessing and a LOT of walking back and forth since I don't have a back door. :(

If anyone can offer some suggestions on this it would be greatly appreciated. I KNOW this dish and LNB is good because I just took it down from a guy that switched to RR cable and it was working fine then.
And if the other one will get 121w then this one ought to get 97w.
Right?

Thanks!
 
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On all my DirecPC dish (And the 100's I installed) the L.O. setting is 10750
 
PSB said:
On all my DirecPC dish (And the 100's I installed) the L.O. setting is 10750


ok. Please forgive my ignorance, I'm the original Mr. Guess It.
I was getting the info that I used to set the LOF from the sticker on the LNB's of the two Direcways.

I don't know if this system will sort and display them in the proper order after they are uploaded but here's what I have, one of the DW LNB's has a wider range. The one with the wider range is the one I'm trying to use for 97w.

a. Universal LNB (used to compare freq ranges only in this picture, not being used now)
b. Direcway LNB
c. Direcway LNB

Maybe I'm just not understanding what I'm doing here. No surprise that.
Does that have nothing to do with the LOF setting?

Anyway, what would be my best bet on pegging 97w? I'm on *something* that's giving me a decent signal strength but it's not telling me what it is.
I thought that's what DVB satellite did, identify itself.
Oh, I just thought of something, I have an old E* 310 IRD, can I use it to find 97w or is it oblivious to it?

Thanks. :confused:
 
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wtfover said:
a. Universal LNB (used to compare freq ranges only in this picture, not being used now)
This is not a Universal LNBF, it's a Standard LNBF. Read the label on it. And note the frequency range.
wtfover said:
b. Direcway LNB
I've never actually seen a Direcway LNB. I had Direcway, but it had a DirecPC LNB on it, as seen in your picture #c. Because of the frequency range, it looks to be a Universal LNB, so the LO setting should be 10600, I think?
wtfover said:
c. Direcway LNB
This is a Standard LNB and if you notice, it says DirecPC LNB. Also note the frequency range. This one should make your LO setting to be 10750.

wtfover said:
Maybe I'm just not understanding what I'm doing here. No surprise that.
Does that have nothing to do with the LOF setting?

Anyway, what would be my best bet on pegging 97w? I'm on *something* that's giving me a decent signal strength but it's not telling me what it is.
I thought that's what DVB satellite did, identify itself.
Oh, I just thought of something, I have an old E* 310 IRD, can I use it to find 97w or is it oblivious to it?

Thanks. :confused:
I don't think the E* 310 would do you any good on IA5 @ 97.0w. I think (and it's only my thoughts) you're not pointing the dish in the right direction, you haven't found IA5 yet. Keep looking. I don't have a PC card so I can't help you there. And I don't set my store by any inline meter, never had any luck with them. I've found the best way is to use a small tv at the dish, hooked to the receiver to use the receivers quality meter. Since I don't have a PC card, I'm not sure if you could do this or not. I don't know if a PC card has a quality meter built into it or not. Of course it could also be something as simple as a loose wire/cable or something shorting out the wire/cable. Just keep trying, you'll figure it out.

Al
 
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Got it!

Man, what a beast! And I thought 121w was a rough one to peg!
Well, T5 is tuned in and locked down. I think I could tweak it out a little better but I'll have to drag some equipment out in the yard to do it.
That's not what I'm looking forward to.

Oh well.. And now I'm off to travel the world from my easy chair!

Thanks to all for your help!
 
Congratulations wtfover for a good job. Now sit back and enjoy your trip. If you're like me, you may not understand a lot they say, but you'll still enjoy every bit of your trip. It'll make you want to take trip after trip. Enjoy!

Al
 
thread is closed right now

I didnt look at this close, but when I check the OP's other posts, something is funny

top row, left to right --> 121w, 91w, 110w/119w
bottom row, left to right --> 97w, 82w
Why pretell would you have 5 dishes...4 of which are aimed at DBS slots?
I hope you aren't doing what we do not allow here :)

OP needs to PM me or PSB with what they are trying to do before the thread(s) get opened
 
I reopened thread. Since the OP failed to include the fact he has a subscription to both Dish & ExpressVu, we took precautions and closed the thread.

But he sent me an oh so pleasant e-mail that he is legit. So I’m reopening.
 
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